South Ayrshire Primary Schools Ranks

Primary Schools Ranks in South Ayrshire

Discover the latest South Ayrshire primary school ranks (league tables) based on official ACEL achievement data from the 2024/2025 academic year. Our analysis of 30 graded primary schools reveals 4 top-performing institutes in Band 1 (95-100% attainment), with 11 schools (37% of those graded) achieving above 75% combined proficiency in core subjects. South Ayrshire schools collectively outperform the Scottish average, maintaining an attainment rate of 85% compared to the national 81%. Explore interactive maps of catchment areas, detailed performance tables spanning five academic years, and downloadable achievement reports to make informed decisions about primary education in the region.

On this page:

Assessment of Primary Schools’ Performance

A number of measures are provided in the ACEL for each of subjects: Numeracy,  Reading, Writing, and Listening and Talking and are provided as Reading – % Meeting Level, Writing – % Meeting Level and Numeracy – % Meeting Level.  These four percentages are provided for P1, P4, P7 and also for P1, P4, P7 combined.  For the analysis on this website the P1, P4, P7 combined data was used since it covers entry level, mid and final year classes within each primary school.

Allocation of Schools into Bands

Schools were graded according to the ACEL data for P1, P4 & P7 combined achievement (the total of the percentage meeting the target level in the four measures: Listening & Talking, Numeracy, Reading and Writing. The best performing schools are allocated to Band 1 and the worst schools to band 10. Where the number of pupils in a class are small the authorities withhold data to maintain anonymity. In the map data these are shown as n/a in grey. For further details of the band boundaries see Methods and Notes below.

South Ayrshire Primary School Performance

In South Ayrshire there were 40 primary schools in the published ACEL assessment data for South Ayrshire of which 30 had their assessments published. 

Band 1:  95 – 100% of pupils meeting the required level
There were 4 schools in this category representing 13% of graded schools:

Coylton Primary School::Maidens Primary School::Troon Primary School::Struthers Primary School

Band 2:  85 – 94% of pupils meeting the required level
There were 14 schools in this category representing 47% of graded schools:

Culzean Primary School::Annbank Primary School::Alloway Primary School::Forehill Primary School::Grammar Primary School::Holmston Primary School::Dundonald Primary School::Glenburn Primary School::Kingcase Primary School::St Ninian’s Primary School::Symington Primary School::Tarbolton Primary School::Muirhead Primary School::Newton Primary School

Band 3:  75 – 84% of pupils meeting the required level
There were a further 11 schools in this category representing 37% of graded schools:

Overall in South Ayrshire a total of 29 schools were in bands 1-3 (i.e. with more than 75% of pupils reaching the required level) representing 29% of the graded schools.

Table 1: The number of primary schools in each band for years 2020/21 to 2024/25 

a table showing number of South Ayrshire primary schools in each attainment band by year

View the above table as an accessible HTML (screen reader friendly) version

Links to All Local authorities

Please follow this link to find links to all the Local Authorities on this website or use the sitemap link (top of right hand panel).

South Ayrshire Map

A map showing the location of primary schools within the South Ayrshire area is shown (Figure 1).  Catchment areas, where provided by the local authority are colour coded according to the achievement band of the primary school.

Figure 1a:  South Ayrshire Map Showing Non-Denominational Primary School Ranks and Catchment Areas
Area hover and school marker pop up displays provide additional school information.
Zoom in using the + – tool and drag the image to move around.

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Figure 1b: South Ayrshire Map Showing Denominational Primary School Ranks and Catchment Areas
Note: some LAs have no denominational schools.
Area hover and school marker pop up displays provide additional school information.

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South Ayrshire Primary School Ranks Table: All Schools

Table 2:  South Ayrshire Primary School Rank Table
Achievement data for all schools in South Ayrshire for 2020/21 academic years through to 2024/2025 plus a comparative rank for the local authority (average of all ranked schools) and for the whole of Scotland (top two rows). The table shows P1, P4 & P7 combined achievement data (the average of the percentage meeting the target level in Listening & Talking, Numeracy, Reading and Writing. For band allocation details see below – Methods and Notes. A file containing the raw published data is available for download below.
Achievement data as published by ACEL for each primary school in the Local Authority

a table showing attainment (percentage meeting target level) for each South Ayrshire primary school from 2020/2021 to 2024/2025.

View the above table as an accessible HTML (screen reader friendly) version


South Ayrshire Comparison with Scottish Local Authorities

Table 3:  Local Authority Primary School Rank Table
Achievement data (average for all schools) in the LA for 2020/21 academic years through to 2024/2025 plus a comparative rank for the whole of Scotland (top row). The table shows P1, P4 & P7 combined achievement data (the average of the percentage meeting the target level in Listening & Talking, Numeracy, Reading and Writing.

a table showing attainment for scotland and by local authority average

View Scotland summary as accessible table


South Ayrshire Files and Downloads

The 2024/2025 ACEL data for the primary schools is available by following links from this website (see underneath).

South Ayrshire Scottish Education Dept ACEL Data File

Methods and Notes

Data
The most recent data was for school year 2024/2025 which is published during 2025.

All Analysis
A number of measures are provided in the ACEL data. Assessments in classes P1, P4, P7 and a combined P1/P4/P7 levels are provided for each of subjects: Numeracy,  Reading, Writing, and Listening and Talking.  For the purposes of comparing and ranking schools the P1/P4/P7 combined scores were used and the total % meeting the level for each of the four subjects was averaged (Reading – % Meeting Level, Writing – % Meeting Level and Numeracy – % Meeting Level).  Allocation of schools into Bands for mapping purposes was as follows:

Band  1: total between 380 and 400 –  average 95 – 100% meeting required level
Band  2: total between 340 and 379 – average 85 – 94.9% meeting required level
Band  3: total between 300 and 339 – average 75 – 84.9% meeting required level
Band  4: total between 260 and 299 – average 65 – 74.9% meeting required level
Band  5: total between 220 and 259 – average 55 – 64.9% meeting required level
Band  6: total between 180 and 219 – average 45 – 54.9% meeting required level
Band  7: total between 140 and 179 – average 35 – 44.9% meeting required level
Band  8: total between 100 and 139 – average 25 – 34.9% meeting required level
Band  9: total between 60 and 99 – average 15 – 24.9% meeting required level
Band 10: total between 0 and 59 – average 0 – 14.9% meeting required level

Notes on School Catchment Areas
Some local authorities do not make schools’ catchment areas available (i.e. areas on the map that are coloured pale blue) and the catchment areas for catholic schools in some local authorities are not available.

Disclaimer
The catchment areas have been smoothed out a little in order to reduce the size of the web page download and will have slight differences. Parents should not rely on the datamap-scotland website to confirm the catchment area for any specific school or house within a zone as these can sometimes be very specific and may vary from data published by https://www.spatialhub.scot.  Many authorities publish accurate street by street data on school catchment areas on their websites.

School Locations
Individual schools are shown on the map black circles.  If you click on the school marker a pop-up will appear with additional information: the school name, 2024/2025 rank, school roll, number of FTE teachers and the school website address.