Section 2: School condition

A school’s condition is the current state of its fabric. This concerns the state of repair of features or facilities that exist as part of the school fabric and as part of its current design and includes the adequacy and appropriateness of the design, security of the school fabric, contents and occupants and general health and safety requirements.

The following ratings are used to measure school condition:

A Good – Performing well and operating efficiently

B Satisfactory – Performing adequately but showing minor deterioration

C Poor – Showing major defects and/or not operating adequately

D Bad – Economic life expired and/or risk of failure

The current guidance notes that full condition surveys of the school estate should be carried out at least every five years. These statistics reflect the latest survey and rating reported by the local authority. School level information, including survey dates, is provided in the supplementary tables.

Construction issues identified in schools between full condition surveys, such as detection of Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC), may not result in a change to the reported condition rating if remedial/mitigation work has been undertaken, or the issue does not affect the overall condition of the building, or a full condition survey has yet to be conducted since identification of the issue.

Further details on school condition ratings are available in the Background Notes.

Figure 2: Number of schools with a poor or bad condition rating continues to fall

The number of schools by condition rating from 2007 to 2024.

The number of schools with a poor or bad condition rating has continued to drop, with 789 fewer than in 2007 and 20 fewer than in 2023 (down from 224 last year to 204). There are two reasons for the drop in the number of poor or bad condition schools. Firstly, there were more schools that changed from a poor/bad rating to a good/satisfactory rating than vice versa. Secondly, some of the schools rated poor/bad condition in 2023 closed in 2024.

The number of schools with good or satisfactory condition ratings increased from 1,669 in 2007 to 2,238 in 2020 and remained stable over the next three years before increasing again to 2,253 in 2024. The proportion of schools in good or satisfactory condition has increased 29 percentage points from 62.7 per cent in April 2007 to 91.7 per cent in April 2024.

Figures 3 and 4 show the number and percentage of schools by condition rating for the last five years. Figures from 2007 are available in the supplementary tables.

Figure 3: Number of schools by condition rating, 2020 to 2024 [Note 1]

Figure 4: Percentage of schools by condition rating, 2020 to 2024 [Note 1]

Note 1: Three primary schools in East Lothian have split site campuses and submitted two School Estate Core Facts Survey returns each. These schools are included twice in the school counts in this table.

A condition rating may not be available for special schools where attendance is solely by pupils who are enrolled at a different school which has been separately reported in the survey. Condition ratings may also not be available for newly built schools or schools based in buildings outwith the school estate such as hospitals. From 2024, schools where no condition or suitability rating would normally be expected have been excluded from the survey. In line with this, percentage figures are based on the number of schools where a condition rating was reported for all years where data is published.

Figure 5: Number of pupils in schools with a poor or bad condition rating continues to fall

The number of pupils by school condition rating from 2007 to 2024.

Taking into account the number of pupils in each school, there has been a 29.6 percentage point increase in the proportion of pupils educated in good or satisfactory condition schools from 62.4 per cent in April 2007 to 92 per cent in April 2024.

There are more than 200,000 fewer pupils in schools with poor or bad condition ratings than in 2007. There were 3,655 fewer in 2024 than in 2023.

The number of pupils in schools with poor or bad condition ratings dropped by more than 50% in the three years from 2007 to 2010 (from 256,794 to 120,178). Thereafter the overall trend has been for a further but more gradual fall in the number of pupils in schools with poor or bad condition to 56,197 in 2024, a 78% reduction since 2007.

In recent years, the trend for pupil is schools with bad condition has differed from those in schools with poor condition. The number of pupils in schools with a bad condition rating has risen for the third consecutive year (from 1,736 in 2023 to 4,292) although this is still significantly lower than the 31,862 reported in 2007. The number of schools with a bad condition rating has also increased but remains low (six schools in 2024).

Figures 6 and 7 show the number and percentage of pupils by school condition rating for the last five years. Figures from 2007 are available in the supplementary tables.

Figure 6: Number of pupils by school condition rating, 2020 to 2024

Figure 7: Percentage of pupils by school condition rating, 2020 to 2024