Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland, No 5: 2014 Edition

Classes and pupils

Table 3.1 shows the distribution of P1-P3 pupils in publicly funded schools by ranges of class size. One of the manifesto commitments, made by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in 2007, was to reduce P1-P3 class sizes to 18 or less.

In September 2014, 12.9 per cent of P1-P3 pupils were taught in classes of 18 or fewer (including those taught by two teachers at all times with a class size of 36 or less), down 0.7 percentage points from 2013. The number of pupils taught in classes of 26 or more decreased from 57,424 in 2006 to a low of 32,702 in September 2009, before increasing again. In September 2014, the number of P1-P3 pupils taught in classes of 26 or more was 46,009 which is 27 per cent of pupils.

Table 3.1: Number of P1-P3 pupils by class size, 2006 to 2014⁽¹⁾

(1) The percentage of P1-P3 pupils in classes of 18 or fewer include two-teacher classes with 36 or less. Classes taught by two teachers at all times are treated as two classes of half the size.

(2) The number of P1-P3 pupils by class size in 2014 was amended slightly in February 2015 as one pupil had been recorded in the wrong class. This affected class size categories 1-18, 19-20 and 21-25.