Secondary school student-teacher ratios and correlation with educational outcomes: FOI release

Information requested

1. Student-Teacher Ratios in Secondary Schools.

2. Correlation between Class Size/Ratio and Educational Outcomes.

Response

1.) The pupil teacher ratio for each publicly funded school in Scotland is available in the school level summary statistics, in column G.

2.) The impact of pupil teacher ratio on attainment is something which was considered as part of an evaluation of the Insight virtual comparator. A spreadsheet summarising the relevant parts of this analysis is attached.

In 2020, the Scottish Government helped facilitate a research project conducted by the Scottish Centre for Administrative Data Research and funded by the Nuffield Foundation. In particular, one of the questions the research aimed to answer was: Do smaller class sizes in primary school lead to higher attainment as measured by teacher assessment?

Published findings can be found here: Investigating the effects of class composition and class size on pupils’ attainment in Scottish primary schools and here: Composite-classes.pdf

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202500488605 - Information released - Spreadsheet

File type

Excel document

File size

145.7 kB