Kingussie High School makes Oxbridge grade
KINGUSSIE High School is one of just a handful of secondary schools in Scotland to make the top 100 comprehensives in the UK for pupils reaching Oxbridge.
The Badenoch secondary made the grade in the research carried out by the Sutton Trust.
It revealed that disproportionately few Scots gain places at elite English universities
Oxbridge is still out of reach for a disproportionate number of Scottish pupils - even if they attend independent schools.
Mr John Tracey, headteacher at Kingussie High School, said: "This is evidence of the excellent work of teachers and pupils to achieve great results."
The research ranked the top 100 UK schools by proportion of higher education applicants accepted at Cambridge University or Oxford University over the past three years.
The only Scottish school listed is Edinburgh’s Fettes College, ranked 77.
Kingussie High, Madras College in St Andrews, Ullapool High, Banchory Academy and Lochgilphead High are the only Scottish schools within the top 100 comprehensives in the UK for pupils reaching Oxbridge.
Kingussie, which had three pupils accepted, and Madras (14) are the only Scottish entries in the top 100 across all state schools, including England’s many selective schools.
The list of top 100 UK comprehensives for getting into 30 “highly selective” universities is dominated by 49 Scottish schools.
The findings were recently reported in the leading publication for teachers, TES.
“One of the most obvious factors relating to the failure of Scottish pupils to get into Oxbridge is poverty, which still has a major impact on pupil destinations,” Larry Flanagan, the Educational Institute of Scotland’s education convener told TES.
Another was that Oxford and Cambridge were “not automatically” the desired destinations for Scottish pupils, although a substantial number of schools were highly effective in raising aspirations.
Researchers had detected an increasing tendency to go to university locally, Dr Elliot Major said, with “even prestigious universities like Edinburgh and Glasgow” seeing catchments narrow.