What actually makes a great primary school: a read of the 2025 PLE

Every January, primary schools advertise their Division 1 tallies as if the number settled the question. It rarely does. A school that enters only its strongest pupils for PLE can post a flattering aggregate while teaching the rest indifferently. We read the 2025 results the harder way, against entry numbers, repetition rates and the spread of grades across the whole cohort.

The primaries that hold up under that read share three habits: they enter every eligible pupil rather than the ones who make the headline look good, they keep class sizes low enough that a weak reader is caught in P3 rather than P6, and they retain their P7 teachers across cycles. None of that shows in a banner outside the gate, which is precisely why it is worth looking for.