A 'LEAGUE table' of Scottish secondary schools has been published by The Times – and the Borders has two in the top 50.  

The newspaper creates rankings every year based on the proportion of pupils achieving five or more Highers. 

This year's edition was published in print on Wednesday, May 12, showing a total of 340 schools in the country.

Galashiels Academy has risen by more than 90 places compared with last year's chart.

The Elm Row school is now in 157th place – up from last year’s finish of 250th, as reported in the print edition of The Times.

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According to the latest statistics, 39 per cent of Gala Academy pupils achieved five or more Highers in 2020.

That is up on 2019, which saw 27 per cent of Gala pupils complete the feat.

In this year’s table, only Earlston High School (16) and Peebles High School (40) finished above Gala Academy among the high schools in the Borders.

Sixty-seven per cent of pupils at Earlston managed five or more Highers in 2020, an increase of 12 per cent on 2019’s figure (55 per cent).

Meanwhile, 56 per cent of Peebles High pupils achieved five or more Highers last year, up from 45 per cent in 2019.

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The other Borders schools named in the rankings were Jedburgh Grammar School (173), Selkirk High School (193), Berwickshire High School (194), Kelso High School (273), Eyemouth High School (282) and Hawick High School (299).

As a region, the Borders council area was 13th in a league table of Scottish councils after 38.8 per cent of pupils graduated with five or more Highers.

That is a 5.7 per cent increase on 2019’s figure (33.1 per cent).

A Scottish Borders Council spokesperson said: "There is a lot of good work going on right across the nine high schools in the Borders and it should be noted that there are a number of different ways of measuring the health and success of a school."

The top performing school in the latest table based on this metric was Jordanhill School, Glasgow, which recorded an 86 per cent success rate of pupils recording five or more Highers.

The lowest performing school was Craigroyston Community High School, Edinburgh, which recorded nine per cent of pupils achieving the feat.