WIREDGOV

An official statistics publication.

The Scottish Household Survey: Satisfaction with Schools 2024 results, published today, contains the key findings of the question asked in the social survey on satisfaction with local schools for all adults and service users.

In 2024, over two-thirds (69%) of adults were satisfied with local schools, the same as in 2022 and 2023.

Satisfaction with schools has generally decreased over time since the peak of 85% in 2011 to 69% in 2022 and has remained at this level since then.

As with previous years, service users were more satisfied with local schools (81%) than non-service users (63%) in 2024.

However, satisfaction with schools for service users is the lowest it has been since the start of the time series in 2007/2008.

For both the whole adult population and service users only, satisfaction with local schools was similar between those in the 20% most deprived areas and those in the 20% least deprived areas. Adults and service users in SIMD quintile 3 had the lowest satisfaction levels (67% and 75% for adults and service users respectively).

Satisfaction with schools for service users where a school-aged child with a long-term condition is present (70%) is lower than for service users where no school-aged child with a long-term condition is present (83%).

Background

The Scottish Household Survey: Satisfaction with Schools 2024 publication, including a summary of key results, is available on the school education statistics website.

Official Statistics are produced in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The full set of SHS 2024 data tables will be published via the SHS Data Explorer on a monthly basis as and when topic reports are published. The satisfaction with schools tables will be updated in the data explorer on 1st December 2025. The 2024 methodology and field outcomes report is available through the Scottish Government Publications page.

Results presented exclude “No opinion” responses.

Service users of local schools are identified by whether there is a school-aged child present in the household.

Some of the differences between groups may be due to random sampling variation i.e. chance. Similarly, some apparent differences between results over time may occur by chance. We use standard statistical tests of significance to determine the likelihood of differences being due to chance. When the report refers to differences between groups or years, these differences are statistically significant at the 95% confidence level unless explicitly stated otherwise. Some differences between groups in the tables that appear large may not be mentioned in this report, because they are not statistically significant due to small sample sizes and large margins of error. Confidence intervals for different estimates and sample sizes have been provided in the supporting tables.