6th October 2026
Scotland has spent almost two decades talking about smaller primary-school classes.
The SNP made a very clear commitment in its 2007 manifesto to reduce P1, P2 and P3 classes to 18 pupils or fewer.
Nearly 20 years later, the latest figures show that the national average P1–P3 class size is still 22.8 pupils.
Only 13% of P1–P3 pupils are in classes of 18 or fewer.
But there is another part of the story which deserves much more attention.
What happens when we take Scotland's rural schools into account?
Because a small school in Caithness, the Highlands or the islands may have a P1–P3 class containing fewer than 18 children, while a school in one of Scotland's larger towns or cities may have classes approaching the statutory maximum.
The national average can therefore conceal some very different experiences.
Scotland does not have one class-size problem
The Scottish Government itself acknowledges that the proportion of P1–P3 pupils in classes of 18 or fewer varies considerably between local authorities.
One of the main reasons, it says, is the differing number of small schools in different parts of Scotland.
That matters.
A rural authority with dozens of small schools will inevitably have many classes containing relatively few pupils.
A densely populated urban authority can have very different pressures.
The result is a Scotland where the classroom experience of a five-year-old can depend substantially on where that child lives.
The latest national figures
The 2025 statistics show an average P1–P3 class size of 22.8 pupils, down slightly from 23.0 in 2024.
There were 19,440 P1–P3 pupils in classes of 18 or fewer.
But there were 97,299 in classes of 19–25 and another 32,884 in classes of 26 or more.
So while the national average is nowhere near the old target of 18, it also doesn't mean that most Scottish children are sitting in classes of 23 or 24.
There is a wide distribution around that average.
And the rural contribution to the smaller end of the distribution is significant.
Rural Scotland is different
Older Scottish Government research illustrates just how large the geographical difference can be.
In its analysis of primary schools, the average P1 class size was around 21 pupils in large urban areas, compared with 15.9 in accessible rural areas and only 12.6 in remote rural areas.
Remote rural pupils were also much more likely to experience composite classes, where children from different stages are taught together.
That is an important distinction.
A class of 12 children isn't necessarily simply a smaller version of a city P1 class.
It may contain children from several year groups.
The teacher may be teaching P1, P2 and P3 together.
So the headline number alone doesn't tell us everything about the educational experience.
Nevertheless, the difference in class size is very real.
The rural school can make the national figures look better
This is where the question in our headline comes from.
It isn't that rural schools are somehow manipulating the statistics.
They aren't.
Their small classes are genuine and are correctly included in the national figures.
But if Scotland has a substantial number of very small rural schools, those classes inevitably pull the national figures down.
The Scottish Government has explicitly acknowledged that the existence of large numbers of small schools in some areas is one of the main reasons local-authority results differ.
That raises an interesting question.
If we removed the effect of Scotland's smallest rural schools, what would the typical class size look like in the larger towns and cities?
That is not a statistic the national headline figures answer directly.
And perhaps it is a statistic parents would find useful.
The old promise is therefore more complicated than it first appears
The 2007 SNP commitment was straightforward enough: P1–P3 classes of 18 or fewer.
The reality of Scotland's education system is not straightforward.
If the Government wanted every child to experience a class of no more than 18, it would be relatively easy to achieve that in a school where only 10 or 12 children live in the local catchment.
The challenge is much greater in a school where 50, 60 or 70 children enter a particular year group.
That is where additional teachers and classrooms become necessary.
And additional teachers cost money.
Should rural Scotland be used as the benchmark?
There is another side to this argument.
It would be wrong to suggest that small rural schools are somehow an expensive distortion which should be eliminated simply to make national education statistics look more consistent.
A small school may be hugely important to the community it serves.
Closing it could mean children travelling many miles to another school.
It can also remove one of the few remaining public institutions in a small rural settlement.
So Scotland faces a genuine policy choice.
Do we want to maintain small rural schools because they are part of the infrastructure of rural communities, even though they may have very small classes?
Or should the education system be organised primarily around achieving similar class sizes and costs across the country?
There isn't necessarily one answer for every community.
And then there is the money
This is where the class-size debate connects directly to the wider financial pressures facing Scottish councils.
Local authorities are already under pressure to find savings.
Reducing class sizes in larger urban schools would generally require more teachers, more classrooms or both.
But maintaining small rural schools also has a cost because the same basic infrastructure and staffing cannot always be spread across hundreds of pupils.
That means the argument over class sizes cannot really be separated from the argument over what kind of Scotland we want.
Do we want education organised around maximum efficiency?
Or are we prepared to pay more per pupil to maintain services in sparsely populated communities?
That isn't simply an education question.
It is a rural policy question.
What about Caithness?
This is particularly relevant in Caithness.
The area has schools where pupil numbers are inevitably much smaller than those found in the central belt.
For a parent in Wick or Thurso, the experience can be very different from that of a parent whose child attends a large primary school in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
Yet both are represented within the same Scottish average.
That is why national figures should be treated carefully.
An average can tell us what is happening across Scotland.
It cannot necessarily tell us what is happening in your school.
Perhaps Scotland should publish the figures differently
Rather than concentrating so heavily on one national average, perhaps the Scottish Government should make it much easier to see the distribution of class sizes by type of area.
For example:
Large urban Scotland
Other urban areas
Small towns
Accessible rural areas
Remote rural areas
Island communities
That would allow parents, teachers, councils and politicians to see whether the 18-pupil ambition is being achieved in some parts of Scotland but not others.
It would also make the financial consequences much easier to understand.
The bigger question
Nearly 20 years after the SNP first promised P1–P3 classes of 18 or fewer, Scotland is still a long way from achieving that figure nationally.
But simply comparing today's 22.8 average with the old target doesn't tell the whole story.
The statistics include some extremely small rural classes alongside much larger urban classes.
And the Scottish Government itself acknowledges that the number of small schools is an important reason why class-size figures differ between councils.
So perhaps the more useful question isn't:
"Why hasn't Scotland achieved an average class size of 18?"
It might be:
"What class size are children actually experiencing depending on where they live?"
And once that question is asked, another follows.
If Scotland wants genuinely smaller classes in its towns and cities, how much more would it have to spend on teachers and classrooms, while continuing to protect the small rural schools that are an important part of community life?
That is a much more difficult question than producing a national average.
But it may also be the question Scotland needs to answer.
Scottieh Gvernment Statistics