Dunfermline High School, Dunfermline
Dunfermline High School is a secondary school for pupils in Dunfermline.
- Attendance
- 89.5%
Data last updated 25 Oct 2026
Dunfermline High School in detail
School in Scotland
Dunfermline High School is a local authority school in Scotland. Scottish schools are inspected by Education Scotland rather than Ofsted, and Scotland does not publish school-by-school exam league tables.
In the 2025 pupil census it had 1381 pupils and 13.8 pupils per teacher.
13% of pupils are registered for free school meals, 42% of pupils have an additional support need recorded and 7% speak English as an additional language.
8% of its pupils live in Scotland's most deprived fifth of areas and 53% in the least deprived fifth (SIMD).
Attendance was 89.5% in 2024/25, and 31.9% of pupils were persistently absent (missing 10% or more of sessions).
The 2026 school estate survey rated its buildings' condition as good (A) and their suitability for teaching as good (A); the school was 81% full.
97% of pupils who left in 2022/23 went on to a positive destination - further or higher education, training, work or volunteering, against 95% for its "virtual comparator", a matched group of pupils with similar backgrounds from across Scotland.
Compared with nearby schools
The nearest other state secondary schools to Dunfermline High School are Queen Anne High School (1.4 miles), Inverkeithing High School (3.3 miles) and Beath High School (5.1 miles).
Queen Anne High SchoolInverkeithing High SchoolBeath High School
Getting there
The nearest railway station is Dunfermline City Rail Station, about 550 metres away (roughly a 7-minute walk).
23 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is Dunfermline High School (stance a), 120 metres away.
Primary schools nearby
The primary schools closest to Dunfermline High School are St Leonard's Primary School (0.1 miles), Commercial Primary School (0.6 miles), St Margaret's R C Primary School (0.6 miles) and Pitreavie Primary School (0.7 miles). In Scotland, secondary places normally follow the catchment area, and each secondary school has associated primary schools; Fife publishes both.
St Leonard's Primary SchoolCommercial Primary SchoolSt Margaret's R C Primary SchoolPitreavie Primary School
Sources: Scottish Government school statistics: pupil census, attendance and absence, school estate, leaver destinations (OGL); NaPTAN (Department for Transport)
Key Information
Scottish GovernmentInspection
HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland) last published an inspection of Dunfermline High School in March 2025.
- 1.3 Leadership of changegood
- 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessmentgood
- 3.1 Ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusiongood
- 3.2 Raising attainment and achievementgood
HMIE grades on a six-point scale: unsatisfactory, weak, satisfactory, good, very good, excellent.
Source: HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland), Open Government Licence.
About
Dunfermline High School is one of four main high schools located in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. The school also caters for pupils from Kincardine, Rosyth and surrounding villages.
From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
At a Glance
No
Boarding
No
Nursery
No
Special Measures
Keep up with Dunfermline High School
Getting There
Train Stations
Bus Stops
Safety and surroundings
Road collisions within 500 m (2021 to 2025)
- Collisions
- 4
- Fatal
- 0
- Serious
- 2
- Children hurt
- 0
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 4 road collisions in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 2 serious and 2 slight.
No children aged 0 to 15 were among the people hurt.
1 of the collisions happened on a weekday between 08:00 and 09:30 or 14:45 and 16:30, holidays included.
The typical figure for schools in Fife is 2 (the median across 160 schools, same distance and years).
Serious and slight counts use the Department for Transport's severity adjustment, which allows for changes in how police forces record injuries; they are estimates, rounded to whole numbers. Distances are in a straight line. Source: Department for Transport, Road Safety Data (STATS19), Open Government Licence v3.0.
Commute and house prices
Feeder Primary Schools
Primary schools that likely feed into this school, based on proximity
Dunfermline High School
Showing 10 of 12 linked schools
Questions parents ask about Dunfermline High School
When was Dunfermline High School last inspected?
HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland) last published an inspection of Dunfermline High School in March 2025. Inspectors evaluated leadership of change as good; learning, teaching and assessment as good; ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion as good and raising attainment and achievement as good, on a six-point scale from unsatisfactory to excellent.
What is the catchment area for Dunfermline High School?
Scottish schools have catchment (zoned) areas, and Dunfermline High School is no exception: children living in its zone are normally given a place there automatically. Families who want a different school make a placing request to Fife. Fife publishes the zone boundary.
How do I apply to Dunfermline High School?
If you live in Dunfermline High School's catchment zone your child is normally allocated a place automatically, and Fife will write to you. To ask for a place here from outside the zone, make a placing request to Fife - requests usually open in November and close in mid-March for the following August.
How many road collisions happen near Dunfermline High School?
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 4 road collisions in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 2 serious and 2 slight. No children aged 0 to 15 were among the people hurt. 1 of the collisions happened on a weekday between 08:00 and 09:30 or 14:45 and 16:30, holidays included. The typical figure for schools in Fife is 2 (the median across 160 schools, same distance and years).
Where is Dunfermline High School?
Dunfermline High School is at St Leonard's Place, Dunfermline, Dunfermline, KY11 3BQ.
Source: Department for Transport, Road Safety Data (STATS19)