St Margaret's Academy, LIVINGSTON
St Margaret's Academy is a secondary school for pupils in Livingston. It has a Roman Catholic religious character.
- Attendance
- 88.4%
Data last updated 25 Oct 2026
St Margaret's Academy in detail
School in Scotland
St Margaret's Academy 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 1126 pupils and 15.2 pupils per teacher.
14% of pupils are registered for free school meals, 42% of pupils have an additional support need recorded and 15% speak English as an additional language.
16% of its pupils live in Scotland's most deprived fifth of areas and 22% in the least deprived fifth (SIMD).
Attendance was 88.4% in 2024/25, and 39.9% 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 satisfactory (B); the school was 101% full.
96% of pupils who left in 2024/25 went on to a positive destination - further or higher education, training, work or volunteering, against 96% for its "virtual comparator", a matched group of pupils with similar backgrounds from across Scotland.
St Margaret's Academy in its own words
From the headteacher's welcome: "Welcome to St Margaret's Academy. As a Catholic comprehensive school we are a community of love and hope and we recognise the wide-ranging talents, interests and abilities of all our pupils. Our shared REACH values - Respect, Equality, Achievement, Community, and Happiness - permeate the life and work of the school."
Clubs and activities named on the school's website include football, netball, basketball, badminton, dance, choir, STEM, debating and cadets.
Headteacher's welcome (school website)Clubs (school website)
Source: The school's own website
Compared with nearby schools
The nearest other state secondary schools to St Margaret's Academy are The James Young High School (0.6 miles), Inveralmond Community High School (0.7 miles), Deans Community High School (1.6 miles) and West Calder High School (2.9 miles).
The James Young High SchoolInveralmond Community High SchoolDeans Community High SchoolWest Calder High School
Getting there
The nearest railway station is Livingston North Rail Station, about 1.2 miles away in a straight line.
8 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is St Margarets Academy (at), 20 metres away.
Primary schools nearby
The primary schools closest to St Margaret's Academy are Toronto Primary School (0.5 miles), Howden St Andrew's Primary School (0.5 miles), Peel Primary School (0.7 miles) and Bankton Primary School (0.8 miles). In Scotland, secondary places normally follow the catchment area, and each secondary school has associated primary schools; West Lothian publishes both.
Toronto Primary SchoolHowden St Andrew's Primary SchoolPeel Primary SchoolBankton 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 St Margaret's Academy in May 2026.
- 1.3 Leadership of changesatisfactory
- 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessmentsatisfactory
- 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
St Margaret's Academy in Livingston, West Lothian, Scotland is a Catholic secondary school. It is one of two Catholic secondaries in the local authority area.
From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
At a Glance
No
Boarding
No
Nursery
No
Special Measures
Social & online
Keep up with St Margaret's Academy
Getting There
Bus Stops
Safety and surroundings
Road collisions within 500 m (2021 to 2025)
- Collisions
- 8
- Fatal
- 0
- Serious
- 2
- Children hurt
- 1
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 8 road collisions in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 2 serious and 6 slight.
1 child aged 0 to 15 was hurt: 1 on foot.
2 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 West Lothian is 4 (the median across 88 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
St Margaret's Academy
Showing 10 of 15 linked schools
Questions parents ask about St Margaret's Academy
When was St Margaret's Academy last inspected?
HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland) last published an inspection of St Margaret's Academy in May 2026. Inspectors evaluated leadership of change as satisfactory; learning, teaching and assessment as satisfactory; 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 St Margaret's Academy?
Scottish schools have catchment (zoned) areas, and St Margaret's Academy 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 West Lothian. West Lothian publishes the zone boundary.
How do I apply to St Margaret's Academy?
If you live in St Margaret's Academy's catchment zone your child is normally allocated a place automatically, and West Lothian will write to you. To ask for a place here from outside the zone, make a placing request to West Lothian - requests usually open in November and close in mid-March for the following August.
How many road collisions happen near St Margaret's Academy?
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 8 road collisions in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 2 serious and 6 slight. 1 child aged 0 to 15 was hurt: 1 on foot. 2 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 West Lothian is 4 (the median across 88 schools, same distance and years).
Where is St Margaret's Academy?
St Margaret's Academy is at Howden South Road, Howden, LIVINGSTON, LIVINGSTON, EH54 6AT.
Source: Department for Transport, Road Safety Data (STATS19)