Thurso High School, Thurso
Thurso High School is a secondary school for pupils in Thurso.
- Attendance
- 88.6%
Data last updated 25 Oct 2026
Thurso High School in detail
School in Scotland
Thurso 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.
Thurso High School offers Gaelic-medium education.
In the 2025 pupil census it had 708 pupils and 12.3 pupils per teacher.
11% of pupils are registered for free school meals, 40% of pupils have an additional support need recorded and 1% speak English as an additional language.
Attendance was 88.6% in 2024/25, and 33.8% of pupils were persistently absent (missing 10% or more of sessions).
The 2026 school estate survey rated its buildings' condition as poor (C) and their suitability for teaching as poor (C); the school was 66% full.
95% 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.
Getting there
The nearest railway station is Thurso Rail Station, about 360 metres away (roughly a 5-minute walk).
9 bus stops are within a five-minute walk; the closest is High School (outside), 130 metres away.
Primary schools nearby
The primary schools closest to Thurso High School are Miller Academy Primary School (0.3 miles), Pennyland Primary School (0.6 miles) and Mount Pleasant Primary School (0.8 miles). In Scotland, secondary places normally follow the catchment area, and each secondary school has associated primary schools; Highland publishes both.
Miller Academy Primary SchoolPennyland Primary SchoolMount Pleasant 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 Thurso High School in June 2026.
- 2.3 Learning, teaching and assessmentgood
- 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
Thurso High School in Thurso, Caithness, Scotland, is the most northerly secondary school on mainland Great Britain.
From Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
At a Glance
No
Boarding
No
Nursery
No
Special Measures
Keep up with Thurso High School
Getting There
Train Stations
Bus Stops
Safety and surroundings
Road collisions within 500 m (2021 to 2025)
- Collisions
- 1
- Fatal
- 0
- Serious
- 1
- Children hurt
- 0
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 1 road collision in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 1 serious and 0 slight.
No children aged 0 to 15 were among the people hurt.
0 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 Highland is 0 (the median across 195 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
Thurso High School
Questions parents ask about Thurso High School
When was Thurso High School last inspected?
HM Inspectorate of Education (Education Scotland) last published an inspection of Thurso High School in June 2026. Inspectors evaluated learning, teaching and assessment as good and raising attainment and achievement as good, on a six-point scale from unsatisfactory to excellent.
What is the catchment area for Thurso High School?
Scottish schools have catchment (zoned) areas, and Thurso 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 Highland. Highland publishes the zone boundary.
How do I apply to Thurso High School?
If you live in Thurso High School's catchment zone your child is normally allocated a place automatically, and Highland will write to you. To ask for a place here from outside the zone, make a placing request to Highland - requests usually open in November and close in mid-March for the following August.
How many road collisions happen near Thurso High School?
Within 500 m of the school's mapped location, police recorded 1 road collision in which someone was injured in 2021 to 2025: none fatal, 1 serious and 0 slight. No children aged 0 to 15 were among the people hurt. 0 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 Highland is 0 (the median across 195 schools, same distance and years).
Where is Thurso High School?
Thurso High School is at Ormlie Road, Thurso, Thurso, KW14 7DS.
Source: Department for Transport, Road Safety Data (STATS19)