The evidence that primary school is more important than secondary is overwhelming

It is, however, the wrong decision educationally. Not emotionally or morally wrong. But wrong in the sense that runs deepest in education – wrong in the sense the evidence is now overwhelming. Because by the time pupils arrive in senior school, most of the educational die has already been cast.

There remains a stubborn belief that ‘serious’ education begins around the age of 11 or 12. That primary school is nurturing, development-heavy and important, yes, but not defining. The defining years, so the thinking goes, are the ones that deliver National 5s, Highers and university places.

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A tale of two children

The science of learning tells a very different story. Consider two equally bright seven-year-olds. One reads fluently, decodes unfamiliar words confidently and approaches written work without fear. They have been taught in a small, well-resourced class setting from the age of four, with a classroom assistant on hand, an accessible dyslexia or support-for-learning specialist and a classroom practitioner who isn’t having to manage the very significant behavioural and learning needs of up to 33 pupils, solo.

The other still labours over basic decoding, avoids reading aloud and quietly dreads anything that involves a page of text. By secondary school, both may appear capable, articulate and well-motivated. But their daily experience of learning is fundamentally different.

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The first child can focus on what they are learning because the how is effortless. The second expends so much cognitive energy on reading and processing that learning becomes exhausting.

Over time, confidence erodes and gaps widen because foundations were never securely laid, not because the child isn’t intrinsically capable. This is how disadvantage most often appears in classrooms: not as lack of intelligence, but as invisible friction.

By the age of seven, a child’s trajectory in literacy is largely established. By eight or nine, gaps in numeracy are no longer merely gaps; they are patterns. And by the beginning of secondary school, pupils have either built an internal confidence in learning… or have quietly learnt that school is a place where they struggle.

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Early years education

We see this every single year. We see it when pupils who join us later are bright, articulate and well-motivated, yet face disproportionate difficulty with the academic load. We see it when literacy limits performance across subjects, not just English. We see it when numeracy anxiety appears not just in maths, but in chemistry, physics and economics. By secondary, it is rarely intelligence that holds pupils back. It is foundation.

The strongest international education research is remarkably united on one point: early education has the greatest long-term impact. Not exam years. Not even secondary years. Early years.

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The Education Endowment Foundation, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and longitudinal research from both Europe and the United States have all proved beyond doubt the following unassailable facts: early literacy is the single strongest predictor of later academic success; children who read fluently by age seven are dramatically more likely to succeed at secondary level; gaps that open at primary level become exponentially harder to close later; remediation in secondary is far more expensive and far less effective than early intervention.

In short, by the time a child arrives into S1, what they can already do matters far more than how bright they are. A truly excellent primary education builds automaticity so that reading, writing and number-handling are effortless. It builds confidence so learning is not feared and it builds habits so resilience, independence and curiosity become normal.

None of those appear at 13. They are built patiently at five, six and seven. They are built when phonics is taught properly, not vaguely. When numeracy is explicitly structured, not assumed. When learning difficulties are diagnosed early, not masked by coping strategies. When children experience daily success, not quiet disappointment.

Almost any secondary school

If VAT is forcing hard choices, those choices should be informed by what we now know, not what we inherited as assumption. If a family can afford only one phase of independent schooling, the research is brutally clear. It should not be secondary. A child with strong early literacy and numeracy will thrive in almost any secondary school. A child without them will struggle in almost every one.

At The High School of Glasgow, the difference between pupils who arrive early and those who arrive late is not theoretical. It plays out daily.

Pupils who join us in Junior 1 build a level of academic fluency that becomes invisible by secondary because it feels natural. And one in two of those pupils go on to achieve five As at Higher. Nationally that figure is one in 20. By the age of six, 90 per cent of our pupils are a year ahead of their chronological age in reading and maths. They have established the foundations for success.

Pupils who arrive years later can find secondary schooling far steeper. Not because they are weaker learners, but because their foundations were never systematically laid. Secondary then becomes a rescue mission rather than a launchpad.

Parents are not wrong to want the best possible education for their children. But the belief that “it matters most when qualifications appear” is misplaced. Educational leverage does not come at 15. It comes at six. And the difference lasts a lifetime.

Antonia Berry is rector of The High School of Glasgow