Scotland National and Higher exams 2025: When is Results Day - and what are the grade boundaries this year?

• Scotland’s secondary school exam season runs from late April to early June this year
• As usual, results will not be released until August
• There are a total of four passing grades students can receive in their Nationals or Highers
• These can be further broken down into bands

Scotland’s secondary school exam season is now well underway.

The 2024/25 summer National 5 and Higher exam series runs from April 25 through to June 2 this year. Students will then face a months-long wait to find out how they did, with conditional university offers and other post-secondary school opportunities hanging in the balance for many.

The latest exam season comes during a time of upheaval for the country’s awarding organisation, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), which is set to be replaced later this year. While this is not expected to greatly impact this year’s exams or the young people taking them, further reviews and reforms to national assessments are currently in the works.

But when exactly will students sitting their Nationals and Highers this summer get their results? What do the different grades mean - and how can they find out how close they were to getting a higher grade?

Here’s what you need to know:

Scottish students will find out how they did in their exams in August | (Image: National World/Getty Images)

When is SQA results day this year?

Unlike the rest of the UK, which has separate results days for GCSEs (roughly equivalent to National 5 qualifications) and A Levels (equivalent to Higher qualifications), SQA only has the one.

This year, it will fall on Tuesday, August 5, the exam board says. From that morning, results qualification certificates should arrive at all candidates’ homes via first class post.

For those that have also registered with MySQA online before the deadline - July 16 this year - will also get their results emailed and text messaged to them. These will start rolling out from 8am onwards.

How are exams marked - and what do the different grades mean?

After students sit their exams, the papers are sent off to be marked. SQA’s policy, analysis and standards director Martyn Ware previously wrote that their markers - all experienced teachers and lecturers - will grade more than 1.3 million assessments during this time.

After that, the exam board will hold a grade boundary meeting “for every subject at every level,” to decide how many marks are needed to achieve each grade. This can change based on how pupils found the exam that year, to “make sure that the results reached are a fair and correct reflection of the standard of the work completed”.

At both National 5 and Higher level - and even for Advanced Highers - there are a total of four passing grades available. These are A, B, C and D. Candidates who don’t reach the minimum amount of marks required to achieve a D will get a grade of ‘no award’ - meaning they haven’t received that qualification.

However, within the passing grades are grade bands. This means students are technically receiving an upper or lower A, B, or C depending on how many marks they get. This information is not included on your certificate, but SQA says that your school or college should be able to tell you your grade band and how many marks you were given - or you can request this information from SQA directly.

What will the grade boundaries be in 2025?

Grade boundaries, the minimum amount of marks students need to receive any given grade, are usually not released until results day, when they will be made available on the SQA website. This is because these are set once marking is completed, so that how difficult students found a particular paper that year can be taken into account.

While they can vary a little year-on-year, grade boundaries are often quite consistent. This means that students can look to 2024’s boundaries for a general idea of how well they’ll need to do.

As an example, students sitting their National 5 qualification in English last year needed 72 out of 100 possible marks to receive an A grade, and just 39 to receive a D - the lowest passing grade. In the mathematics National, they needed 64 of 90 possible marks to achieve an A, and 35 to get a D.

For older students taking their Highers, they needed 67 of 100 possible marks to score an A, and 38 for a D. In mathematics, they needed 84 out of 120 marks for an A, and 46 for a D. You can find the full list of SQA’s grade boundaries for each subject last year online here.

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