Results envelopes went out in early August, and the national pattern will be familiar to anyone who has watched Scottish exams for a few years. Around three quarters of grades came back in the A to C band: 76.7 per cent at Higher and 79.2 per cent at National 5 this year.
Read those numbers from the other side. Roughly one Higher grade in four came back a D or below, and at National 5 it was about one in five. Behind every one of those grades is a household deciding what to do next, and late August is when those decisions get made.
If the results were a shock
The choice is usually between a resit, dropping the subject, or carrying a weak pass into a harder course. A student going into Higher with a scraped National 5 C is the classic case: the jump catches them in October, and by the January prelim the gap has grown. This is the situation one-to-one tuition handles best, because the problem is specific, recent and fixable.
The evidence for starting early rather than at prelim panic is plain enough. Tutors' diaries fill after Christmas, the SQA exams begin in late April, and an hour a week from September buys seven months of steady ground-making. Our guide to choosing a tutor covers what to check before booking, and our price guide sets out what each route costs, from £20 marketplace lessons to £100-an-hour independents.
What good results look like at a tuition service
National figures are also the yardstick for judging any service that publishes its own numbers. One example from this year's coverage: Educamus Tuition, the company at the top of our rankings, reported a 94.9 per cent pass rate across the 2026 results families sent back, a figure Fife's local paper put in print against those same national rates. Ask any service you are considering the same question: what happened to your students last year? The good ones can answer it.