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Secondary education

Scottish higher any teachers/ knowledgeable mums around?

4 replies

PJ67 · 16/01/2016 10:47

Hi

My son is in 5th year and doing the new cfe highers. He seems to be struggling a bit with physics and I don't quite understand the new system. He has passed one 'nab' and failed the second which he will resit next week. He seems to think there is only one chance to resit. I phoned the sqa and they seemed to say it was at the discretion of the school. I've spoke to my son about maybe doing it over 2 years but he's keen to sit the exam in May. I'm not sure I trust the school and think they are keen to look good and therefore stop anyone doing exams who might fail. We had this with the national 5's where we were told he should do nat 4 in computing and would probably get a C in PE and he ended up getting an A I'm both.
I just want to know what is the correct advice, it's so confusing! Can they refuse to let him sit the exam?

Thanks

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nothruroad · 16/01/2016 10:51

Official advice is that pupils should re-sit twice and three times in exceptional circumstances. When did he fail it? Some schools seem to rush pupils through a re-sit without giving them time to prepare and revise again after failing so they seem guaranteed a fail the second time. The unit assessments (called nabs in old higher) have different outcomes - did he fail every outcome or only one? I teach a different subject so am not sure how many outcomes there are for physics. In my subject at higher each unit assessment has 3 outcomes and pupils can re-sit the outcome they failed. In practice they re-sit all of them because that's easier for them. Has he done the prelim and passed yet?

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PJ67 · 16/01/2016 22:04

Hi. Thanks for your reply. I'm still trying to understand it but there are 3 units in physics and this is unit 2 and he seems to have failed the understanding part (passed calculation). He seems to think that there is one part that he has to pass in every unit and another that he has to pass at least one out of three units. Makes no sense to me! He got the result on Friday and the resit is on Wednesday so only 5 days to study. The prelim is in a few weeks so we'll see how he gets on with that.

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nothruroad · 17/01/2016 15:20

It seems crazy to me to do the re-sit after only 5 days. What has been done in that time to increase his understanding?
In my school if parents insist that their child sits the exam then that's what happens. However if they have failed the unit assessment they could pass the exam but not get an overall award. I suspect if your son passes the prelim he will be given another chance to do the assessment at that point. If he fails this week would definitely insist he sits the prelim anyway to see how he does. Good luck with it.

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PJ67 · 17/01/2016 21:33

Thanks again. I will try to make sure he sits the prelim and if he passes then maybe we can push for him to sit the nab again (if he fails again!). It seems unfair that schools all seem to have different policies on this. From what I've read, some schools allow unlimited resist and others are very strict that it's only one resit.