National 5 choices, French or not?

Although it was a very long time ago, I went to St Andrews from 5th Year (initially to do French and Russian but finished off doing French and Economics) and had a fabulous time.

Thanks Wiggly, but we'll be happier when we know the results in August! it could all go horribly wrong before then.

I know what you mean about St Andrews. I think anyone with less than AAABB after a fifth year would probably be best to look elsewhere. Once again, we can only hope! I hope your boy get there, it looks like a lovely place to stay and quite safe. We're not far away in Dunfermline so it would be lovely not to have our Dd too far away. Ds plans to travel daily to Dundee if he gets in to Abertay.

As I said before, my Ds has Aspergers. He was diagnosed aged 9 and has a very high intelligence but social anxiety and organisational issues. He finds maths very difficult but has taken the Higher course over 2 years rather than one so hopefully this year he will sit the exam and pass it. He refuses to study as one of his issues is that he won't let school work 'contaminate' his home life, he's never done homework without huge stress on all of us and has to rely on his memory rather than revision. It's been a tough few years to get where we are!

My Ds is in 6th year at the moment. He got 8 credits in 4th year, sat and passed 3 Highers last year with ABC and is sitting another 3 this year along with one Advanced Higher. He has conditional offers with 3 Unis for Computer Games Design courses, one wants an A at H maths, another wants 2xBs including maths and the third (Abertay which is the best Uni for the subject) wants AB without a requirement for maths. He's going to make Abertay his first choice as he's never had an A in any maths exam!

My DD is in 5th year taking 5 Highers and predicted all As. She's planning to take 4 AHs in 6th year and hoping to go to St Andrews Uni to do languages.

It's going to be a busy May and a very tense summer for us!

Mine's at college doing an HNC, with a couple of conditional uni offers for science subjects.

He could possibly have gone straight to uni, but, he had a couple of subjects he didn't do so well at at higher (not sciences) and that combined with college being a nicer progression for him, that's what he's done.

Because he hasn't had to concentrate as much academically for the HNC (for the first 3 months it was way too easy, lol) he's had lots of time to get used to not being at school, travelling...and he's made some friends, so I think it was the right route for him

I work as a TA in a High School. My Ds has AS and Hypermobility syndrome and has always been given IT resources and separate accommodation to sit his exams, including Higher English. His handwriting is poor and he finds it difficult to keep up with flow of thoughts.

I can also tell you that being given a scribe in exams is far less likely with the new qualifications that it was before. There will more pupils using digital papers. I must say I do agree with this, having scribed for pupils. Whilst your scribing does reflect their words, it doesn't accurately reflect their spelling or to some extent, their punctuation either. I'm not sure it's fair for colleges and employers to be told that a dyslexic pupil (for example) has a good pass at Nat 5 English when in reality they would struggle to write well enough independently to function in some roles.

My OH has worked with nursing students who have obviously reached the standard for Highers to get onto the degree course, but aren't effectively reading and writing in handwritten patient's notes, which can have an impact of safety.

I can't either...but then my DS didn't read phonetically at all until he was in P4, he was managing to read because he was looking at the shape of the words he'd memorised rather than the sounds letters made.

With a scribe though, the pupil says what they want written and reads it over and can make revisions then (or the scribe reads it back over) they can act as a reader and a prompt as well depending on which difficulties the pupil has. They can't actually help with the answers, but pretty much anything else they can.

It doesn't suit everyone, but it should be offered as an option.

They should also be offering alternative sources of notes as well, so that they're not having to be handwritten and provide a laptop if it's needed.

Better than without one, lol...he does it in his head anyway because what he can get on paper takes too long and although my DS can type, he was still quicker with a scribe for the subjects with lots of writing.

For maths and sciences he used a combination of typing and a transcriber.

It isn't that the Higher is needed for uni entry, it's that English skills are IMO.

Have they spoken to you about exam arrangements yet? As they should be the same for assessments anyway...my DS used a scribe from about S2. (he also has AS)

Yep, medicine at Edinburgh (for instance) requires English at standard grade or Int) it doesn't require Higher English.

I would push to make sure he does get English at Nat 5 at least.

And the current consensus with most scottish unis is (I think) 4 Highers in one sitting is the standard.

I wouldn't question a lack of MFL in any student if they had sound reasons for dropping it. I have never known a university to require it unless the course was language-based or perhaps international relations.

He should aim towards 5 nat 5s whih are as good as they can be.

DS dropped English for S5, the Geography Higher course, and in particular the assignment, requires analysis and evaluation skills which would suit someone that is more science orientated. DS is looking at science or engineering courses, I don't think the lack of an English Higher should be a problem having looked at the entry requirements for courses as he has a good English Nat 5 grade.

Re your aside...My DC school did eight subjects last year and have also dropped to 7 this year. My Dd did all eight Nat 5s but they only had 3 periods per week of each subject so she didn't achieve as well as she could in her weaker subjects. She ended up with 4xA, 2xB and 2xC, with maths being one of her Cs. My Ds managed 8 Credits the year before much more easily and with much less studying. They are tougher exams and they need a lot more input.

It's not basic literacy so much at this stage that would bother me...it's things like analysis as it's needed in other subjects and IMO just because of the nature of other subjects isn't covered as well outside English.

Him not being able to concentrate isn't his issue in those circumstances it's the teacher's behaviour management...AS isn't even a factor (I mean it won't help, and it's useful to point out that he can't just 'do' something like block out distractions, but the fact that those distractions are there is the issue).

Is there anything in place to compensate for his writing or typing rate?