Scottish Highers and Advanced Highers?

[madnessdescending]

We've recently moved to Scotland from England and I'm struggling a bit with understanding the Scottish secondary system.
My older DD has been educated in England, doing 10 GCSEs and then 3 A'levels, which allowed a wide range of subjects, and I think she is coming out if it quite well educated.
My younger DD is in S1 in Scotland. I've been told that she will be allowed to do either 6 or 7 subjects to S4 level, and then will have to reduce that to a maximum of 5 for Highers. Then there is only one year in 6th form, with a small number of either Advanced Highers, and/or further Highers. Then will need to leave school at that stage (a year earlier than in England), to go to Uni.
So as I understand it, she will be dropping to only 6 or 7 subjects very early, and then in the 5th year will be studying a maximum of 5 subjects, at an age when her sister was studying and taking exams in 10 subjects. This presumably means that she will have to make a decision between arts, sciences or humanities very early. I don't see how she will be able to combine these, as is possible in England, or to fit in any "extras", such as music Higher.
I feel pretty sad for her, and have no idea how she will choose to specialise so early. And then of course start her university course a year early too. She is an all rounder, and has no idea which subjects she will decide to drop at such an early stage. How can this result in a good all round education?
Any insights very welcome. At the moment I'm considering teaching her some subjects at home, so that she will have a reasonably wide education despite only being able to study 5 at school.
There is also absolutely no ability setting at her school, and she is finding the work very easy, and is getting almost no homework.

Your dd has now completed half a year of S1 - have you been to the school yet to complain about the lack of homework? You will be standing next to another parent complaining that there's too much, and 11 year olds should have the chance to play when they get home!
You are so in the shallow end of the system that you will find a lot more depth and challenge as she moves further in. Setting in S1 would be very rare except perhaps in Maths and English.
S6 students can absolutely pick subjects back up again or crash highers with the agreement of the school.
Have a read of some of the Staffroom pages on here - Scottish teachers are not without complaints but the real critiques of their system comes from teachers in England.

I've told Dd to do the best she can but she really needs A's in Maths and English if she wants to even consider dropping either, and to get an A in RMPE if she wants to drop that one and crash the Mod Studies higher instead. I think she'll just drop chemistry and carry on with the others.

If she's doing Nat 5 in RMPE she would find the Higher easier in that subject as she will already know the particular skills they are looking for. Unless she has a strong desire to change as motivation can be a big factor too of course.

That's what I said!
We'll see, she's doing Maths, English, RMPE, history, physics and chemistry.
Definitely wants to do History, English and physics for higher.

Great minds eh