national 5s school now reducing the number pupils are allowed to sit to 6

[HMF1]

Does anyone have any experience of this? We spoke to the head at parents night & they said LA was introducing this to raise attainment levels ie they sit fewer & will get better grades. No meaningful response to our comments about limiting the opportunities for those who are capable of sitting more. I can only assume that this is an attempt to try to improve the results by which the schools are measured rather than any real attempt at raising attainment by raising standards. I am very cynical about this move, can anyone explain why it might be a good idea, my youngest DS who will be affected by this is more than capable of getting excellent grades across 7 subjects.

I've been very happy with CfE / Nat 5s but there again, ds is at a school that allows 8 The work he's having to do when I'm allowed to see it looks to be of a high standard.

It seems to be giving him a good foundation for Highers - in Maths, the class is starting the Higher curriculum in January and in Georgraphy, his teacher has been teaching him the different techniques for answering in a Nat 5 way versus a Higher way. And his English teacher just pushes them hard full stop have I mentioned she's scary?

If ds had only been allowed to do 6, he'd have dropped French (wrong, wrong, wrong ) and Computing Science as the other 6 were subjects that he's passionate about and/or which he needs to keep his options open for Uni (Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Maths, English and PE). I'd have had to fight with him to make him swap PE for French - but given he wants to be a professional rugby player and he does have talent I'm not sure that would have been fair.

As MyOtherUserNameIsBetter says, the Higher Education institutes also need to adjust, as they still look at the Highers sat in a single sitting - and CfE seems to be assuming that people are doing 6th Year and/or can do Crash Highers which puts a lot of pressure on them.

By narrowing their choices, you run the risk of pupils disengaging if they make a mistake in the subjects they chose - or not being able to do the ones that enthuse them.

The weakness of CfE seems to be the wide range of ways it has been implemented. Ds' school has taken a flexible approach and has technically breached some of its principles (moving from the full BGE a year early).

On the plus side, in theory, the BGE stage more pupils should get credit for what they have managed to achieve.

When I did my "O" Grades, I'd been allowed to drop PE and RE in S2 : that rightly no longer seems to be an option, as both PE and RME are compulsory at least until the end of S4.

Agree about considering qualifications over all S4/5/6.

Feedback from my DCs school is that kids who drop a subject at the end of S3 (having reached national 4 level in S3) but pick up again in S6 as a crash higher are doing as well as kids who did a standard grade in the subject in S4, dropped for Higher and picked up in S6 under the previous system. I found this reassuring as my DS2 dropped physics ("too geeky") so it gives me hope that he could pick up in S6 if he changes his mind and wants to look at engineering.

Also this summer on holiday I didn't notice much difference in my DSs ability in French despite the elder having a standard grade and the younger drop at the end of S3 (they were at a similar level at the end of S2) so qualification isn't everything.

Not sure how the school can say the kids who dropped subjects at the end of BGE in S3 and picked them up as "crash" Highers in S6 are doing as well as kids who did a Standard Grade in S4 as this year's S6 is the 1st S6 to have gone through CfE

Surely that means it can only be assessed after the 2016 exams?

I'd assume they're using the extremely robust tracking information they're required to produce up until this point?

Agree better comparison would be in 2016 when results are available but the feedback was based on homework/classwork/unit tests to date

We're in Edinburgh and our state school chose 6 subjects for Nat5! The next closest school went for 8 but have now reduced to 6 too.

Although Dd is doing 5 Nat5's and a higher!

Ds' state school is still, by all accounts, getting good results while allowing 8. And was very happy with the pupils' 2015 Higher results (I think they were a mix of old and new: Maths was definitely new but I think Physics and English were old).

Wonder what it is they do different? Is it by breaking the letter of the BGE guidelines by starting the Nat 5 courses at the end of S2?

Given the length of the course material, the only way they can do it is by breaking BGE prettybird. As you know DSs school is very successful academically and they do steal a bit of S3 by moving up about a month before everyone else. I reckon that building your programme to suit the majority of your pupils catchment is in some way sensible but also can be limiting for pupils at either end of the spectrum if not managed correctly.

Our catchment school has a high proportion of FSM and a lot of pupils who leave at the end of 4th year so the original plan of limiting to 6 to allow the pupils to do the best they could on a smaller range of topics was probably not unwise, but then they forgot that they also have children who want to go to Uni etc and who wanted a bigger range of options.

The whole point of the change as I understand it was because there was an element of coasting in S3 when subjects had been chosen and there was not really enough in the Standard grade course to fill 2 years. I think that they thought that they could use that year instead to ensure that a broader range of learning was delivered rather than only (up to) 8 subjects that they would normally choose at the end of S2.

Ds' school also has an extremely wide demographic with a high proportion of FSMs, asylums seekers and Roma - and is apparently one of if not the most international schools (in terms of languages spoken/ethnic origins) in the country. As thr headteacher described it: it ranges from millionaires to those that literally have no food in the fridge. Yet it still manages to get good results and pupils get into good universities.

It is also still working hard to reduce still further the already small number of "NEETs".

I think that ds' school follows the spirit if not the letter of the BGE in that the pupils still have the choice of continuing in all 8 of the BGE areas (and the majority do). If ds hadn't wanted to do PE as well as two sciences and Geography, then he'd have willingly continued an Expressive Art.

There always was a bit of a range in what schools did (for example, the fact that at my school 6 Highers were offered as a matter of course, other schools doing Highers over 2 years m) - but I think a major weakness of CfE is that these variations have widened.

My experience of CfE to date has been a positive one - but I can easily see how other people are disillusioned with it.

Ds has just come in and volunteered that he'll probably be finishing his Higher Maths curriculum in September and will be starting on Advanced Higher - even though he has no plans at this stage to do Advanced Higher Maths.