Question about S3 grading and homework

[susanjc9]

We moved to Scotland from overseas and my daughter is in S3 in a private school. She finds it very easy and has very little homework. Most of the work she spends a few minutes doing before or during school. She is taking 8 subjects, but doesn't feel challenged. She did mention that they tend to spend a lot more time on topics than they did in her school last year (ie what they covered in 1 week they would take a month to cover here).

I think part of the problem is she has already learned some of the maths topics before and caught up on those that the class learned last year but she didn't have. Her autumn report was all 1's with A for effort. Is this typical? We thought it would be much harder and the work load would be heavier.

My 2 children have found that S3 nearer Easter and S4 upwards have been more challenging. S3 was Nat4 for my 2 but S4 has been Nat5 which is a big jump from the Nat4 coursework.

They are working on all Nat5 coursework. She also said the kids don't seem to take their school work as seriously as her old school (where they freak out if they get a B in a subject and worry that they will never get into college). I said maybe they start taking it more seriously when they are in S4 - S6.

I have a child in S3, he is doing 9 subjects currently and will drop to 7 for 4th year. He's not got much homework at the moment, but it is the week before Christmas....

Some teachers appear to set more homework than others. Last month he had a maths test and his teacher issued a 40 page revision booklet - didn't all have to be done but she suggested they work through pages they felt they should revise. DS did about half. His English teacher uses a current affairs website called "The Day" and every week they have to log on, choose an article and write a short summary to share with the class. He also has other essays and work set on an ad hoc basis. Other classes give regular homework, sheets, essays, activities to do.

Obviously moving from one system to another there is going to be crossover between subjects and some topics children will have covered before.

However a school where 14 year olds are "freaking out" over getting a B in something sounds like a hothouse nightmare and certainly not a situation I'd want a CHILD to be in.

I totally agree about that 14 year old's shouldn't be so concerned about getting B's. The kids in the Washington DC suburbs are so stressed about college they take as many Advanced Placement classes and many of the girls end up cutting themselves - it's awful. We certainly don't want her to be stressed like that but here she rarely has any homework so too much time on her hands isn't good either.

If she's not got much homework could she do other things in her spare time? I don't know how it is in Washington DC, but it's common in the UK for children to do out-of- school activities in the evenings and weekends - sports clubs, music lessons, dance lessons, Girl Guides, Duke of Edinburgh Award etc. These things all look good on a university application too and are often more fun than homework.

She was on a synchronized skating team for 7 years but quit just before we moved. Sadly, she didn't want to skate anymore. There is a team here but I think they practice in Stirling that I tried to get her interested in. I finally got her to join choir at school and she started taking a cheer class twice a week. She also does Duke of Edinburgh.

Although she has friends in school to sit with at lunch and stuff she doesn't really do anything outside of school with any friends and is quite lonely on weekends and evenings, but does want to be the one to make plans. This makes her miss home more and I think the weather, short days have also had an impact on her.

Agree - my S3 child does Debating Club at school at lunchtimes and will have the opportunity to do things like YOuth Parliament as he gets older. He also does Explorers and is starting Duke of Edinburgh through them too. He helps out in a charity shop for four hours on a Saturday too.

I have friends with kids in the states and I think in general kids there get a lot more homework. But this is balanced by the fact schools in America are off for three months in the summer and our holidays are half that. It all evens out in the end.

I am (well, was, technically) American and also have DC in private school in Scotland (possibly the same one as you- there aren’t that many here!). DS is in S4 and also started his 8 Nat5 classes last year. He seemed to have barely any homework in S3 - no comparison to when I was in 9th grade!

This year, the work has ramped up significantly. It’s probably his one complaint that they could have been doing more in S3 to spread it out a bit.

How are you getting on with what comprises A/B/C etc? That’s been the hardest adjustment for me, working out what is a decent mark as our A boundary was 90% and here it seems it can be much lower.

Oh gosh, yes - I can imagine your first Scottish winter would get you down if you used to live in Washington! Shortest day tomorrow and then it gets better from then on.

Don’t often post here but this has been a sore subject in my household before and I’m a geography teacher, so wanted to give my take on it!

Once the kids reach exam level, there’s no point just giving homework just for the sake of giving it imo. I’ll never give out tasks like ‘complete a cover page’ or ‘create a poster on so and so’ because they’ll never be asked to do that in an exam!

My DCs were given a lot of written homework for NAT 5 and were obviously getting As in it. Great we thought. Come to tests in class and they’re suddenly not doing as well. They have books, internet, jotters at home, so it’s never going emulate an exam style question. Nothing’s going ‘in’ if they’re just copying from jotters!

If they understand the material in class, there shouldn’t need to be hours spent on homework because if they understand it then they don’t need to spend ages memorising it iyswim. Obviously frequent personal revision is the key. I do timed questions once a week with my N5 and Higher classes. This is what will really show whether they understand the material and ultimately will be what the exam is like. Unfortunately, a lot of teachers don’t seem to do this. Obviously, for sciences and maths, practice and repetition is key but your DC have to take some initiative at this stage to do PPQs etc. themselves, even if it’s not set as homework.

Also, if your dc is not finding it challenging then that’s great. I’m very much a believer in not making it harder than it needs to be! Good luck.

It seems like the grading scale is so easy, isn't it like 75 is an A? It was 90 at home. I am wondering how that will translate if we move back in a year or two. It does seem like the teachers do grade harder.

The grades vary slightly each year depending on exam difficulty. An A can be between about 68 - 75%. Realistically, if an A was 90%, very very few candidates would achieve that and there has to be some room for error.

At the end of the day an A’s an A and your percentage is not printed on your certificate, so I wouldn’t worry about how it would translate. The pupil doesn’t even know their percentage mark unless they ask their teacher for their breakdown!

Q Yes, but that’s exactly what I struggle to get my head round! Barely anyone got A’s when I was growing up- straight A’s were what the Ivy potentials would be aiming for then mostly A’s for the little Ivies and a mix of A’s/B’s for the next tier etc (I know I’m generalising, but roughly true).

I remember going to a parent/teacher conference and having a teacher tell me that DS had achieved 79% on some test and that it was “very good indeed” while I thought, “fuck me, that’s a crap mark”. My parents would have had apoplectic fits if I’d come home with 79% which was a C+ where I grew up.

Interesting comparison with DC private school system as our DD1 was born there and coming home to educate her was a factor for me.

I agree with everything Q says about not making unnecessary busy work and getting DC to focus on what they need to do to get good results - I have an S4 and an S5. Also agree workload increases significantly between S3 and S4 and then again to S5.

However on grades I do agree that the 70% for an A is misleading. The exams that matter for Uni entry happen in S5, not S4 but the exam system is designed so that S4 gives achievable, meaningful qualifications for those not headed to Uni . There is a big step up from S4 to S5 and to do well the basics need to be absolutely solid. If they are then the step up is much less noticeable.

Taking Maths as the example in the Op, 70% in S3 is unlikely to translate to 70% in S4 and even less likely to translate to 70% in S5. I have always encouraged mine to be aiming for 90%+ in internal testing, especially in science based subjects where marking is less subjective.

But if we move back to the US next year and she received an 80 in English or Maths which would be a low B in the US but an A here do you know if her transcript would reflect an A or a B? Do they just send the grades to her new school or the actual percentages? Also on the report it says a 1 means "performance likely to lead to an A". Does this mean she received an A? What is the effort grade?

If you mean 80 in English / Maths Nat 5 qualifications at the end of S4 then that would show an A. National certificates only show grades. My DD did receive a copy of her actual scores as sent to the school-not all schools do this and I am not sure how publicly available they are to 3rd parties.

Within an A there are 2 bands. 1 is the top and 2 is the lower. The grade boundary for a 1 is around 85%. This level of attainment is not disclosed on exam certificates.

Different schools use different methods for incentivising via grade predictions and effort grades. For this reason they are not comparable. However if a private school is predicting an A1 and effort is satisfactory I wouldn't worry.

Effort is not measured in the formal qualifications just actual results. If I understand correctly this is different from the US.

No effort grades in Scotland (or England either as I recall). Obviously the amount of effort plays a part in the end grade for most children but from a piece of paper there's no way of knowing this. Some children could do no revision or work whatsoever for Nat 5 Maths and another could work incredibly hard for two years - both end up with the same grade. Grades in exams, marks in tests etc are purely a statement of how that person performed on that day. A report card might give more statements like "Jane applies herself consistently in Art and her effort should be applauded" but again this is just a teacher's opinion and won't affect an exam.

If you are considering a transfer back to the USA and back to the same school I'd be keeping communication up with them in terms of what they'd expect your daughter to have covered by whichever stage she transfers back. People must be moving in and out of Washington schools internationally all the time, they must have come up against something similar in the past.

No effort grades in Scotland (or England either as I recall).

In our school DC are only ever graded on effort. You have no idea how they are doing academically until they sit prelims/exams.

Ds1 and DS2 both marked 6 (top score) for effort in maths. Ds1 gets 98% in final Nat 5, DS2 got 26%.

DC’s school marks on Approach to Learning and Attainment. We get these marks 3-4 times a year as general guidance as to how they are progressing. They are scored from 1-5 with 1 being exceptional and 5 pretty much unacceptable/giving cause for great concern.

Yes but OP is talking about grades for Nat 5 and so on - the B is a B on the certificate irrespective of how much work you've put in.

OP was also talking about effort grades and what they meant.

No - I mean if we left at the end of this year so she wouldn't have taken the exams that are given in S4. If they haven't taken these will the grades on their reports appear on their transcripts when they go back to the US school?

I think that's something only the school could answer. I'm not sure there is a "standard" set of information provided. They may provide nothing or only specifically what the receiving school request or a full file of everything your child has done in her time in the school.

I don't think the information moving between state schools in scotland would even be standard, nothing else seems to be. Schools within council areas vary, councils vary from each other and I think the Private schools are a law unto themselves. I would expect maybe something more comprehensive would be provided (or you will be asked to pay for something nore comprehensive more likely) from a private school but I could be wrong.

Susan - can I just check ? You moved from overseas last year and your DDis now in S3 and you are planning to leave Scotland again at the end of S3?

Is that right ?

That’s going to be very confusing for your DD, being in three different countries in three school years. The curricula and exam systems in these countries will not be the same. As you have said , she will be bored because she is repeating work or confused because she hasn’t done the background work for other parts of the subject.

And it will be very hard for her to make friends if she knows she is moving on in 6 months . Most S3 kids do many out of school activities and go out with their friends. I suspect she’s bored because she’s lonely and not because she’s so much smarter than all the other kids.

Are you sure it’s wise to do all this moving at this stage of her education ? Honestly I think that her exact grade in English etc is the least of your problems.

FYI my child is at a good state school and most of the bright pupils will get graded at 1 in achievement , homework and behaviour in every subject ( that’s 8-9 subjects for the bright kids in S3 at their school + RMPH and PSE) . They receive an award at prizegiving and there’s about 60 each year.

All 1/ A grades is far from unusual at our state school so I assume it’s commonplace at a decent private school.