guidance on possible grades??

[k2p2k2tog]

I really can't remember back to by own school days, it's 30 years ago.

DS is in S3, choosing his options for S4 and his national 5s. He's doing fine, I don't really have any concerns. Have had a report back today which reports back on effort, behaviour and homework. Nothing about attainment/achievement. We had a parents' evening just before Christmas and discussed progression, teachers were happy to say whether they'd recommend him for Nat 5 or whether they thought he'd struggle, but wouldn't say "he's on course for an A" or "he'll be lucky to scrape a C".

I am assuming they will be more forthcoming with this sort of information when it gets to this time next year and Prelims?

I'm afraid not. They amount of information given in terms of achievement is poor ime. You should find out more when he passes or fails his prelims and you can get an idea by how well he passes what grade that is likely to equate to. However that isn't an exact science either as they often don't do a full prelim as they have only completed half to three quarters of the course.

I'm sure some school do better than others with this though.

DSs views are that the effort scores etc are not that reliable either. It can depend on whether the teacher likes you, whether you find the subject easy, who else in the class etc. e.g. DS2 finds History and Mod Studs fairly easy, he does well in them, he puts in very little effort - always gets top marks, he tries really hard in Maths but is not skilled so can get a 4 or 5 rather than a 6, he tries reasonably in English and gets on well with the teacher and the rest of the class are a bit leery and not really getting it. He also gets a 6 for English.

So for those subjects in his own view he'd get a 6 for Maths, a 5 for English and 4's for History and Mod Studs.

Maybe your DS can enlighten you better about what he gets in class tests and the like?

No teacher should be prepared to predict grades for Nat 5 before the child had even picked far less started the course.

Yes, we might have a gut feeling how they'd do (if it's a subject they've been studying , not if it's completely new eg new language or technical subject) but a you may be shocked at the jump up from S3 to S4 - and I say that in mammy mode as well as teacher view.

Remember in CFE the emphasis has been on growing skills and knowledge . The downside of that is little (or no) exposure to formal exams, it can all be quite overwhelming in S4.

Don't expect anything more than an "on or off track" to pass Nat 5 attainment grade until after prelims at the earliest.

At my DCs school, in S3 they recommended a level - Nat 5 or Nat 4 on the official report however if you specifically asked at parent's night they'd give you an indication of what they were on track for. However from my experience (I've 3 DC), the prediction was bit variable. In S4 (my DCs school only begin national 5 courses in S4) they gave a working grade and a target grade. There was big variation between subjects depending on how well the teacher knew my child e.g. in the subject my DC2 is now studying at uni he had a working grade of C at national 5 right until after his prelim and my DC1 had an working grade of A in French until he got a D in his prelim. Generally predictions based on prelim results have been good. However it can be a bit late by then.

Ds' school is different: they make their Nat 5 choices in S2, starting the S3 timetable in the June of S2, which is why they are able to do 8 Nat 5s.

We did get estimates of grades - but I can't remember when that started. I do know that the "official" system which they use is very basic and they've had to put in lots of tweaks and work arounds. I know that the report we got in November did in life predictions for his AHs and the one Higher (and in fact, by the time we'd gone to the Parents' Evenings, the predictions for the AHs had changed anyway - as he'd bucked up his attitude and really put his head down (even moved himself to a table on his own in one of his AH subjects).

He's always been pretty self-starting though - so we'd always taken the view that as long as his effort, behaviour and homework were as good as they could be, we couldn't ask for more. The only subject I wish I'd pushed him more on was French: one day to work on his atrocious spoken French was not enough, even though I did help him make great progress (I have a French degree ) - What could I have done if I'd had longer ? (He does know that I'm not annoyed that he got his sole C for French because it was a C but that I was disappointed because I knew from his other subjects that he was capable of more )

Can't remember if we got predictions in S3 - but did get predictions prior to the Parents Evenings in S4.

Ds' school has also brought forward its Prelims before Christmas (which creates its own problems about the scope of the curriculum they can cover) so that if any issues are identified, they have time to address them.

Just to add beware of teachers saying that your DC is "capable of an A" at national 5 because they need to maximize their class numbers particularly if your DC is well behaved.

If your DC is struggling to choose between subjects and A passes are important then I looked at exam success of the department (poorly performing school however results vary significant between subjects).

He is stuck between two - French and Design & Manufacture. The French teacher had no concerns, felt he had a strong grasp, was performing well in tests so far and would manage fine at Nat 5. The Design teacher said similar things but we know that DS struggles with the arty side of it. He likes coming up with ideas for new things and making them, just not the concept stage. Graphics teacher not really pepared to commit to whether he'd do well or not.

TBH we've pretty much made the decision for him - whichever one he chose he wouldn't be doing it in S5. He has a firm idea of what type of Uni course he's looking at and wants to do Maths, English, History, Biology and Chemistry at Higher. His plan is to skooosh all his Highers in S5 and have loads of free time in S6 for Advanced Highers in the Sciences and a couple of extra Highers for fun. (Good to have a plan, how realistic that plan is we'll see.) So it's only for a year. My degree is modern languages including French and I would be able to help with French, not with Design.

And TBH exam passes aren't that important in either of them as it's not something he wants to pursue - my thoughts is that if he's doing well in French it will be easier to secure a pass than it will in a subject he's not as stong in and will require more effort/work.

Sounds very similar to our situation k2p2k2tog - right down to the Modern Languages degree (mine was joint Economics/French).

But beware of a child that is clear about what they want to do. They may change their minds......

Ds had been wanting to do Maths/Physics/Astrophysics for years - and planned his AHs accordingly, with a crash Higher in Modern Studies "for fun". Then over the summer holidays he decided he wanted to do International Law - then on further investigation, International Relations Just as well he'd already started the crash Higher in Modern Studies He still enjoys his 2 AHs (Maths & Physics) though - and one of the courses he's applied to at Edinburgh is "IR and Quantitative Methods" - hoping that his Maths would help him get an offer. (The other Edinburgh application is IR on its own).

I'm also pleased that we forced encouraged him to do his English Higher (which astoundingly is no longer obligatory at many Unis ) as it ensures that he has a good grounding in writing essays and analysing texts.

DS has wanted since he was tiny to do "something medical but not medicine". He has the academic potential for medicine, but definitely not the personality. He's looking towards doing something like Microbiology, Biomedical Science, Immunology. That sort of thing. He does love his history though so we'll see how that pans out in the future.

My degree is Spanish and Marketing - did French through to the end of first year at Uni. He has no interest in following in my footsteps and neither do the others.

My eldest did DandM. I remember him being a bit slow, spending too long on the design and ending up having to go in during study leave to finish things off. I felt the workload was higher than other subjects however this was standard grade (last year of) and it could have changed in national 5. My DS1 enjoyed it saying it was a fun subject and a good break from his other more academic ones. My DD says the same about Art.

Saying that French might be more useful just in case your DS changes his mind on science. My DD is thinking about studying English/History and although not compulsory a few unis have said they prefer a language or a wide range of humanity subjects.

Prettybird makes a good point about changing your mind.

A pass in Nat 5 in a modern language is also apparently a requirement (or at the very least desirable) at some Unis for something like History (iirc, Edinburgh is one - think I saw that on the Uni Applications thread in Mumsnet). Worth checking out.

I'd have liked ds to do D&M or Art (both of which he enjoyed) for Nat 5, but because he was choosing an unusual combination (Physics, Chemistry and PE) which were across the 3 columns that had also D&M and Art, so that wasn't possible. He ended up doing Computing Science as his 8th subject.

We still have the hexagonal wooden marquetry box he made in S2