What is hardest time - national 5s or highers?

[Clarissalarissa]

DD wants to study a couple of subjects that are not available at her school - we are thinking of her doing distance learning for them and taking the exams at an exam centre somewhere. She would either take them as highers or as GCSEs (most likely GCSEs, as I can't find anywhere that offers them as distance learning highers).
She would do this on top of taking the usual 7 or 8 national 5s in S4, and then 5 highers in S5. As 2 year courses.
She is academic and motivated. But I'm wondering when would be the best time to take these extra subjects. Are children more stretched in S4 or in S5? If she wants to continue with 1 or both of these subjects at S6 level (would consider moving school for this), would her having done them a year early, and maybe having done GCSE rather than higher, be likely to cause problems for the new school or at university level? Obviously, she may not want to take one of these subjects at uni level, but is very keen on them at the moment.
Any thoughts welcome.

What are the subjects? Not always necessary to do lower qualifications in a subject to pick them up straight at Higher in S6 or even as Uni subjects.

It is possible to crash Highers in S6: ds is crashing a Modern Studies Higher, having dropped it at the end of S2. Someone else is crashing an AH in Graphic Design or Communication (but he is very clever ).

But going back to your question: according to ds (who did 8 Nat 5s), S4 was easier than S5 (with 5 Highers) - but that you don't realise this till after the event . He's now in S6 doing 2 AHs (Maths and Physics) and the crash Higher. He wanted an "easy" 6th year so that he could do more rugby coaching and training.

They are languages. She is really into them now (has visited those countries and made friends), so I think it would be good for her to start studying grammar etc now, and take exams in S4 or S5, rather than putting it off till S6. Plus, she may want to do one or both of them as advanced highers in S6. She seems to be quite lingustic - picks up languages very easily - so I could imagine her wanting to take them at uni level.

I thought that S4 year might be easier than S5 year. Would there be an issue with her having taken gcses in those languages in S4, if she then wants to take them as advanced highers and poss at uni? Would unis recognise the gcses, taken a year before her highers?

Agree. I've 3 DC and S4 definitely easier than S5. However 8 national 5 and 2 other subjects would have been too much for my lot even for my motivated/hard-working DD. My DCs school allows crash highers in S6 without even a national 5 in the subject - they are encouraged to get a national 5 revision book and work thru this over the summer - quite a few crash physics. They also allow you to switch social sciences e.g. History to Modern Studies or History to Geography in S5 as long as you have A/B in another social science. They also allow switch from Art to Graphic Communication and vice versa. Just wondering whether it's really necessary.

But if they don't offer the subject, you can only take it outside of school. The question is whether to take an exam in it, to enable you to study it at a higher level later, and if so when to take the exam. If DD did well in the distance learning gcses, she could then in theory do distance learning A'levels (though would probably be hard going), or possibly transfer to private school for 6th form - our local private school offers these languages. Or she could just learn them informally with online lesson, and study different subjects at advanced higher and uni.

It depends on the language: I started Russian from scratch at Uni, which involved making it two out of the three first year subjects. Those of us who did that found it tough. We also had to do a summer school between first and 2nd year at UEA (which was actually quite good).

I was also accepted to do Italian from scratch (can't remember if that was at Leeds or Aberdeen - think it was Leeds).

Some schools allow you to study a subject that they don't offer at a local college in S6 and will timetable to support you to do so.

Unless it's a Uni that offers a language from scratch, I don't think a GCSE or Nat 5 in that language will help. Better to concentrate on getting really good results in her "core" Nat 5s and Highers.

You can also do OU language and literature courses in S6. I suspect these are below the level of a higher
www.open.ac.uk/scotland/study/young-applicants-schools/what-can-i-study.

My DD asked at an Glasgow university open day about languages from scratch. They said if you had a good pass in another language and you were willing to work then it was definitely doable to pick up one another language from scratch. However they didn't recommend two languages from scratch.

To do it at uni, she would need to do it at advanced higher or A'level. But a GCSE or higher would be a stepping stone to that. At the moment, her understanding is good, but she knows very little grammar. So I'm thinking of the distance learning course as guiding her with the grammar, and giving her a qualification. Would also be important if she took that language in 6th form, as the unis look at the gcse or higher results.
6th form would be a problem - unless we could afford to send her to private school just for S6, where she could do advanced highers in both languages if she wanted.
Another option might be her studying a different subject at uni, but studying in one of those countries. To do that, she would need to have reached quite a high level, but wouldn't need to have passed Scottish or English exams in the language.

A language from scratch at uni would not be ideal for her - she has a pretty good understanding of both languages already, just by picking it up really. She seems to absorb vocab from nowhere. I can imagine her becoming fairly fluent pretty quickly. But the writing is an issue, as she hasn't really done any.
I actually don't think that she would find doing exams in those subjects too much of a challenge - but there might be logistical issues, with clashing exam dates.
I think I will look at her taking the exams in S4. Then keeping the languages up and considering options for S6.

Some private schools allow local state pupils to study one or two languages at AH free in S6 - helps their charity status - I think my daughter's French/Spanish teacher did this at Hamilton College.

Are you sure that you need AH/A Level to study a language at a Scottish uni? Unless its changed from my day you generally could join an accelerated beginners class for a year (or maybe two) but end up with the same honours degrees as those with prior experience.

I'll look into the accelerated class, tt, thank you.

I studied French (alongside my Russian from scratch) at St Andrews, having just done Highers (went after 5th year). The only thing I struggled with initially was studying French literature, as I hadn't had to do that for my French Higher, but as I was good at English, I just transferred the skills I had learnt in literary analysis for my English Higher to French. Once I'd got my first essay under my belt (analysis of a Baudelaire sonnet, iirc), for which I got a really good mark even though I felt I was making some of the analysis up , it gave me confidence going forward.

Ive never heard of a Scottish uni asking for an AH in a specific language to do it at uni.

I had been thinking of her taking GCSEs by correspondence course in both languages. It's not currently possible to take highers by correspondence course. A GCSE wouldn't be enough to get her into any uni, presumably.
I've also checked on the school website for what they do at higher and advanced higher. According to that, there are almost no subjects that go to advanced higher level, and no languages at all. In fact there only seem to be about 3 subjects that you can study at Advanced Higher level, and they're not subjects that she's expressed an interest in.
So this rules out any possibility of her going to uni outside of Scotland I suppose. Would have been nice to have a choice.
I'm now thinking that GCSEs are probably not the best exams in terms of learning to communicate in a foreign language. I think that I will look into her taking the exams that the foreign countries use, eg for people who need to show that they are good enough at the language to attend university there. With lessons from native speakers over Skype.

5 Highers, standard for Scottish S5 give more UCAS points than 3 A levels and are accepted in English Unis and Internationally. Not sure why you are not discussing directly with the school? Our school used to not offer Higher languages but had a consortium arrangement with the local college. It also has consortium arrangements with cluster schools for Advanced Highers.

I will raise it at parents meeting. The English unis I have briefly looked at require 3 advanced highers, they are not interested in highers.

Why are you only looking at English unis?

Schools often have arrangements with local colleges to do subjects that they don’t offer themselves.

My DD had to change schools in S6 to do the AHs of her choice- it happens. Sadly, in times of cutbacks and staffing issues AH can be viewed as a luxury not a priority. Remember strong AH passes can lead to 2nd year degree entry in some cases (like A Levels). I don't think a school will commit to commenting on availability of AHs in a speculative way - it could come back to bite.

We're not looking at unis at all yet, too early. I would certainly hope that she would look at Scottish unis, especially if they are still free at that stage. But that's a limited choice.

Well, as teacher, admittedly not a languages one, you seem to be overcomplicating this rather a lot! I’m not sure why you’re talking about GCSEs if you’re in Scotland. At Scottish unis, you can study virtually all arts courses without even having done a NAT5 in your chosen subject! So you could do French, for example, without a French NAT5!

If you have 4/5 As at higher level, unis do not care what they’re in. AHs are not required unless you want 2nd year entry, but from what I’ve heard this may have more negatives to it than positives. At my school, we do all the common AHs (English, maths, chemistry, biology etc.) but for others, pupils can travel to cluster secondary schools to do less common ones.

QI - if you can study modern languages at university without having done the languages concerned even at Nat5 level, surely the standard in the language (and also in literary criticism, etc, which people do at A'level and can form a big part of a language degree) must be very low for a degree course? In England you are required to have the language at A'level, with a good grade, unless you are specifically starting it from scratch (some unis allow you to start one language from scratch, if you are studying another that you have a good A'level in).
This would really put me off doing a language degree in Scotland, but it sounds as though DC's choices will be very limited, as her school offer so few Advanced Highers, which are needed to get into an English university.

I was looking at doing GCSE on a home education basis, because you can't do that with Scottish qualifications, which seem to have a course work element to them at the moment, though I think that may be being phased out.
But as I said, I think we will go with using the TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) type exams (for the relevant languages, obviously), as this is a much better way of actually becoming able to communicate in a foreign language, in my experience. DC may then have the option to study in one of those countries.
DC certainly won't then want to do the language at Scottish uni, as the level will be too low for her, unless she could jump in after the 1st year, as English students do.
I find the idea of doing a course at uni without having done any preparation work at school really weird. Is the finish level as good as it is in an English uni, where for instance students will have learned French for 7 years before doing it at uni, including specialising in it for 2 years in 6th form?

"Although entry requirements for modern language degrees vary, students will certainly need to demonstrate a strong interest in other languages and cultures. Having gained a prior qualification (such as an A-level) in a foreign language will no doubt aid your application, but this is not typically a requirement."

www.topuniversities.com/courses/modern-languages/guide

Not necessarily Clarissa - it is just very hard work! When I did Russian from scratch at Uni , we were expected to have caught up with those that had done A Levels by the start of 2nd year: a combination of having an intensive course - "Russian from scratch" took up two of the three 1st subjects that you had to do in 1st year (I was doing it as a joint degree with French, so French was my other subject - which I did alongside English students who had A Levels, whereas I "just" had a Higher - but was still expected to work at the same standard as them) and we had to go to --and pass- a 2 (or was it 3?) week intensive summer school at UEA between 1st and 2nd year.

NB: we were in the same class from the start for things like Russian history , politics and history of the language which I enjoyed .

The "beginners" did still struggle in 2nd year as it took us much longer to read books in Russian - but over time we got quicker! and/or read them in translation (for example, I managed to read Chekhov in the original Russian but struggled with Dostoevsky's "Crime & Punishment" ) Those of us who continued on to Honours got good degrees (but did have to sacrifice a lot of "normal" Uni life to get those books read ) and you couldn't tell the difference by the end between the "beginners" and the "A" Level students. (I actually changed course and ended up doing a joint Economics/French MA, so I don't count ).

A friend who chose to do Mandarin at an English Uni had a similar experience.

Re SQA exams, I think that this is the last year of "NABs" (at least, so ds tells me), so that is one bit of the SQA process that makes home presentation for exams difficult taken out of the equation.

I'm going to guess you are not Scottish? You seem to have rather a dim view of Scottish education. It's wonderful to be supportive of your DC but if they haven't even reached S4 they may well change their mind. Many young people find S4 & 5 stressful enough without having additional exams to do outside school.