Councils restricting all children to six Nat 5 choices - any push-back from parents?

[OhBuggerandArse]

I'm trying to find out whether there is any organised resistance to the decision by a number of Scottish councils to restrict the number of Nat 5 exams to be taken to 6 per child? I'm very worried indeed about this, not just for my own kids but for the direction of education in general. It is already beginning to have a damaging effect on pupils coming through to HE - I know it is technically possible to do a crash higher in subjects not taken at Nat 5 level, but the disincentive for any
subject with a cumulative aspect (languages, music, etc) is really significant. I can't see any way of getting councils to move on this without significant outcry from parents, and would really like to find out if there are any campaigns already up and running.

Responses to the inquiry now available here - some of them definitely worth a read, they don't hold back!

www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/CurrentCommittees/110962.aspx

Most of the Council responses are pretty disappointing as you would expect, but a lot of the learned societies and subject organisations have made some really good submissions.

I know this is an old thread but I can see that this is something that parents have had an issue with. Didn't realise that children didn't have a choice and had to take only six once upon a time.

As far as I am aware schools can, and still do, choose between 6 and 8 NAT5s for their pupils. Is this something impacting your dc you are concerned about?

No. Some of his friends only sat three or four NAT 5 subjects in S4 and I was wondering why he is sitting 8. Also reading the exam results thread shows everyone else's had passes in seven not eight NAT5s. I was wondering if I had miscounted and losing my marbles 😂

My daughter has just started S3. She is taking 8 subjects just now but in previous years, they had to drop 2 for S4. Every other school in the authority sits 7 Nat 5s. Waiting to see if this will change as there have been rumours around equity. 6 seems far too narrow.

I wouldn't be happy with 6 Nat5s. DC recently took 8, but one of these was worked for at home. Surprised to see that the standard offer to do medicine at St Andrew's a few years ago was only 3 Bs at AH.

St Andrews don’t actually offer an MbCHB course, they offer a 3 years BSc with routes into a medical degree , which takes a further 3 years

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/subjects/medicine/medicine-bsc-a100/

Not all kids have the ability to pass NAT5 exams in S4. So some do NAT4 in S4 which is unit based with no exam or grade just a PASS/FAIL and then sit NAT5 in S5.

Thank you for explaining these things to me. I do have younger children who may not be able to achieve NAT 5s when they attend secondary, so it's good to know that they could achieve NAT 4s instead of need be.