MSPs are to investigate whether teenagers have a wide enough choice of subjects at school.

[WaxOnFeckOff]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-47108135?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Ftopics%2Fcdl8n2edgggt%2Fscotland-education&link_location=live-reporting-story&fbclid=IwAR3NwwavSE1_BlVVBSKbFuQwN3g1pUK2ELZddBNqkDZVMHFwpfv4AOqLOgo

This has been an oft discussed topic on here so thought this might be off interest...

Popular topic in staff-rooms too Wax. Frustrates us hugely when year after year kids are shoehorned into unsuitable subjects or levels due to "staffing" or timetable issues.

Curriculum design has not kept up with the times.

Surprised that there wasn't more explicit reference to lack of consistency re number of Nat5s to be undertaken, but it always does.

It just doesn't seem fair Lidl. It's a postcode lottery for a lot of DC and the way things have been implemented also means that it's not a level playing field for them. All DC have different academic capabilities, interests and aspirations but there is often not a facility to get a programme that suits them. I really feel that we have failed a generation and it's really sad. I can only guess at the frustration teachers feel but appreciate the frustration that parents feel. At least I'm on the last leg now. only about 6 weeks or so of school left for us now....eek!!

6 weeks and you're done. Mind you I'm starting to look at S5 options for DD4 whilst DD1 was given an informal offer for her post grad today. Where does time go?

I see the amazing construction facilities at some schools or the NAT5 Admin, Nat 5 Retail that others offer and rage (inwardly) at my dyslexic DCs being forced into carrying on a MFL till end of S4. My Dsis is a MFL teacher so, believe me, I know the value of a language but 2 D passes at Nat5 doesn't really feel valuable to them!

Centralise AHs (which in my view are a luxury) and focus on offering alternative pathways and broadening Nat4,5 and Highers. Well if I ruled the world that's what would happen.

Well done to DD1!

I'm not sure when they actually break up on exam leave as easter falls strangely this year. I think they might be back for the Mon- Thurs after the easter fortnight? No idea yet. I'm changing my hours come April as I won't need to provide transport to school any more, though it's been a bit less anyway as both DSs now driving (but sharing a car)!

It's the lack of flexibility that I find most frustrating and yes, the jealousy at options available in other schools. To be honest, in retrospect, I think 7 Nat 5s wasn't good for DS2. He is definitely academic enough but his brain just can't cope with that many differing pulls on his time. He would have been better doing less but we didn't know that at the time. There has to be a better way of organising it but I'm not holding my hands up to do that. I'm not bashing individual schools here either. It's a hard job.

I think there should be fewer super schools who draw from a wider catchment that offer a wider range of highers and advanced highers.

All dcs should be able to do any highers they want.

Subjects I loved and was good at at school haven’t been available.

It’s really holding dcs back forcing them to do subjects they hate.

I feel very lucky in that my kids are in a large school with an annual intake of 210. Their school is able to offer a wide range of subjects to Advanced Higher level. Kids are also sent in taxis to other schools locally to accommodate choices - exactly the same as in my schooldays in Edinburgh where there 2 of us wanting to do SYS German and 2 from a local RC school who came to join us for classes.

The real concern is the children only being allowed 5 or 6 subjects at Nat5. It's not enough.

As per usual, it all comes down to money. The government will have their "consultation", listen to what everyone has to say, and then change nothing.

Centralise AHs (which in my view are a luxury) and focus on offering alternative pathways and broadening Nat4,5 and Highers. Well if I ruled the world that's what would happen.

I'd vote for this.

my DD starts high school in August and her school has subject choices in S1, S4 then I think again in S5

Looking at this year's S1 option form, just to give me an idea, the final column has 13 subjects to choose from! Whereas the others are the usual science, arts/tech, MFL etc with just 2 or 3 choices.

I like the Irish system. For the Leaving Certificate - final exam at second level the pupils do 6 subjects ( that can be counted for college/ university).
Some do up to 8, 9 or even 10 subjects - the brightest.
It gives a broader education I think.
You can specialise at third level.

I'd like to see a wider and more certain choice of AH. You really need to know, even when choosing Nat5s, which subjects are available at AH level. All the key subjects should be available, in my view. Scotland is currently part of the UK, and I think that children should be in a position to go to an English etc Uni if they want to. Which will often mean needing to study 3 AHs. And I think that studying at a higher level than Higher should be an option. And to be honest I'd like to see a 2 year 6th form - a real 6th form experience, with time to study in depth, and to do the extra stuff like leadership.
And if you're one of the many children who live outside of the cities, it's not practicable to go to a different school to study a subject. Even if you live in a city, it's not very practicable and wastes time.
I don't really understand why English schools can offer so many subjects at all levels, and Scottish schools can't.
To complete my wish list, I'd like there to be an emphasis on challenging every child, rather than the current emphasis on equalising outcomes (different topic I know). Scotland needs every child to be leaving school having done the best they can.

The English system is different because most kids leave school after gcse and go to 6th form college to do a levels whereas they stay in school in Scotland.

Those schools that offer Alevels have a far wider choice than the choice of AHs ( and often Highers) here though.

Iirc, your dd is at a private school tonsills - albeit a prestigious one.

Often the private schools don't have the size or numbers to offer a wide range of AHs despite the vast amounts of money paid out

Ds' old school pretty much offered AHs in any subject that pupils wanted to do, having done the linked Higher (although I do know of some pupils who crashed AHs - ds just crashed a Higher alongside his 2 AHs).

On occasions, the school has collaborated with the local private school to offer a wider range of subjects or to share resources/work together (and no, don't assume it was the state pupils going to the private school ) . Pupils will also go to local colleges if required.

Admittedly, this was/is a large and successful school, with just about all pupils proceeding from S4 to S5 and c80% going on to S6 (over 160 in ds' 6th year) , so it has the numbers to do this. The school also encourages a lot of leadership and extension activities in both S5 and S6, with, for example, large numbers doing Bronze, Silver and Gold Duke of Edinburgh. School isn't just about exam results: it's about developing the right skills fr when you leave school, to be able to cope with work, college or university.

Other Glasgow schools can go to Glasgow Caledonian to do AHs as a "cluster project" (don't know much about it as ds' school wasn't eligible), or will collaborate with neighboroughing schools.

I do agree that this positive experience is very urban-centric and that there are issues with offering an appropriate range of AHs (or even Highers) in less densely populated areas

No, I have a child in state school, and another in private. Was referring to our experience in the state system.

Just had a look at what AHs ds' old school is offering this year. Looks like they are offering at least 11 subjects at AH. The actual subjects will vary year on year, depending on what the young people want to do. There is obviously a much wider range of Highers being studied.

I don't think there's any merit in comparing with English schools as the systems are too different. Selective schools will naturally offer a greater number of A Levels as they have ensured there isn't any cohort whose progression is different.

I think the Glasgow schools/Caley model is fantastic. Surely, this could be adopted in most Urban LAs? Stirling could be based at the Uni or Forth Valley, North Lan has a range of FE colleges etc

Don't get me wrong one of the things I love most about being a secondary teacher is the variety in my day. I could be teaching a great YA novel with fun tasks to S1s then sitting "seminar style" round a table with my AH discussing culture in the Victorian novel. But is that putting the few before the many?

But I'd rather see more breadth for Nat4, Nat5 and Higher. Pupils doing AH have a destination pretty much in mind and are taking the steps they need to get there. We need to look what young people see as their positive destination/ not what a curriculum model created 20+ years ago was constructed to lead them toward.

Foundation apprenticeships, more access to courses like Construction and Admin and progression within these to Higher to allow young people to stay in schools if that's where they choose to be.

I am always being asked to identify pupils who are a risk of not achieving (in a positive way so support and interventions can be put in place) usually it is the same picture across the school for that young person. But come options it'll be 7 subjects of academic courses. We might manage to offer Nat 4 Environmental Science but then in S5 when that pupil would like to try Nat5 Biology they're told that's an S4 course. We could fill classes of Metalwork we don't offer it so pupils who we Nat 4 Maths are shoe horned into Engineering Science Nat5 and flounder.

When I explored removing my dyslexic DCs from the MFL they HAVE to take in S4 the only option was working on their other subjects in the Support for Learning Department (no teacher self directed at 14/15) so 6 subjects basically.

Yet all we hear is The Attainment Gap , oh we must do more to address The Attainment Gap. But when it comes to options and design of senior phase why the emperor's clothes are stunning! And yet again those are very pupils our curriculum models let down

Even in the English system variety and choice in A Levels is deceptive and comes with pitfalls. There are only 8 facilitating subjects which open almost all University courses - Maths, English, 3xscience, History, Geography, MFL. More choice tends to lead to academic students narrowing rather than widening future pathways by selecting against these subjects.

Just looked at our school's S5/6 choices form - there are around 13 choices for AH given in all of the main subjects. But again, we're a massive school. And we're lucky in that there are local colleges offering other subjects - I know of two students who went to a college to study Human Biology (or was it anatomy?) because school only offered regular Biology.

I'd disagree also that Scottish students will definitely need passes in advanced highers to go to an English Uni. I know several who have been accepted on basis of Highers only. Students applying to Oxbridge will be given conditional offers on the basis of AH but it's not a black/white picture.

To be honest, I'm more concerned that some councils think it's OK to limit the number of Nat 5s to only 5 or 6. That's far too early and goes totally against the broad education ethos. Bright kids might be able to crash a Higher in a subject they haven't got a Nat 5 in, but it's not easy for everyone.

We were told, when dd was choosing National 5 subjects, that at AH level the school would probably offer French or Spanish but not both. So you just have to pick one and hope for the best. Similarly, they may offer history or geography but probably not both and possibly not either. Not great for forward planning.

This year ds' school has pupils doing AHs in German, French and Urdu.

They alternate German and Spanish, so when ds started S1, he studied Spanish, so last year it was AH Spanish that was delivered.

They don't have a timetable/choices form per se in advance for AHs as the S5s say what they would like to do and then they build the timetable around that.

I was accepted to an English Uni (Leeds) from S5 - but chose to go to St Andrews instead which is near enough English

Submissions to the inquiry now published here:

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

I had a read at some of them, not exactly a glowing endorsement. From the ones I read (maybe about 50%) there were no positive statements at all. A definite bias from the Gaelic community in terms of the proportion of feedback and I don't necessarily agree with all of their standpoints in terms of the focus that they believe Gaelic education should have, but I don't disagree with their description of the affect this had both on that and in general on education. And of course their view is as right to be heard as mine, and good on them for rallying themselves to reply.

I wonder if these were all the responses and whether people were clear that they would be published in their entirety with their names etc.

This is interesting. DD is making S5 choices and to do the subject she wants, she has to choose between it and Maths. To me, that is such a bad choice - surely pupils should have the option to combine maths with other subjects, not choose maths or a subject (and that is the only option to do that subject). She is in the top maths class, so it is not like it makes academic sense to give it up. It seems bizarre to me.
And then in another column there are only subjects she does not want to do, so she is doing a crash Higher in a subject she has not done at Nat 5.
I think, reading this, the issue is not lack of subjects, the choices just do not work for her very well.

My 2nd DS is just finishing 6th year, neither DS has ever had an options form that suited them. They've always had to compromise, do subjects they didn't want to, work with clashes meaning extra self study, crash subjects when they weren't that keen. I guess it's hard to get something that suits everyone but you'd have thought than 1 time out of 6 it might have worked.

This is what happens when teaching is not an attractive career for graduates. We can look at options choices, curriculum models , senior phase journeys ad naseum but if there are no teachers coming through then it's irrelevant.

Many Computing Science teachers are dual qualified for Maths as there a high Maths content to their degree . Maths and Computing are struggling to recruit nationally.

Where I teach we (perfectly nice school central belt) we have failed to appoint in Maths, Tech, Modern Languages, this year the year before it was English, Art and Physics. The only subjects we had large numbers of applicants for were Social, Biology and PE.

My DD3 had to crash a Higher as there wasn't a single subject that she'd taken at Nat 5 that she liked/had a chance of a good Higher result with. It's a text based subject and Her good English results meant that her school were quite happy with this. DD1 self taught a Higher in S5 ((wasn't crashing it though) as there was a column that offered her one subject from her Standard Grades and she knew she'd never cope with at Higher.

I think narrowing will continue and reducing choices is an underhand way of masking the bigger issue.

But then I have always been surprised that parents in areas where only 6 Nat 5s are sat in S4 are less vocal.