Subject choices already

[Sewbean]

DS is in S2 and has had his first chat about choosing his subjects for S3 and 4. I am so behind the times with all this, I need to get my head around it all. He's a worrier so he will be stressing about it already.

He has the option of 7 nat5s. I think he will manage that if he puts some effort in.
Maths and English seem to be the only definites in his school. I would think a language is a must, but apart from that? A science?

My instinct is to advise him to take things he enjoys. It seems to me that the people I have come across in life, the subjects they have studied and even in many cases he degree they have, are not directly related to what they have ended up doing.

I guess the exceptions to this would be anything medical where you will definitely need sciences. Other than that where else does your choice of nat5 subjects limit you?

Is it a bit naive of me to say to pick what you love? I know dh will think quite differently to me and want him to pick quite academic things. He followed a very traditional path of maths, accounting, economics sort of subjects at school, an accountancy degree, then became an accountant.

Or nowadays do you need a degree that relates very specifically to a job? And do you need to set yourself on that path quite early on?

I am in denial a bit that I have reached this point in being a parent already. Are there any good places to read, good discussions to learn about, to try and help me understand how the world works nowadays? I've been in the same job for years and am really happy there so totally out of touch.

If you think that Highers, taken at 16, are the equivalent of A'levels, taken 2 years later, you are deluded. Take a look at the syllabi for French Higher and French A'level. There is absolutely no comparison.

We’ve definitely had this argument before. No one is saying Higher is the same as an A level. What is being said is that an A level if you want to draw comparisons between the two systems sits between a higher and an advanced higher. Even then comparisons are difficult as the focus and desired outcomes are very different. The Scottish exams are designed to feed into the 1st year of tertiary education in Scotland. If you want to go elsewhere then advanced highers are desirable but not always mandatory.

Personally the breadth offered at the senior stage in Scotland imo is one of the best things about the Scottish system.

Who has said Highers are the Equivalent of A-levels? Nobody. Prettybird quite rightly said that Highers are roughly equivalent to an AS level, but that those are rarely taken in England. And even that;s not strictly true as a A at AS level is 20 UCAS points and an A at Higher is 33 UCAS points.

The only one using the word "equivalent" is you, Pamper. The rest of us are well aware that it's impossible to draw exact comparisons because of the differences in schooling and the different ages of the students.

What IS true is that Universities make their offers based on Higher grades and not Advanced Highers. Most students take 5 Highers so their education is broader for longer. Some might ask for an Advanced Higher grade as a condition and (shock, horror) an Advanced Higher at A is the same UCAS points as a A-level at A*!

But you just carry on with your chip on your shoulder about how your poor deprived child is being kept back and is getting a second rate education and how much better things are under the English system.

and sorry for shouting but LOTS OF CHILDREN ARE 17 WHEN THEY TAKE THEIR HIGHERS NOT 16.

For FUCK'S sake.

I went to Uni directly from 5th year and was only 16 at the time (was 17 a couple of months later). Still got into pubs ok! Graduated when I was 20.

Dd and ds will be 16 when they sit their highers as their birthdays are november/october

But deferred children whose birthdays are Jan/Feb and the older ones born March - May will be 17.

Pamper keeps parroting that children are 15 when they sit their NAt 5s and 16 when they do their Highers because her child is in the younger half of the year. The rest of us know it doesn't apply to everyone ;-)

Have you even read a word we've said ? Highers are sat between the ages of 15 and 17. The very youngest might be 15 but most will be 16 and many 17. In S5.

....and BTW: my degree, at St Andrews, was in French. I can remember wondering WTF the English students did with their extra year, as despite doing more subjects for less than a year (including Prelims), I was on a par with the level they'd got to, at least for language . The only difference was that I hadn't studied French literature in depth, but literature is literature in any language and I was very good at English

...and yes, I was 17 when I took my Highers in S5: April birthday, so at the older end of the year.

And anyway, no-one is claiming Highers are equivalent to A Levels. What we are saying, but you have fingers in your ears, is that Highers are not the equivalent of GCSEs. If a young person wants to do an A Level equivalent, they can do the higher scoring in UCAS Advanced Higher.

I can see that others have also been shouting . But I doubt that pamper will choose to hear. She certainly didn't the last time that this was pointed out to her, under a different name.

I've looked at Higher French and Gcse French. They are similar.

OK Pamper. You're right.

UCAS and everyone else is wrong.

And the point I've made about some of the top Scottish private schools, is that when they offer both Highers and Gcses, at the same age, the bright kids are told to take Gcses and the non-academic kids are encouraged to take Highers. Because doing the usual number of Highers is easier than doing the usual number of Gcses.

How can someone who professes such expertise in the education system be so fucking dim?

Answers on a postcard, if you can do joined up writing given your shitty Scottish qualifications.

Pamper, which private schools offer highers as an alternative to GCSEs? That makes no sense - for a start, you would do GCSEs in S4 and highers in S5. I know one private school where they do GCSEs instead of nat 5s and then go on to higher and the advanced highers, and a few where they use the English system (but as far as I know only the boarding schools, which tend to be very international). Most private schools just use the Scottish system.

So your analysis is based on one subject ( but UCAS disagrees) and anecdotal statements about private schools. You must be right.

All those poor disadvantaged Scottish kids. Those of us who have DC that have made it through the system and are doing very well must also have it wrong. And let’s not debate all the different exam boards in the English system that can’t even equalise standards between themselves.

And age is wrong!! There is a mismatch of ages between the two systems!

Highers are a one year course taken in the 5th year of high school. I was just about 17 when I did mine. My son will be 17 when he does his and 18 if he does any advanced highers

Now we know that she is trolling us, with the "less academic do Highers while the rest do GCSEs"

Ds had one friend who did indeed do 1 GCSE at his private school (just the crappy Glasgow Academy, not one of the "top" private ones ) - alongside his Nat 5s - but iirc, it was something like Fine Art, which the SQA doesn't do and it was something he was particularly interested in, as he wanted to be an architect.

Haven't read the whole debate but if you forget the age for a minute and focus on the year, Nat 5s and GCSEs are sat in year 11. Highers are sat in lower 12. A levels and AHs in upper 12.

So I googled the poshest/most expensive boarding schools I could think of. Fettes, Gordounstoun and Glenalmond. The first two offer a purely English curriculum.

Glenalmond does GCSE. Then children in the 6th form have a choice. And I quote:

"Glenalmond oers two routes of study, A Levels and Highers, which are both studied over two years."

and

"A Levels and Highers are considerably more demanding than GCSEs and will require much more private study and background reading."

They must have it all wrong too.

It's in my dd's best interests for everyone to think that Scottish pupils leave school at the same (or some people say higher) level as English pupils, despite leaving school a year early and being less pressured. So rock on.
In other news, we know a lot of teenagers in Italy and Spain, and the schools make them work so much harder than here. Not saying whether that's good or bad, but expectations are very different.

You can be 16 or 17 when you do highers. My dd will be 16. If in England, would take gcses at that age.

We should leave Pamper to her delusions. Nothing is going to convince her otherwise The rest of us .... and UCAS .... and the Unis know that she's wrong

Fortunately she is not the one making the Uni offers

I wonder if Aberdeen Uni knew, when they offered ds an Unconditional that he'd "only" done Highers and that even the one "relevant" subject that he was crashing, alongside side his 2 Science based AHs, was "only" a Higher.

And I must be a bloody genius to have done well at St Andrews after "only" having done GCSE "Higher" French.

You're all wrong, I can't get my head around the mismatch in intakes into P1, UCAS don't know what they're on about.

Crack on Pamper. You haven't a clue.

The system was better in your day, Pretty.

There's no point trying to explain to her the difference in age ranges. It has been explained many times, but she doesn't seem to be able to read be capable of understanding.