2020 Scottish NAT5 Exams support thread

[BrokenWing]

17 weeks to go and ds(15) will be sitting his first exams. I am swinging between relax you have plenty of time and OMG only 17 weeks until the real thing and during that time you have a whole load of portfolios and assessments to complete too!! Do we need to find a tutor for English! How are you going to remember everything for Modern Studies! Do you need more revision guides, folders, notepads and coloured pens! What do you mean you've already started your PE portfolio in class without studying anything for it! ……………..and breathe.

Honestly I know I shouldn't show it to ds and I am not that bad, but sometimes feel it inside!

ds has already sat all, bar one, prelim in the two weeks before the Christmas holidays so we have had a week off everything. His best subjects are maths and science, thinks he did ok in maths, but found physics and chemistry hard. Modern and English (anything that needs writing) doesn't come naturally, he studied hard before the exams (well, crammed 14 hours in at the last minute in the weekend before modern!) so fingers crossed.

French prelim is the 2nd week back so I need to start cajoling him soon to start revision for that during the next week.

Has everyone else completed their prelims and waiting for results or is your Christmas break being overshadowed by frantic studying for prelims in January? 📚

Agree drop out rate us massive in AH. In DDs top 10 league table school one third of AH english have dropped out so far. AH maths a bit less about 20% since the start of year probably because those considering physics and engineering need it. Her OU YASS course started off with six and she is the only one left. Huge waste of money. I am a big fan of uni from S5 (or a year at a college if you are not mature enough). I think secondary schools can't provide everything.

Sorry @Lidlfix sides was the wrong word to use my apologies. Clerk my only experience of young people who went to uni in s5 was 30 years ago and a whole lot dropped out. May have changed now though. And you are right the thread has been derailed so I won’t comment again.

@Lidlfix the thread was intended as a support thread but the slight tangent is relevant and interesting as we are all not only thinking about those exams starting in April but also the next steps, filling in option forms for S5 and thinking beyond that to make sure the choices we make now give them the best chance of success and doesn't close off any future options, whatever path they take. As a parent and a teacher you have a more holistic view of education provision.

If ds decides to do AH and needs to travel to another school for provision then we need to work that out, I'd be more concerned if there were timetable clashes with Maths AH at his school and Chemistry AH at another and he missed a period or more of either making it impractical. A placement request to a school that does both is a better option I hadn't considered.

We have 3 super/campus schools in our large town (think originally there were 5 separate secondaries), one is a football academy. It would be fantastic if another took up the role of an AH hub.

I certainly don’t mind discussion of the years beyond Nat 5 As I said before I myself did O and A Levels in England way back in the 80s. There is no direct correlation in the exams or not enough of one for me to get my head round. I feel it’s incredibly pressured with exams in S4, then exams in S5 and then exams in S6 rather than exams in the 5th year then 2 years of study (a whole year exam free!) then exams in the 7th Year (or Upper 6th as it was called in my day). It seems that there’s less time to do the curriculum and learn - before you’re into revision for Prelims and then exams. I know it’s all changed completely in England too since I did my exams and there’s all the SATs pressure and nonsense too. And the conversation above about doing AHs then dropping them because they’re not really needed and going off to Uni after S5 - It’s all quite confusing. I’m really grateful to hear more about what’s on the horizon because I still don’t understand it

@lidlfix So your point is about economies of scale and not that some courses are intrinsically more worthwhile or valuable than others ? Thank you for explaining.

I’m sorry if you are not happy with the examples I used. But our school doesn’t offer Sound Production as a vocational course and as I said earlier, Psychology is taught in the school so they don’t have to go to college.

They do have to travel elsewhere for AH physics as there’s not enough demand to make a class.

The cake decorating course is very popular, lots of the pupils are doing it.

These were all just random examples and you seem to have read something into it that wasn’t there. In fact my own 6th year is doing a vocational course that is none of the above.

Sharon perhaps if you hadn't used such polarised examples of subjects alongside "that's a bit rubbish" then your tone would not have been open to a negative interpretation. But you seem unwilling to see that.

Apologies for contributing to the derailing. Actually thought I was posting on another thread. I will not post here again.

I’ve already told you why I chose these examples. And I’m sorry if my casual language isn’t up to your teacher standards.

I don’t know why you are trying to make an issue of this and pick a fight. I’ve no interest in arguing about whatever it is you want to argue about.

I just came here to get some support/ advice about helping my child through their exams. However I’ll sod off now ( as we common people say ).

anyhoo.....

Chemistry and Physics assignments should be completed today/Monday for us. Next biggie for this weekend is submission of first draft of persuasive essay for next week. ds has it all planned that he'll do it while I'm visiting my mum on Sunday (think he is just avoiding visiting his gran!)

Parents evening next week for us too. From his report card I'm looking forward to being told he gets caught up in immature behaviour/distracted in class in at least 3 subjects.

Oh crap! In the last 3 years we've had a joint Nat5/Highers thread as they don't have defined year groups or ages.

I'll bow out. As Ds is sitting Highers 😳😳

Oh @Groovee, didn't know there was a precedent for threads to cover all exams!! Stay here if there isn't a highers thread.

Will I ask MNHQ if they will change the thread title?

I've been following this threat for a bit, not as a parent of an S4/5/6 child (my son is only S1) but as a Scottish teacher.

I was wondering if you could tell me how much input your kids have had/are getting in terms of efficient, evidence-based methods of revision and study? I'm going to actively teach this to my senior class but am contemplating putting on something school-wide so that learners are using their time effectively when (if?!!?!) studying.

Is this something you/your children would welcome?

In ds's school they have had 2-3 of sessions on study techniques in PSE, and they also had one parents information session after school for parents. Both were very ineffective. The class based ones he didn't get much out of, teacher just spoke at them. The evening ones for parents were split into different sessions in different classrooms that we moved around in, were very disjointed and there were some gems of info in there briefly mentioned (which we picked up on as we had done already so recognised) but easily missed by most.

The only good thing from the session was they had some successful students bring in their real study notes/mind maps/revision cards that we could look at, but we only got 2 minutes then got shuffled to the next session. It would have been good as parents to have been able to stop and have a good look and ask the students questions about their revision.

The problem I think with study techniques is every student is different in how they learn effectively, and on top of that every subject is different - some subjects lend themselves to revision cards, others more to mind maps. Until each student tries out different techniques on different subjects they wont know which is working for them and what isn't. This takes time, the parents session we had was one week before the prelims 🤦‍♀️ Giving out leaflets with disjointed hints and tips just doesn't bring it to life. I got ds a couple of study guides and he couldn't get into them either.

Really students should be starting working out how to study well before they really have too. ds and I worked this out for NAT5 between Easter and Summer last year when his NAT5 course was just starting, we spent a good 3-4 hours on it, watching a few study related youtube videos (mainly Thomas Frank who he liked) and play/paused through them taking notes of things to try.

We bought the stationary he needed for what he wanted to do - lots of notebooks, graph paper, folders, pens, A3 paper, ring binders etc, sorted out where to study, where to store his mountain of 'stuff', looked into and bought revision guides for each subject etc.

Then he started trying some of the different techniques, length of sessions, number of sessions, revision cards/note taking styles/mind maps/recording (for French talking) and worked out for each subject which technique(s) worked best for him. Once he had a good grasp of how to study he was a lot more productive and organised.

It worked for us because it was 1-1 and specific to him and his subjects and we went through a try it, reflect on it, improve it/ditch it cycle a couple of times for each subject. I have no idea how you could deliver something effect to a group of students with individual learning styles without boring them to death (this is what happened in ds's PSE classes).

Whilst of course there will be variances, the point of evidence-led practice is that it's based in what has been proven most effective for large sample sizes.

Cognitive psychology points to specific practices being most effective - interleaving, spaced practice, retrieval practice (ideally all three combined). It's not so much mind maps Vs flashcards as using what we know about the brain to utilise time and energy most efficiently.

My older son may have had the odd 'how to revise session'with his guidance teacher but nothing particularly useful. Parents were not involved in this at all.

I remember my son literally lying on his bed intermittently reading revision guides (no note taking) with some sneaky Netflix for his Nat 5s (he got all As).

He took his Highers more seriously and reworked lots of essays. No flash cards at all.

For his Advanced Highers (essay subjects again) he wrote and rewrote lots of essays and worked really hard (8-10 hours a day towards the end).

He ended up with As across the board and is now studying law at Oxford. It did help that his memory is better than average though.

There are lots of ways to revise and although his way was successful, it wouldn't suit all.