Higher and Nat 5s together

[Bluepeach]

My child has just started in a Scottish secondary school, moving from an English curriculum school. They are doing Higher but in a couple of subjects there are Nat 5 and Higher students in together. It is too soon to make any kind of judgment on this but wondered if anyone else can share their own experiences of this happening, and whether it should be cause for concern or not. Thanks!

I've had a DC doing a Nat5 in S5 and most of the class were doing Higher. Seemed to work fine and teacher set different levels of work, but I guess it depends on the subject.

It's not uncommon in small schools or in schools where not many are taking Highers so there's not enough to fill a class. One thing that might concern me is level of disruption, depending on demographics of the school. IME there's less disruption in class by the time they get to Higher as it's generally kids who want to be there and have more of a focus.

I've also had DC doing an AH where teacher was teaching 2 different subjects in the one class. Again it was fine but there is obviously a lot more personal study in AH.

In my subject (English) bi level classes are the norm and the courses work fine together. They have been designed to, SST (Scottish Set Text) aspect has a selection that are bi level for this situation. However, I know from colleagues in other subjects that the course don't all dovetail and the content can be totally different making N5/Higher classes nigh on impossible- doesn't stop some leadership team from forcing it though.