S3 into S4 and beyond...

[SassK]

My daughter is S3. She's chosen her Nat 5 subjects and is doing very well (she's been doing some tests/assessments this week).
I have to admit though, the whole National process has me confused slightly. I think I have (something of!) a grasp of each National level, but would love if someone could give me a brief 'idiot's' guide/breakdown to how each National level (3/4/5/Higher) is conducted/achieved, and at what stage (of each year) relevant levels are in play, through S3 to S6.
Many TIA! 😊

Most pupils sit 7-8 Nat 5 exams at the end of S4, then go on to sit 4-5 Highers in S5 and do either more Highers or Advanced Highers in S6.

Some S4 pupils do Nat 4s if the school feel Nat 5s would be a challenge for them, this is assessed by coursework with no exam.

Pupils can leave school at 16 (ish, there's 2 for.al leaving dates per year) without the requirement to go on to further training/education as is the case in England.

Pupils can go straight to university at the end of S5 (at age 16 or 17) if they have the entrance requirements from their Higher grades, but it's not recommended. Most aiming for uni will stay on for S6 to do further Highers/Advanced Highers.

Thank you 😊 So are Nat 5's stand alone exams in their entirety, or does Nat 4 course work/assessment count towards the Nat 5 qualification? At my daughter's school, they do 5 chosen plus Maths and English.
My daughter has did tests this week in Art and Spanish, she got upwards of 80% on both and says both were Nat 4 level content. Does that sound correct for S3? Many thanks again!

Sounds like she is on track for Nat 5's next year. Some Nat 5's have an element of course work alongside an exam, Spanish for example has a spoken part done ahead of the exam, PE is fully assessed with no Nat 5 exam (or at least that was the case 2 years ago). Your DD's teachers will give you more information on expected progress at parents night

Thank you, thats helpful! Its her parents evening this month, her first in S3, so I wanted to be as clued up as possible!

Most pupils sit 7-8 Nat 5 exams at the end of S4

Lots now do 7 or 8 but officially the Scottish Government say they do the Broad General Education in S1-S3 then do just six Nat 5s in S4. Six is ridiculously few (and can be a detriment to do so few if applying to some competitive university courses in England) so more and more schools are now adopting what your school has and switched to studying Nat 5s from S3.

The Nat 4 and 5 curriculums do overlap but they are not meant to do both, though some children might if the Nat 5 is a bit risky. Nat 4s are non-examined and completed via course work and teacher assessment. Sometimes Nat 4 and 5 don’t align and additional teaching would also be required to teach both. For children on course to achieve a good number of Nat 5s there is no benefit to gaining Nat 4s too. Teachers would be looking for their Nat 5 pupils to achieve Nat 4 standard in S3 in order to be confident to get to Nat 5 but the end of S4.

Nats 1, 2 and 3 also exist though these are generally only taken by those with significant learning disabilities/difficulties and are unlikely to be covered in a mainstream classroom

Also Nat 5 exams are completely at odds with ‘curriculum for excellence’ principles. They are all about rote learning and memorisation. You must answer the questions using the required words, synonyms are not accepted. If anything like French, your DC Spanish exam will consist of her memorising a chunk of pre-written text that she just regurgitates in the exam.

you get grades and exams for N5, Higher and AH but not for N4 or N3

I try to see N3/N4/N5 as being similar to the old foundation/general/credit and that helped me get my head around it.

You normally need N5s to do the Higher.

Grades are A to D though only A to C are generally considered a ‘pass’ and considered by universities. D might still be helpful for college and does show a level of learning. These roughly correspond to percentages: A=70%+, B=60-70%, C=50-60% and D=40-50%. The precise boundaries vary by subject and year. On top of these there are Bands. Bands don’t appear on certificates and you would need to ask school to find out what yours are, school might also report progress by band rather than grade. The only place I have seen them needed is Cambridge University who want band 1 at Advanced Higher:

A = band 1 and 2
B = band 3 and 4
C = band 5 and 6
D = band 7.

The band thing just seems daft though. I think they should either just use them instead or do away with them,

Thanks everyone for all these helpful replies - much appreciated 😊

The bands are mostly for school internal use rather than the pupils. There is a difference for them if most of their students had (for example), a strong B instead of most just scraping a B.