2026 SQA exams - is there a thread?

[YouBelongWithMe]

I can't see a thread so am starting it!

Last year my DS went through a mix of Hs and AH in S6 and now is finishing first year of uni.

It's now the middle child's turn - she's sitting six Highers in S5, and they're all packed in over about thirteen days! She's totally finished by the 11th.

Can't believe they've come round so fast.

My youngest has said H Chemistry was “miserable”. Still that’s it done and he doesn’t need it for college.

Good for her. But I’ll take the opinion of qualified maths teachers. None of whom have an issue with the paper.

Maybe its precisely because they are qualified maths teachers that they hadno issue with the paper. They will have maths degrees and be educated to a level much higher than nat 5/higher maths.

Whilst they may look at it from the pperspective of a student no one xan deny they are educated to a higher level than the students sitting the exams.

DS2 was not very happy with Nat 5 chemistry. He said he was second guessing everything. He was aiming for A/B but says he thinks he’s done enough to pass. He also got confused about how much extra time he had and I confess I did tell him to take some responsibility.
His exam arrangements with extra time, rooms etc are all stuck on the fridge. I feel bad now though!

Ds said nat5 chemistry was 'good' but the format of the questions was different to what he expected, he said a lot was just reading information which made it easier. I have no idea though. I hope he's done okay as it's one of his strongest subjects but he didn't do much revision.

Design and manufacture tomorrow and he's not done anything for that since Easter school! I'm exasperated with him and sick of the sound of my own voice.

Nat 5 and H chem absolute gift papers. Nothing complex. Many recycled questions from yesteryear. My learners came out bouncing they were so pleased and confident having faced similar problems in class. Open ended on both papers were easy, fair topics.

I work a lot with kids who have extra time. I always talk to them before we start, tell them the length of the exam and what extra time they have, I will also tell them when they are going into their extra time, and then give a 15 minute and 5 minute warning. I invigilated Nat 5 chemistry today and have no idea whether it was a hard paper or not - but there was a lot of reading. A whole long passage about Marie Curie which they had to pick information from sticks in my mind.

@GenieGenealogy how do you become an invigilator? Am thinking I’d quite like to do this when I’m 60.

There was no more reading than any other year. It’s a standard type of question, reading information and answering questions. Those complaining can’t have practiced past papers sufficiently

I think in my case the child I was working with had a reader to read the paper to them - we are not told what the reason is for this arrangement but it's fair to assume dyslexia or similar. It's far harder to retain information when something is read out than when you are reading it yourself. I am not really familiar with papers from other years.

@ElliePhant28 if you're interested, email your local school. They prefer you not to invigilate at schools where you have children or grandchildren, and you can't be more than 20 minutes away driving. Usually what happens is I get an email around November asking if I'm interested for the following year, then they work out how many new people they will need. This time round I will be doing 9 exams, but would have done more had I not had a week's holiday in the middle.

My son did later say the open ended in the H were quite good. He’s had extra time (ASD) for all other exams he’s ever done but didn’t get it for chemistry, and he said he felt it in paper 1, he could have done with it, but paper 2 was fine time wise

As others have said, it matters for Oxbridge applications.

Internally, if a student has struggled with a subject and the school feel they should not be taking the next level (H or AH) the banding can come into play in their reasoning.

Most pupils never need to know.

DD was please with higher chemistry. Glad it’s over as it’s her worst subject apart from English.

You’ve totally missed my point and clearly don’t understand our role as teachers. We know what’s in the course spec. We have extensive knowledge of HOW qualifications Scotland test these skills. And we impart that to our pupils. Not a single maths teacher (nor pupil) has expressed an issue with the paper.

Ds said design and manufacture today went well, but he said he would've really struggled if he didn't also take woodwork. He said that there were questions about joints and things they'd never been taught but he knew if from the woodwork course. His teacher has been off a big chunk of the year and they seemed to focus a lot on folio work.
He got 40/45 for the folio piece so hopefully that can pull him up if the exam wasn't as good as he expected.

Good luck to all doing H History today.

Good luck to everyone doing History today.

Lots of luck to History today. DD has packed this in since maths finished and was still looking at notes this morning! Manifesting votes for women apparently

Just dropped DD off for History too. Also still reading notes in the car and no excuse as English was her last exam. Hoping for Women, 1905 or something else. Hoping it's not Five Giants or another one that I can't remember.

Sending positive vibes across the country and extending to England for GCSE Maths (which I only know about because of the number of 'but the Maths exam isn't until Thursday' comments on FB posts about the Maths Higher 😂). 🤞🍀

DS just texted. Said Higher history went very well.

So pleased for her! Another biggie over! No word yet!

Thanks. hope your DC got on ok

DD is very happy and relieved. Paper 1 was a ‘godsend’ and paper 2 okay, just one sticky question on push factors so just flipped what she knew on pull?

another one with a DD praying for a question on votes for women, albeit only at Nat 5 level. She did her assignment on this, which was declared ‘perfect’ by her history teacher, so would be very happy if it came up in the exam.

Ahhh is Nat5 this afternoon? Sending lots of good luck! Last year there was an awkwardly worded question that lots got stuck on, including DD so she skipped the whole question and still got an A, just in case yours comes out worried!