Scottish Secondary - Please help. New National 4/5 how many will your council allow?

[mustdash]

Sorry this is long, but please help if you can.

I expect you'll only know the answer to this if you are a secondary teacher, or have a child currently in S1 or P7. I'll ask anyway, in the hope of getting enough answers to get some idea about how screwed children in Angus are going to be, compared to the rest of Scotland, if not the whole UK.

I discovered yesterday that for the new CfE National 4/5s Angus are only going to permit 5 subjects. I believe that nationally councils are allowed to chose a number between 5 and 8, and that the number they chose will apply to all state schools in their burgh.

I am seriously concerned that if children in Angus can only chose 5 subjects they will be badly disadvantaged in the future career or education market, and feel that S3 is far too young to be narrowing down such serious choices.

My thoughts, still a little random and ill informed are these;-

• one of the main benefits of the "old' Scottish system was that having Highers before CSYS/Advanced Higher/A level was that it gave a broader education, and allowed children the opportunity to go into subjects in some depth before committing to final secondary year or uni. We are now asking children to make these choices 2 years earlier.

• if you chose a subject at the end of S3, and later discover you don't want to/aren't capable of taking it any further, you are already cutting down your Higher options. (Personal experience here, loved O grade Physics, hated hated Higher, and dropped it - fortunately I was lucky enough to be able to pick up a crash higher in another subject)

• academic children will be forced to drop arts subjects in S3, since they won't have the scope to do eg 3 sciences, and music/art.

• fewer children doing "minority" subjects like eg art or music will mean fewer teachers and resources...and that our children will face a narrow and restrictive curriculum - the opposite of what I thought CfE was supposed to achieve.

• Angus council have apparently stated that 5 subjects is sufficient because

a) that's what all the other councils are doing and b) five is the average number of standard/o grade type subject currently being sat by pupils at the end of S4.

Though they clearly have no grasp of how averages work, and seem to think that it is acceptable to apply a lowest common denominator approach to the whole system, I can't believe it is the same everywhere.

Can you please tell me how many subjects your council will be allowing for the current S1/P7 children onwards?

Sorry this is so long, and thanks for reading this far! Any other random thoughts very welcome!

FWIW my old school encouraged the brightest in each year to bypass standard grades and thus taught the higher syllabus over 2 years (i.e. 4th and 5th year). I think all who did this came out with As in those highers (and a real passion for the subjects). Didn't affect university admissions at all (other than having a greater number of As to offer).

This would be the school that is now the first to offer the IB as an alternative to CfE...

hannah - Which school?

Kaumana - George Watson's College, Edinburgh.

Hannah -

Just found this searching for info on new CfE exams - had a meeting at our local school (Ayrshire) last week.

Pupils will be choosing 8 subjects at end of second year, then all follow same course until start of 4th year when decision will be made whether they will follow National 4 or National 5 course.

National 4 will be assessed internally (as mentioned above). There will be no grade - just pass or fail.

National 5 - there will be internally assessed course modules that must be passed (presumably like current NABs) to pass the course as a whole but the grade (A, B, C or D) will be based solely on the performance in the externally marked exam.

We've just had the meeting too, our kids will choose 10! subjects for 3rd year , narrowing down to 8 for fourth year when most will be doing national 5's, then back down to 5 for highers in fifth year. Actually not that different from the status quo apart from compulsory RE and an expressive art in third year.

I was quite relieved as DS1 will not be ready to narrow down his choices at the end of this year.

That's good to know. School I work in the kids are choosing subjects at the end of S1 which I think is too early but I've had no info from dd's school and am going to ask at first parents night this week. Will let you know what the answer is

bump

Hmmm .... so much for following a core course until the end of S3 then choosing!

I think there will be a lot more info emerging in the next couple of weeks. Our school has a meeting this week for parents of S1 +2 (it's a Fife school). I won't be attending as DS3 is in S3 and DS4 is not yet school age, I find the whole thing very disturbing none the less.

The kids who end up doing internally marks exams will be seen to have a second rate exam pass, because it IS second rate.... I'd rather know someone I was interviewing had a 4/5/6 in a national level exam, than a "pass" given by the school.

And for the more academic kids, there is also the issue that if councils across Scotland are going to be deciding on widely different numbers of subjects available and over what time frame (as seems to be the case), how are the universities going to judge which students to offer places to? It is not just Highers they are looking at, Edingburgh and St Andrews both look at the number of SG sat in 1 sitting, and the grades, and a score given based on that, as well as the Highers (first sitting). How will they compare different regions? And will this disadvantage those applying to English universities?

The Highers problem was brought up by several parents at our meeting, I think the fact that our school is fairly academic (compared to some) is one of the reasons that our headie decided to stick to a one year Higher course; to avoid disadvantaging pupils applying to competitive uni's.

oldmum42 - well I guess your DS3 is not at my S2 DD's school, as I don't have a meeting this/next week. [I am in North Fife as well!]

I really object to the fact that many schools appear to be playing the system already, giving pupils a head start on "exam work". But, do the syllabi for these new exams even exist yet!?

Waves to Purple! My DS will be at the other North East Fife school, in the other Market town then!

At My DS3 (3rd year), was made to test run (as he described it), exams/tests for the new curriculum just before October Hols. Was worried about them trying to foist the new system onto the 3rd years as well, but I suppose we would have been invited to the meeting if that was the case.

Wigglybeezer, yes, I think a lot of schools don't know that competitive courses such as Medicine will only count your first sitting of Highers, will not accept resits or taking of 5 highers over 2 years (in 2 sittings) instead of 1, so they are not going to be happy with someone taking 5 highers for 2 years!

Ah, it might be the same school - email about the meeting arrived a few days ago and I misread the date of meeting - it's in a couple of weeks!

The school invite comment from ANY parent, not just those of S1/2 pupils (invite them to the meeting anyway), I would not be able to attend but am wondering if I should email HT with to ask............How will this affect Uni applicants? Because at the moment, some elite courses (and most courses at St Andrews and Edinburgh) stipulate that Highers must be done in one academic year/sitting, and that Standard Grades are used to rank pupils, and that increasingly, these two Scottish Unis are asking for Advanced Highers as well as Highers..... etc.

My DS1 was accepted into a very competitive course at a very competitive English University this year - I wonder if he would have even had a chance of that, under a new system where course structure, and the number of courses offered is going to vary so wildly from Council to Council, I think the Scottish Universities will struggle with that, but the English ones may not bother trying to understand such a fragmented system.

Ha - we never get things by e-mail so I guess it is not the same school. I take it you realise there are 3 secondary schools in North East Fife, though.

Oldmum, I'm guessing you have children at the same school as me. Last one due to start there next year. I'm ashamed to say I'm waiting till they've figured it out enough to put it in a simple email. In addition to the lots of others they are sending out now!

Being raised in England I'm still getting my head around standards and highers

Ah well, If you mean State schools, I do have a vague awareness that there might be a third one a bit further south..... not sure where north Fife ends! :)

Hello CountDuckula, Yes, the "Parentmail" is never ending!

I must find out what my local independent is doing, as far as i know they are going to carry on with much the same timetable of subject choice and exams as the have always done (ie. national 5's in fourth year and highers in fifth same as my kids' comp )but i do know that they are switching to GSCE for Latin and Greek!

Count, there were a few bemused English parents putting their hands up at our meeting, i don't understand standard grades and intermediate 1 &2 because I'm too old to have sat them!

So it turns out East Ren is postponing. I am selfishly incredible grateful.

Anyone want to hazard a guess if the rest will follow?

*incredibly

Bumping this thread to find out if any of you have more information since november.

Turns out that 3rd years at My son's school will choose 10 subjects for 3rd year which they will cut down to eight for 4th year.

I am quite happy about this as some schools do seem to be keeping the number of choices low.

We have an "Information Evening" at the end of this month. It worries me that some schools are obviously going to be starting to cover exam syllabi in 3rd year and some schools are trying to delay the new exams for a year. It is not going to be a level playing field.....

I've just been told we will do 7 subjects in S4, but this does not leave enough time to teach them. How can it be imagined that we can teach a course in one year, in half the time we used to have when the exam work began in S3? Not to mention there is harder content at all levels than currently found in the S Grade and intermediate 'equivalent' levels.

We are worried for the pupils. We know their future options depend on proper opportunities in school. Teachers, like parents are worried because we care about doing as good a job as possible for out pupils.

My daughter will be studying 8 subjects in S3 and only 6 in S4. What a shambles.