help - scottish mumsnetters - only 6 Nationals

[wobbleinprogress]

Our secondary school has announced that it is going to limit the number of Nationals to 6 with additional wider achievement courses. This seems way too few subjects to me but the school are adamant about this. Does anyone else's school do this? Most state schools seem to be doing 7, private schools 8 or more. DS is bright and well able to do 7 and I don't see why he should be limiting his choice now. Is anyone else in this position?

Our school was left to come up with its own plan for "senior phase".

Have just read your post purple I guess some councils are more relaxed about it than others.

If it's set by councils not schools -why are there 3 schools within same council borough (our area) all doing different amounts?

Some councils set the standards for all school in their area and some councils left it to individual schools to decide. One of my local schools decided to do 5. The headmistress mysteriously retired before implementation and was replaced and now they are doing up to 7 - strange eh?!?

Highland Council have dictated no more than 6. This is the same council who was advocating cutting the school day to save cash recently. I reckon subjects are going to be far more limited up here in future with bigger class sizes.

There is no way pupils can squash 8 subjects at Nat 5 into a school week if they are doing it in one year.
It's impossible and even 7 is a stretch even they drop the core RE or PE lessons.
There is just too much content in the Nat 5 courses and they are more like the old O Grades (I.e. more challenging)

On class sizes and reducing choice/school day - that's where parent power comes in.

Get protesting to your LA and remember that for "technical/practical" subjects like the sciences, technical studies, hospitality, PE etc. they cannot have more than 20 per class due to health and safety. So if, say, your child has more than 20 in a class for one of the above you should kick up a fuss.

5 maximum is a cop out though and can't be justified on time.

yes, the school that was recommending or planning for 5 does have a catchment of a lot of disadvantaged/disengaged kids who may find 5 a struggle but in not allowing more able pupils to do at least 6 was never going to go down well.

Just because they are allowing up to 7 doesn't mean that's what all pupils should be doing but they should have the option to do the national recommended 6

Well consider this; ideally each Nat 5 should be allocated 5 lessons a week. So if a pupil does 5 Nat5 courses that's 25 lessons. This leaves 5 free lessons for PE, PHSE, RE plus fitting in registration etc.

The NAT 5 courses are so packed they really need 5 lessons a week if they are only being tackled in one school year.

And that is why many schools are finishing the BGE before S3 ends and starting on Nat 5s then to get a head start.

I guess it depends on the length of the lesson though Salmtrutta. Is it not something like 140 hours per course? The way our school is getting round it but still trying to stick with the BGE is by moving up a few weeks early - apparently they have calculated out all the hours and whilst it doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room, there is enough time for it. They are in the process of changing from a 30 to a 33 period week for a different reason than CofE but clearly the length of lessons will be slightly shorter. When i was at school we did a 39 period week - we still did the same number of hours in school but clearly the periods were shorter.

There are some schools starting to narrow down at the end of 2nd year which I don't think is in the spirit of the CofE at all but hey I'm sure it will all level out when they get to Highers etc :)

The spirit of CfE is a hard thing to pin down.

yes I guess it is S5 :)

Well that's my point really- the hours required to cover most courses are about 120 for content but added to that are the internal assessed outcomes plus the added value/assignment component which has to be researched, written up in school and submitted for external marking.

Schools have about 1080 teaching hours per year. Take away approx 160 (very conservative estimate!) for PE, RE, PHSE etc. and it leaves you 920 hours for Nat5 subject teaching. Divide that by 140 hours per subject and you get 6.5 subjects.

This is all ball-park figuring though and This does not take account of the inevitable disruptions like snow, teachers off sick, random events etc.

Sorry that last point was to myother after her posting about lesson length etc.

yup - I agree - it all seems like a vast experiment on our children.

DS is in 4th year and sitting 6 Nat 5s this year. However my concern is that for most of this year they have been doing the Higher Maths curriculum, moving back to Nat 5 work at the end of Feb. He is definitely not an A Grade student and I am worried that because of the lack of focus on Nat 5 Maths he may fail it and then the Higher work will have been a waste of time.

Anyone else in this position?

Spanish - in quite a few subjects the Nat 5 content is drop-down content from Higher curriculum.
The school may be using Higher resources as they meet Nat 5 content anyway? I'm not a Maths teacher though.
Some schools are adopting new Higher next year and some have adopted it this year but it may just be that the "old" Higher work is part of Nat 5 for Maths?

Salmo, we have been told that the Higher Maths syllabus will take 18 months to deliver hence the early start, for S5 presentation. They were ready to sit Nat 5 maths last May but were denied early presentation due to the government agenda / referendum!

The school say the Higher work is an extension of Nat 5 but given they haven't confirmed what level they are achieving at Nat 5 and DS constantly says the Higher work is hard, I am not sure if he is in a Higher class to make up numbers rather than because he is ready and able for it.

They seem to be flying through the work rather than doing any consolidation. The school says this is the stance they used with Standard / Higher and it always worked, mmmm! I got him a tutor and he says he is a year ahead work wise of pupils in other schools and doing ok but he will be concentrating on Nat 5 as that is the priority. What about other kids who don't have this support?.

The school have said already they are not doing any 2 year for 5/6th year or crash Highers for 5th year.

DD can only choose 6 too and they have to take english and math so technically 4

Our school is doing 8 over 2 years. I know it's not in the (elusive) spirit of CfE but I'm much happier with this, it keeps dd1's options so much more open. They have 3 core subjects and 5 choices.

DS is doing the new Higher maths this year - he has been told that it's not that different from the old Higher, but the course units are done in a different order (hence they haven't done differentiation and integration as yet).

We don't have any tutors, DS is surrounded by people who have tutors but he reckons they don't ask questions in class when they don't understand things and so struggle when it comes to homework.