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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

help - scottish mumsnetters - only 6 Nationals

59 replies

wobbleinprogress · 12/01/2015 17:20

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?

OP posts:

PurpleFrog · 15/01/2015 13:06

DD is also doing the new higher Maths. At parents evening her teacher said the content was the same as the old Higher but that the exam was different.

prettybird · 19/01/2015 09:43

Ds' school is following the same approach as weegiemum's kids' school (same authority): 3 core subjects (English, Maths and a MFL) and 5 choices (plus core PE and RME). But to do that, they had to start in June of S2.

Ds (S3) is bright so will probably take all of them to Nat 5 - we'll get an indication this week at the Parents' Evening.

The school has sort of breached BGE principles as he's dropped the "expressive arts". He didn't want to, but in order to do PE (as a subject) and both Physics and Chemistry, he couldn't, as they were in the same columns as Music, Art, Drama etc, so ended up doing Computing Science instead. But I suppose it could be argued that they have a choice to do all the BGE areas.

Groovee · 19/01/2015 09:54

I was told in the S2 parents night last year that they expect dd to not do national 5's but a higher instead. I didn't get the answers of the school with regards to how this could affect her etc. She's passed 4 national 4's with 100% in the last few months. And she's had time off for surgery.

She chose her subjects at the end of S1 and currently does 7 with an enrichment which could lead to national 5.

PurpleFrog · 19/01/2015 10:09

Although dd could only do 6 subjects for Nat5 last year, she did have complete free choice (from the subjects the school offers). English and Maths were recommended, not compulsory! I have no idea how they managed to timetable it. It is a big school, so I suppose that allows some leeway.

prettybird · 19/01/2015 11:11

Even though CfE is supposed to allow for missing Nat 5 and going straight to Higher, our school still encourages sitting the Nat 5s. It also means that if something happens, they've still got the Nat 5s under their belt. It also gives them experience of real exam conditions, as opposed to the first time being the exams that really matter.

myotherusernameisbetter · 19/01/2015 11:24

I think our issue is that it's not a big school so there is limited flexibility and DS not too happy as he wants to take both Computing Science and Graph comm which are in the same column, he has to take a Social subject which he doesn't want to - he'd even rather keep up a Launguage or Music if he wasn't able to swap social subjects for one of the ones above. Added to that he has been recommended a Nat 5 in all subjects except Social where he has been recommended 4/5. The school keeps going on about choosing things that you are best at :(

He also has no idea which Science to do, as he has been recommneded nat 5 for them all.

So, choice for the moment seems to be: Maths, English, A science, Art, Engineering Science, Computing Science or Graph Comm and a social subject.

S5Parent · 19/01/2015 11:37

In our local school they insist on Maths and English then the other four choices were free (albeit within the column choices available!) so my child didn't take a social subject or a language.

I'd have been unhappy with one science as that's his thing.

prettybird · 19/01/2015 13:28

Ds' school takes great pride in the fact that you can still take all three sciences if you want to. I'd hate for ds to have had to pick just one.

I did 6 Highers in my 5th Year I know that's not common nowadays but I quite deliberately kept my options open by doing 3 Sciences and 3 Arts subjects.

Ds will probably unfortunately drop French for his Highers but I'll be really unhappy if he drops English. He won't do Computing Science for Higher but he's going to to have to make a hard choice about his sciences if he wants to continue his PE (currently doing Physics and Chemistry). He's already thinking of doing a crash Biology Higher in 6th Year.

Was there that much angst when we were making our choices?

myotherusernameisbetter · 19/01/2015 14:40

I can't remember that much angst tbh :)

On our form it is perfectly possible to do all three traditional sciences, as well as Maths, English and a Social subject - you'd then be left with a choice of Business Mgmt, Computing Science, Graph Comm, Hospitality, Music or french for the 7th slot.

We had a choice of 8 at O grade (Maths and Arithmetic being sepreate in those days) so effectively had the same 5 choices as my son has now. I don't think my parents even looked at the form, i just picked myself. I took French ended up dropping it and swapping to Geology as that was the only class that fit that slot that had free space in it.

We only had 5 slots in 5th year.

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