National 5 choices, French or not?

[wigglybeezer]

DS2 plans to go to Uni, he is talented at sciences and has struggled but improved in French (which is his least favourite). do you think he would be at a disadvantage in uni applications (probably Chemistry) not having a MFL if I let him choose geography instead?

Thinking ahead we are also considering encouraging him to do Higher history rather than Higher English in 5th year, anyone else have experience of this?

I can't either...but then my DS didn't read phonetically at all until he was in P4, he was managing to read because he was looking at the shape of the words he'd memorised rather than the sounds letters made.

With a scribe though, the pupil says what they want written and reads it over and can make revisions then (or the scribe reads it back over) they can act as a reader and a prompt as well depending on which difficulties the pupil has. They can't actually help with the answers, but pretty much anything else they can.

It doesn't suit everyone, but it should be offered as an option.

They should also be offering alternative sources of notes as well, so that they're not having to be handwritten and provide a laptop if it's needed.

I work as a TA in a High School. My Ds has AS and Hypermobility syndrome and has always been given IT resources and separate accommodation to sit his exams, including Higher English. His handwriting is poor and he finds it difficult to keep up with flow of thoughts.

I can also tell you that being given a scribe in exams is far less likely with the new qualifications that it was before. There will more pupils using digital papers. I must say I do agree with this, having scribed for pupils. Whilst your scribing does reflect their words, it doesn't accurately reflect their spelling or to some extent, their punctuation either. I'm not sure it's fair for colleges and employers to be told that a dyslexic pupil (for example) has a good pass at Nat 5 English when in reality they would struggle to write well enough independently to function in some roles.

My OH has worked with nursing students who have obviously reached the standard for Highers to get onto the degree course, but aren't effectively reading and writing in handwritten patient's notes, which can have an impact of safety.

It have a disaster story involving digital papers, Ds1 sat Nat 5 biology on a computer last year but the process wasn't fully explained to him so he wrote the answers to the long written paper on the computer but filled in the multiple choice answers in the actual exam paper, which was then gathered up and thrown away by the invigilator and only one of his papers was graded. he was predicted a C and been getting B's in past papers after a lot of revision but got a D on appeal as he had failed his prelim, of course if he had asked the invigilator for help he would have been fine but being DS1 he didn't.

I will be grey haired by the time all three have finished with exams!

I have checked with DS and he does get extra time in assessments and the school have offered tech support, they have tablets but I think DS would find a full size keyboard better.

Tabularasa and dotdotmustdash , how are your DS's doing now?

Mine's at college doing an HNC, with a couple of conditional uni offers for science subjects.

He could possibly have gone straight to uni, but, he had a couple of subjects he didn't do so well at at higher (not sciences) and that combined with college being a nicer progression for him, that's what he's done.

Because he hasn't had to concentrate as much academically for the HNC (for the first 3 months it was way too easy, lol) he's had lots of time to get used to not being at school, travelling...and he's made some friends, so I think it was the right route for him

I have already researched a couple of options along those lines for DS2, they sound good confidence builders, he wants to do Chemistry but higher maths is going to be a stretch so he may end up going to college first. Ds1 and several friends are off to college this year, he is having to do an access course as he crashed and burned at Nat 5 level unfortunately but he will get there in the end.

hope your DS gets onto the course he wants and enjoys it, good luck!

My Ds is in 6th year at the moment. He got 8 credits in 4th year, sat and passed 3 Highers last year with ABC and is sitting another 3 this year along with one Advanced Higher. He has conditional offers with 3 Unis for Computer Games Design courses, one wants an A at H maths, another wants 2xBs including maths and the third (Abertay which is the best Uni for the subject) wants AB without a requirement for maths. He's going to make Abertay his first choice as he's never had an A in any maths exam!

My DD is in 5th year taking 5 Highers and predicted all As. She's planning to take 4 AHs in 6th year and hoping to go to St Andrews Uni to do languages.

It's going to be a busy May and a very tense summer for us!

As I said before, my Ds has Aspergers. He was diagnosed aged 9 and has a very high intelligence but social anxiety and organisational issues. He finds maths very difficult but has taken the Higher course over 2 years rather than one so hopefully this year he will sit the exam and pass it. He refuses to study as one of his issues is that he won't let school work 'contaminate' his home life, he's never done homework without huge stress on all of us and has to rely on his memory rather than revision. It's been a tough few years to get where we are!

Phew! computer games design is so competitive and Abertay has a good rep (DH is a computer animation director and has worked with games companies from time to time), well done to all of you.

DS2 wants to do chemistry at ST Andrews, he likes the wee city and there is a direct bus home but the grades needed are high.

Thanks Wiggly, but we'll be happier when we know the results in August! it could all go horribly wrong before then.

I know what you mean about St Andrews. I think anyone with less than AAABB after a fifth year would probably be best to look elsewhere. Once again, we can only hope! I hope your boy get there, it looks like a lovely place to stay and quite safe. We're not far away in Dunfermline so it would be lovely not to have our Dd too far away. Ds plans to travel daily to Dundee if he gets in to Abertay.

Although it was a very long time ago, I went to St Andrews from 5th Year (initially to do French and Russian but finished off doing French and Economics) and had a fabulous time.