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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

Re: looking for advice on daughter sitting prelims....

11 replies

Amacd1967 · 09/12/2019 20:37

Hi, my daughter has three prelims to sit in January and her Maths and English teachers have suggested that if she doesn't show progress she will not be put forward for sitting the prelims in these subjects. She is trying very hard to improve in both subjects but I'm wondering if they are just trying to scare her into trying harder or can they stop her from sitting these in January? please help !!

OP posts:

Michaelahpurple · 09/12/2019 21:46

What are prelims?

BrokenWing · 09/12/2019 23:02

I think it is fairly common that they won't put them forward for their Nat5 in S4, and they do Nat4 instead, if they don't appear to be ready, but I've never heard of them not sitting their prelim in the subject.

Ours are doing prelims this week and have been told decisions will be made if they are nat4 of nat5 candidates after.

Schools seem to have a bit of discretion how/when they do this.

Starryskiesinthesky · 09/12/2019 23:04

Yes if ours fail their prelims there is a decision to be made about whether they sit the exam or not. Most schools you can insist tho.

BrokenWing · 09/12/2019 23:04

You might get more replies in the Scotsnet topic if you are talking about Nat5 (I think gcse are called mocks?), there are some helpful Scottish teachers there regularly.

Clangus00 · 10/12/2019 07:14

@BrokenWing Why should she?
This board is about secondary education, this post is valid. Just because it’s not about GCSEs!
Rude.

PiggyPlumPie · 10/12/2019 07:19

I would have thought they would give a chance at the prelim before writing her off.

Our school have said that a bad prelim won't automatically exclude them from the Nat 5 exam. There is a good four months until the exam, plenty of time to improve.

BrokenWing · 10/12/2019 13:15

@Clangus00 I wasn't being rude at all and wasn't suggesting it wasn't a valid post! I have no idea how you managed to jump to that conclusion

I've posted on the Scotsnet topic about school issues/my ds's Nat5s a few times and after my initial post letting OP know what our school does I was just recommending another topic to ask in as sometimes the Nat5 specific questions can get a bit lost in the Secondary School topic.

BrokenWing · 10/12/2019 13:25

I would have thought they would give a chance at the prelim before writing her off.

Agree Piggy, at our school they choose 9 subjects in February at the end of S1. So after only 7 months in a secondary environment they are writing them off by saying to some kids, no you can't do Physics/History or whatever as you don't have the aptitude, and recommend they take something called "Employability" as they expect them to leave and/or do something vocational at college after S4.

Bartlet · 10/12/2019 13:29

Are you East Ren Broken Wing? I’ve heard that about schools there which explains how they come top of the league tables (well that and their affluent catchment) as they totally game the system.

margotsdevil · 10/12/2019 13:53

Tends to depend on the subject and school and year group - although I'm guessing Nat 5 rather than Higher if this is a new experience for you.

The issue may be that they don't have Nat 4 evidence in place so they need time to gather that post prelim; the concern would be that they could potentially end S4 with no qualification otherwise.

Different subjects will have different cut offs depending on their own specific requirements. Maths in our school run a second prelim close to the Easter holidays - but they have already ensured that all pupils have passed Nat 4 at that point. In my own subject, I'm looking for them to achieve at least 35% in January to have a realistic chance of passing.

The other thing you need to remember is that sometimes it's about the "bigger picture" - so the work a pupil might have to do to scrape a pass in one specific subject (say Maths) could jeapordise their success elsewhere - so doing lots of extra work in Maths to scrape a C means that the other subjects don't get the attention they need and they also drop to a C, whereas if Maths had dropped to Nat 4 they could have managed As and Bs in the other subjects. The school pastoral staff will have an overview of this though.

BrokenWing · 10/12/2019 16:55

Bartlet, no, not East Ren, other end of the table in East Ayrshire 🤣.

Think it is quite common everywhere. It was a surprise to me as I sat my O'Grades in the 80s and far as I can remember everyone sat the same exam. The problem with our school is it isn't made clear to the parents of the pupils how important class assessments during those first 6-7 months are.

We thought ds was just settling into secondary life but all the while decisions were being made for his future right then! He was ok and was allowed to take the subjects he picked, some of his friends didn't and it knocked them for six.

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