Course Choice Centre

These will be sent out to families in the coming days and deadlines for completing them are on the course choice part of the website although generally it will be around the 2nd week of March depending on what year you are in. Please remember the planning and discussion around choices is key. The process of actually entering your course choices will be relatively quick in comparison.

The individual course choice sheets will be sent to students by post. However, entering choices will be done electronically. Students normally complete the entrances during PSE classes but this year we ask that students discuss and plan carefully with parents and carers before the relatively quick process of entering choices electronically. Full instructions on how to do this will be sent with the course choice form.

Contact your child’s Pupil Support Leader directly, either via email or by phoning the main school office. If you don’t then hear back within 5-7 days, contact Mr Burge.

No, subject choices are over and above the three core subjects, meaning students choose five other subjects.

PSLs can advise as can potential employers in your chosen sector. It can be useful to contact them directly. Skills Development Scotland (Lynn Munro at Trinity) and the My World of Work website also  offer lots of information about career pathways. Please speak to your PSL if you wish to be in contact with Lynn Munro.

All Course Choices will be entered in school, for quality assurance and also to ensure the correct support is given to pupils during the process. These will be entered during pupil’s 1-to-1 meetings. This is also why the Course Choice sheet asks for parent/carer email addresses, so you receive a copy of the choices that have been entered and are kept in the loop.

As S3 marks the end of the BGE with a move to National level study, students are not normally restricted at this point in their choices. The personal course choice sheet to be sent out soon will list the recommendations for your child, however students are encouraged to choose subjects they enjoy and feel engaged in. Teachers may also be able to advise on course suitability.

There’s always a balance to be reached here, between challenging our pupils and having high aspirations for them, and being realistic.

The recommended levels are decided by the class teacher. However, parents and carers are welcome to challenge these, particularly where you are not aware of any concerns in the class or when a parents evening has alluded to your child doing well in said class. Just because the recommended level decision has been made, does not mean it cannot be changed. If you feel you have evidence to contradict the recommendation made for your child, please do contact us and we can certainly have a conversation around that. We always want to be aspirational for our pupils but we also need to be realistic about what can be achieved in the time frame available.

It will be during class time across the entire week, as there is not enough time to do them all during PSE classes. There was a lot of discussion around how long the meeting would need to be. Some meetings will be very straight forward where there has been a lot of discussion and input from home and engagement from the pupil, with a very clear route ahead, these will take just a couple of minutes. For others it is much more complicated and can take around 15 minutes. There are 150-odd pupils in the year group, so multiply that by 4-5 minutes each and you can see how much time is required. PSE is when the tee-up and prep work is happening, introducing the pupils to Course Choices and sharing more general information.

The headteacher’s view is that student should attempt wherever possible to have achieved Nat 4 or 5 by the end of 4^th year. Similarly, students should aim to have some Higher qualifications by the end of S5 where possible. This limits the chances of students potentially leaving school without the qualifications they need to move on and is better for long term prospects.

Most files have a date to show when it was last updated. Mr Todd is currently updating the files as the course choice sheets are handed out to pupils. 

Sorry, this is not possible at this time as we have no capacity to do more than we already do. But this is helpful feedback, we will take it on board for next year.

As N5 classes are only 4 periods a week there is extra time on the timetable so the SQA released a suite of wider achievement qualifications covering things like Mental Health, Health & Wellbeing, etc. If a pupil is doing, for example, 2 Highers and 3 N5s, they will also be doing 3 Wider Opportunities for Achievement (WOA). Through the outcomes of these 3 classes, they will build up other qualifications – SQA awards 4/5/6 (equivalent to N4/N5/Highers) or things like saltire awards – for their involvement in the class, depending on the course and how the teacher delivers it. It is supplementing their S5 qualifications with other SQA qualifications which might be the difference and help them stand out for College or Uni applications or job applications, just showing that bit of extra work.

Wider Opportunity for Achievement is only for S5s who are doing N5s, due to timetable structure.
Electives are just the choices for S3. For example, PE – as pupils will always do core PE, often the choice to do PE is called an elective.

It would be looked at on a case by case basis, looking at what led to the fail. There would be a conversation between the teacher, pupil, parent and pupil support leader to decide on the best course of action regarding a resit. It is possible for a pupil to do a resit, however there are some cases where a resit would not be worth the time and allowing it would be letting the pupil down.

It can take as long as it needs to. The schedule is set up for 2 pupils every 15 minutes, and for some of those pupils it’s as simple as checking over the sheet and entering their choices which will only take a few minutes. For others, it might take longer, and if this is the case, the Pupil Support Leader with rearrange more time with that pupil to continue the conversation, possibly after conversations with home or with Curriculum Leaders.

Yes. There are a few subjects that may not use the National course system, they may move into national progression awards (NPA) as it may be a better pathway – it’s an alternative qualification but essentially equivalent: NPA 5 is equivalent to Nat 5. There is still that progression through the levels too, onto Higher and Advanced Higher after NPA 5.

However, it should also be stated that if there is low demand for a subject from pupils moving into S4 then some courses may not be able to run. If this happens we would resort to the reserves and discuss this with your child.

That’s a conversation to have with the Pupil Support Leader over the phone to begin with. Obviously we can’t make that a universal offer as the logistics around it would be massive but we do offer the 1:1s with pupils. If you do feel there’s a need for this, first step is to contact your child’s Pupil Support Leader by calling the office.

We have a lot of classes in S4 that are bi-level (Nat 4/5) for subjects that sit well together, so it depends on the course. You will see on the course choice sheet it clearly labels all the subjects and at the end- it will have N4 or N5/4 etc – if it is bi-level it will say N5/4.

We can’t absolutely guarantee it but historically and based on the number of pupils, the curriculum strands and the smaller number of subjects offered it is very likely that pupils will get their first choices.

When will my child find out if their choices have been accepted?

Between now and Easter, Mr Todd is gathering all the choices from all year groups. It tends to be around 2 weeks before the change of timetable that we are able to issue a timetable which gives pupils a chance to see how their choices have worked out. However if a pupil doesn’t hear anything from Mr Todd in this time, that’s good news! If there is an issue with their first choices, Mr Todd will come to speak to the pupil about backup choices. It is quite a slow process, unfortunately.

It would be the Pupil Support Leader. 60-70% of our S6 pupils go to university every year and those references are compiled by PSLs. They have a lot of experience around university applications. Your child is always welcome to speak to Lynn Munro, our careers advisor, also based in Pupil Support. You can also speak to SfL but they are not generally involved in university conversations, they might be involved in conversations about journeys but not specifically about university. Pupil Support Leaders would be the best first port of call.

Some pupils who have strong links with SfL (or Wellbeing Hub, ESB) will be given an interview with the lead teacher of those departments but they will liaise with Pupil Support if they need guidance as PSLs are the most experienced and have the depth of knowledge needed.

Pupils should indicate on their course choice forms that they are interested in JET and they will the be issued with a proforma showing ten potential sectors they can choose from. JET staff will try and match their preferred sector to college and work experience. Students have JET time on Fridays which takes them off timetable but usually miss core PE or RE. They will also complete a NAT 4 level qualification in Employability as part of the JET experience.

No, SCP is offered within a timetable column and doesn’t impact on other subject choices. It should be noted that pupils leave school to attend college on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and this can have a small impact on class time if pupils have to leave school to arrive on time at college.

It depends on the results of the Course Choice process. We as a school allow pupil choice to determine the placement of columns within the timetable, rather than having pre-stated columns. So there is no way of knowing in advance which column will fall on Tuesday & Thursday afternoons. Once the process is complete, pupils will be able to choose between the subject that has fallen on a Tuesday/Thursday and College.

Yes! Either pupil support leaders or Lynn Munro, our Skills Development Scotland link, will be able to help. Lynn is the master of College applications and pupil support leaders can connect pupils to Lynn for that help. Many of our senior pupils are very confident when it comes to applications, but if you feel your child needs help, contact their pupil support leader and they will be able to help.

Yes, in part with Consortia. Currently we have 7 pupils doing Advanced Higher Business through Digital Consortia, this is being led by a teacher from Leith Academy on Teams, with around 20 pupils across the whole city. Pupils get a Teams lesson once a week after school and the resources are all on Teams. There are a number of Advanced Highers for which this process is very well suited as the courses are focused on more self-learning. We also have a pupil doing Mandarin. The hope is that the digital offer will be even bigger this next year.
We also have the Local Consortia – schools within a certain radius with not too long a journey that offer courses different to ours. Under this scheme we also have pupils coming to us for courses, we have 2 pupils sitting Nat 5 chemistry from Leith Academy and also a few pupils doing Higher Politics with us. In these cases there is ongoing communication between the schools to try to get pupils access to courses elsewhere.

The YASS (Open University – Young Applicants Scotland Scheme) are not Advanced Higher courses, but they are level 7 equivalent courses. Essentially the merit of them is that when pupils are applying for University they will have a little bit more in-depth knowledge of the subject at a higher level. It’s less about the qualification and more about taking part and showing you are working independently, much like a university student would. It shows the character of the learner and their academic ability so it would be part of the personal statement rather than the requirements for entry.

No, this is not part of our curriculum offer. If it was available in the community we’d be very happy to promote it and if we could support with IT to access it we would be happy to have a conversation around that.

Yes, through the Digital Consortia, there is a teacher teaching it to around 15 pupils across the city. They are doing Advanced Higher level in that course, virtually and we expect this to continue being offered.

We don’t have the information yet as we haven’t captured the data. We do really want Modern Languages to run again, as healthily as it has in the past, but it depends on the numbers. If we do have the numbers, we will do everything we can do make sure that happens. And where it can’t happen, we will do our best to support our pupils to see if they can do it through Consortia.

For some subjects it works in complete harmony, there’s a lot of crossover and the difference between the levels is more around the standard of the work from pupils. But sometimes it is a lot more complicated than that. N5/H is not the common standard for us, it can happen although it’s unlikely.

Please check University prospectuses or call the University admissions office whose staff can give advice on specific entry requirements.

Psychology is a literary based subject so routes into it would be any of the Social subjects and English to Nat 5 minimum.

No, it is free choice. Columns are created after choices are made, based on what subjects pupils have chosen. We aim to have as high a satisfaction rate as possible.
It becomes fixed in columns in the re-coursing sheets issued around August, and they are then restrained to those columns. This may be needed if a pupil doesn’t achieve as highly as they wished and need to recourse.