Scottish School Qualifications

[Skyedriver]

Can anyone please explain to me the differences between the old "O" & "A" levels, the SQA levels and whatever else there may be in Scotland please.
I've tried to follow the web site but I'm not fully understanding the differences.

[Webdunk]

O levels are long gone and indeed were going when I sat my exams in 1991.

http://www.scqf.org.uk/framework-diagram/Framework... may offer some insight?

[Robert Burns]

I'll take it from Standard Grade

So S3 and S4 you studied for your Standard Grade. This meant you studied either in a credit/general class or a foundation/general class. This was down to the likely hood of what you would achieve. 1 and 2 was credit. 3 and 4 was general and 5 and 6 was foundation. 7 was a fail.

So

Standard Grade - NAT - Old School

Credit - Nat 5
General - Nat 4 - O level
Foundation - Nat 3

No exams for Nat 4, just continous assessments, Nat 5 will have a end of year exam. Its now down to 1 year for each bunch of nats

Kids will do less Nat's now but will spend more time in the year doing each selected course. They also have more time to do work experience or community work which the new Curriculum of Excellence encourages students to do.

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/readyreckoner....

Edited by Robert Burns on Tuesday 2nd June 14:40

[Dinoboy]

Good explanation ,thanks for that.

[rossybee]

My daughter was in the first year of CfE, so did 11* subjects in 3rd year, only to reduce this to 6 Nat5s in 4th yr, and there are assessments to reach prior to the final exams....not the best of set ups in my opinion.

• some schools started with 8, so only ditching 3 subjects at the end of S3

[Skyedriver]

Thanks everyone, think I've got it understood.
BTW I probably meant GSCE rather than O level