This is a very important stage in the educational life of your child as they approach the end of their Broad and General Education and look to make a successful transition into the Senior Phase of their 3-18 education journey. This booklet has been prepared so that you know which courses and qualifications are being offered in S4, the first year of the Senior Phase.

In the final year of their Broad and General Education (S3), your child has had the opportunity to personalise within their curriculum in following study in 9 subjects. This allowed them the opportunity for choice and specialisation. On making the transition into the Senior Phase, learners review their subject choices and select the 7 subjects (including English and Maths) they wish to study in depth in the Senior Phase (S4 – S6).

The Senior Phase offers young people the opportunity to extend and deepen their education as they build their portfolio of qualifications as well as their skills for life, learning and work.

In the Senior Phase, our curriculum aims to offer our pupils, relevant, appropriate and attractive choices to continue their learning towards qualification and accreditation. The senior Phase also offers pathways to the next stage – courses and experiences which will give our pupils the best possible chances of securing long term training opportunities, employment , entering further or higher education.

To support the aspirations of our young people and the full range of destinations, we offer some new courses in S4 which focus on employability and transferrable skills for learning, life and work. We also introduce some courses in partnership with Perth College UHI to offer students a taste of college in specific courses tailored to match the local employment market. These courses allow the possibility of progression within the college if this is desirable at the next stage for a learner.

For S4 pupils, there are five different levels of course within the National Qualifications framework, ranging from National 1 to National 5. The vast majority of students study at National 3, 4 or 5 level.

We try our best to give pupils all of their choices, however on some occasions this is not always possible. This can be down to a number of reasons such as those noted below, and it is therefore really important that pupils think carefully about their reserve choices.

• Too many pupils have selected this subject for the number of classes that we can run, this can be due to number of staff in the department, facilities/equipment.

• Not enough pupils have selected that subject which means the class is not viable to run that year.

• Staffing can change during the course choice process which means a subject can no longer run,

• There may be a clash between the two subjects that a pupil wishes to take, as both run at the same time they will need to choice one as a first choice and another choice in a different column.

If we cannot accommodate a pupils subject choices, we will use their reserve choices. If there are any problems with your choices, your Guidance Teacher will re-interview you to discuss your course choice options again.