National 5 and Higher English Portfolio

The deadline for the complete portfolio is the 10^th March.

You must submit two pieces of writing – one expressive (Personal reflective or creative) and one discursive (persuasive or discursive).

These must be typed up onto the SQA portfolio template.

You can access the template from the SQA website. Follow the steps below:

Open SQA Higher English (http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47904.html)

Go to section entitled submitting coursework

Here you will find a word document which is the template. (Same template for Higher and N5.)

Please make sure that both essays are submitted on this template.

This is an SQA requirement as your portfolio work is scanned once it is received. If it is not on this template it cannot be scanned and therefore cannot be marked!

Pupils
S1-S3 pupils continue to engage in a challenging Broad General Education, with some personalisation of choice through the major and minor subjects in S3. When the Senior Leadership Team has visited classes and spoken to pupils, the majority report enjoying their learning, being challenged in it and making good progress. Parents can support these discussions at home by ensuring they complete homework on time and to a high level.

S4-6 pupils have been working hard to ensure they were prepared for their prelim exams in January. Pupils will have had their results now and staff will have been setting individual targets for pupils to ensure they attain their best at the forthcoming exams in May/June. For parents who wish to find out more about the National and Higher exams I have added a section to our school’s website titled ‘Nationals/Highers in a nutshell’. This is very informative.

Staff
In the last newsletter the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) had been meeting with Curriculum Leaders to review SQA results and to identify next steps within all our courses. This has been done and faculties are now working hard to ensure that they provide our pupils with the best learning and teaching experience possible. The SLT has been involved in carrying out observations of learning and teaching across the school, supported by our school’s Quality Improvement Officer, Liz Gray, and other senior leaders from other Edinburgh schools. This helps ensure a high quality learning experience for all of our learners and allows us to engage in professional dialogue about our practice to ensure we continue to perform at a high level.