Standard Grade, a Scottish certificate of education, roughly equivalent to the English and Welsh GCSE

Standard Grades (Scottish Gaelic: Ìre Choitcheann) are Scotland’s educational qualifications for students aged around 14 to 16 years, which are due to be fully replaced in 2014 when Scottish Qualifications Authority’s Higher Still system becomes the main qualifications as part of the major shake up of Scotland’s education system as part of Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework overhaul.

History
Following the Munn and Dunning reports of 1977, the Standard Grade replaced the old O-Grade qualification, and was phased in from 1984 until the early-1990s.

Standard Grade courses are taken over a student’s third and fourth year in secondary education. Exams are taken at the end of the 4th Year (around May), with preliminary examinations taken several months earlier in November. (However, certain subjects may be “fast tracked” at some schools (for example Dalziel High school, who was the first school to use this system), where the course is started in at the beginning of 2nd year and finished at the end of 3rd year (this means pupils start standard grades at age 12/13 and finish them at age 14/15) or by doubling teaching time and sitting courses over 1 year as with Highers.)[citation needed] The exams are provided by the Scottish Qualifications Authority, which also offers the more recent National Qualifications on the Scottish Qualifications Certificate.

Students will typically study 8 subjects at Standard Grade. Generally speaking, different subjects can be taken independently of each other, although English and Mathematics are compulsory, and most schools will structure student choices so that at least one science subject, one social science (and often a modern language) are chosen. The two main restrictions on this choice are timetable arrangements, and the fact that many less popular subjects are not offered by all schools.

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