I can appreciate that the variation creates frustrations. I obviously wish that more schools were moving towards a more 3+3 type model…but there are complex variations of both 2+2+2 and 3+3 and perhaps it is good that there is more variety in the system? This was something that Scotland was criticised on by the OECD in 2006 [http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6048125].

I would also question the assumption that 8 N4/5s at the end of S4 is more beneficial. Why? What purpose do they serve? What are they used for? What learning has actually taking place? What progress has the young person really made?

I have 9 GCSEs. That mattered for approximately one day – the day I got my results. Noone cared about the number of GCSE passes I had once I started my A levels. And I can now barely speak a word of Spanish, and my French isn’t much better! I think perhaps we make too much of the number of qualifications at a certain level at a certain point in time as a measure of the quality of someone’s education…but it’s not surprising that we do given that this is one of the main mechanisms for evaluating schools by the inspectorate as well as parents.