Being competent in English is the key to success in many aspects of life and work. Skills in English language and communication are important in many school, college and university courses and essential in many occupations. A qualification in English is often required for entry to further and higher education. This course aims to improve and extend your experience of English literature in prose, poetry and drama. A Higher course delivered over two years – the National 5 examination being taken in S5 and presentation for Higher in S6 – allows students to develop their skills in a progressive and targeted manner. Although students will have an existing pass at National 5 by this point, having the exam to focus on with new, more demanding texts provides both motivation and an opportunity to measure that appropriate progress is being made. Rather than following two separate courses – for example studying one set of play, novel and poetry in S5 and another in S6 - the same Higher texts are studied over two years (the novel, for example, begun in S5 being revisited in S6; the play being studied in S6; the study of Poetry and shorter Fiction and Non-Fiction being spread over the two year course). In years where there are two two-year Higher classes, staff work closely together to ensure that both classes cover similar work to avoid repetition and to maximise subject choice in S6.

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Please see Higher English 1 year page for full information.