Our Approach to Senior School Form Classes
As we prepare for the move to Erskine Stewart Melville, we have given careful thought to how our Form Classes will be structured to best support every student within our Senior School community. Form Classes play an important role in providing pastoral care, building relationships, and creating a strong sense of belonging, and our approach has been designed with these priorities at its heart.
In developing this structure, we have sought to balance continuity with opportunity. It is important to us that students feel confident and supported during this period of change, while also benefiting from the wider connections that a co-educational environment will offer.
Several factors have been carefully considered during the formation of this structure:
- Ensuring a smooth and gradual transition for our students by staying close to familiar people
- Mitigating disruption to academic courses, particularly for our students who will be studying in S4 and S5
- Maintaining our strong House identity and House Challenge competition, which is a very popular feature of our community and brings together students from different year groups
- Making good use of the campus to support Form Time, and Teaching and Learning
- Providing opportunities for students to learn and socialise with a variety of people
Where will the Form Classes be?
Form Classes will be located across the campus and grouped by House. This means all students will be with people in their own year group as well as those affiliated to their House group.
The physical location of these Form Classes matters as well. Student Form Classes will be located near other Form Classes in the same House, drawn from different year groups. Bringing the students together in this way, in nearby spaces each morning, enables us to retain our strong House structure, while also encouraging connections across the wider Senior School.
What is changing?
At present, academic teaching sets in S1 and S2 are largely aligned with students’ Form Classes. From August 2026, this will change, and Form Classes will no longer determine teaching sets, allowing students greater opportunity to learn and engage with a wider range of their peers. You can see what this means for your child and their year group below.
Form Classes by Year Group
Jump to your child’s year group
S1
The new S1 cohort will be the first group of students to experience their entire secondary education within the new Senior School. As in our current model, students will be assigned to one of six Houses, with two Form Classes per House.
One enhancement to the current system is that the children will be educated in subject sets rather than their Form Classes. Teaching groups will vary by subject, allowing students to learn alongside a broader range of peers within their year group.
Both Form Classes and teaching groups will be co-educational.
We are also improving our Guidance structure so that each student will have the same Guidance teacher from S1 to S5. This continuity will enable our Guidance team to develop a deeper understanding of each child, providing consistent and personalised support throughout their journey in the Senior School. A reminder of your child’s Guidance Leader can be found here.
The full transition process from Primary 7 into S1 will be communicated to parents in due course by the Junior School.
S2
Students entering S2 will remain in their current Form Classes until the end of S3. At that point, they will move into co-educational Form Classes.
One enhancement to the current system is that the children will be educated in subject sets rather than their Form Classes. Teaching groups will be co-educational, and will vary by subject, allowing students to learn alongside a broader range of peers within their year group.
We are also improving our Guidance structure so that each student will have the same Guidance teacher from S1 to S5. This continuity will enable our Guidance team to develop a deeper understanding of each child, providing consistent and personalised support throughout their journey in the Senior School. A reminder of your child’s Guidance Leader can be found here.
S3
Students entering S3 will remain in their current Form Classes until the end of S3. They will then move into co-educational Form Classes at the beginning of S4, where they will remain through to the end of S5.
In S3, students begin the first year of their national qualification courses. As such, they will be taught in subject-specific teaching groups, which will be co-educational.
We are also improving our Guidance structure so that each student will have the same Guidance teacher from S1 to S5. This continuity will enable our Guidance team to develop a deeper understanding of each child, providing consistent and personalised support throughout their journey in the Senior School. A reminder of your child’s Guidance Leader can be found here.
S4
Towards the end of the current academic year, following Carbisdale, we will begin the process of forming co-educational Form Classes for the start of S4. Students will be invited to identify a number of peers with whom they would like to remain, and we will aim to ensure that each student is placed with at least one of their chosen peers.
Within each House, there will be two co-educational Form Classes, located in adjacent classrooms for Form time.
Given the two-year structure of National 4 and National 5 courses, and to support continuity in learning, we will make every effort to keep the current S3 teaching groups together into S4. As a result, these academic teaching classes are likely to remain largely single-sex.
When this cohort progresses into S5, teaching will take place in co-educational classes. As a reminder of your child’s Guidance Leader, please click here.
S5
We recognise that S5 is a particularly important stage in a student’s academic journey. To support continuity, existing Form Classes will remain in place for this year group for the 2026/2027 academic year. Then, as is currently the case, students will move into smaller, co-educational Form Classes in Sixth Form.
S5 students will continue to study in new co-educational subject sets for their Higher courses, as is standard practice. As a reminder of your child’s Guidance Leader, please click here.
Sixth Form
Students entering S6 will move into smaller, co-educational Form Classes for Sixth Form. As a reminder of your child’s Guidance Leader, please click here.