Scottish Standard Grades roughly matched the English, Welsh and Northern Irish General Certificate of Secondary Education examinations in terms of level subject content and cognitive difficulty.
[2] Following the Munn and Dunning reports published in 1977, the Standard Grade replaced the old O-Grade qualification, and was phased in from 1986.
The two main restrictions on this choice were timetable arrangements, and the fact that many less popular subjects were not offered by all schools.
The Scottish Government Authorities responsible for Education decided to slowly phase out the Standard Grade system in favour of the Scottish Qualifications Authority's Higher Still system[3][4] as many students and teachers felt that the jump from Standard Grade to Higher was too difficult, particularly in subjects such as English.
The course choice process begins after the Christmas and New Year of S2, with the completed forms being handed in around the end of February.