Which books are in the Scottish Nationals English reading list this year? Full guide

• Scottish English teachers have a lot of freedom when it comes to selecting books for their National 5 pupils.
• But they still have to select at least one Scottish work from a set list.
• These range from plays, to classic novels, to poetry collections.
• But the list could be set for a big shake-up in the near future.

English language students in Scotland will get a hearty dose of the country’s own rich literary offerings, alongside the classic texts studied by their peers across the UK.

Scotland’s entire school system looks a little different than it does elsewhere, and secondary school exams and qualifications are no different. Here, pupils will sit their National 5s - or ‘Nationals’ - rather than GCSEs. But one thing many students will have in common with their English, Welsh, or Northern Irish counterparts is that they will likely have to take English and maths - along with several other subjects of their choosing.

Just like the rest of the UK, the English National will involve quite a bit of reading. The Scottish Qualifications Authority’s (SQA) specifications for the course give teachers and schools near-total freedom to pick out which texts they would like learners to study, which the exam board says “means a wide range of literature will be studied... including Shakespeare and other classic works”.

But they must also pick out at least one Scottish text from a set list, which will play a big part in pupils’ assessments. SQA recently ran a consultation to gather feedback from teachers and learners on its current Scottish set text list for Nationals and Highers English courses, so that the books and plays “more fully reflects life in Scotland”. It plans to update the list for pupils beginning their English studies from the 2025/26 school year onwards - so next year’s reading list could look rather different.

Here is the list this year’s students will be reading from:

Drama

• Bold Girls, Rona Munro
• Sailmaker, Alan Spence
• Tally’s Blood, Ann Marie di Mambro

Prose

• The Cone Gatherers, Robin Jenkins
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
• The Testament of Gideon Mack, James Robertson
• A collection of short stories, by Iain Crichton Smith (including The Red Door, The Telegram, Mother and Son, and Home)
• A collection of short stories, by Anne Donovan (including All that Glisters, Away in a Manger, Dear Santa, Hieroglyphics)

Poetry

If your child’s teacher picks out poetry, pupils will have to study six poems by a single Scottish poet.

• Carol Ann Duffy (War Photographer; Valentine; Originally; Mrs Midas; In Mrs Tilscher’s Class; The Way My Mother Speaks)
• Norman MacCaig (Assisi; Visiting hour; Aunt Julia; Basking shark; Hotel room, 12th floor; Brooklyn cop)
• Edwin Morgan (In the Snack-bar; Trio; Good Friday; Winter; Glasgow 5 March 1971; Glasgow Sonnet I)
• Jackie Kay (My Grandmother’s Houses; Lucozade; Gap Year; Keeping Orchids; Old Tongue; Whilst Leila Sleeps)

What do you think of the Scottish texts currently on the reading list - do they need to change? Have your say and make your voice heard by leaving a comment below.