The “subject hierarchy” in national qualifications is being reinforced in multi-qualification classes, with teachers of “poor relation” subjects, such as art or design and technology, more likely to be asked to teach a range of courses in the same lesson than teachers of English or French.

A survey of more than 1,000 teachers has also revealed that they are not only being asked to teach multiple-qualification classes in S4 but also in S5.

Until now, worries about a surge in multi-course teaching have focused on S4. However, a teacher responding to a recent survey by the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) said: “It is not just S4 - I currently have an S5 class accommodating National 4, National 5, NPA [National Progression Award] 6 and Advanced Higher.”

Background: Multi-course classes ‘norm in most Scottish schools’

Related: School delivers four maths qualifications in one class

Short read: Swinney: No proof of ‘explosion’ in multi-level classes

Another teacher said that multi-course teaching was common in their school not because there were too few teachers to deliver single course classes, or because of timetabling issues, but because senior managers wanted to free staff up to provide supply cover.

The teacher explained: “Multi-course teaching in one class is a common theme in our department and school. The confusing thing is that this is not a staffing or timetabling issue that causes this. Each teacher in our department has seven or eight unallocated teaching periods when we could easily be splitting these classes into single-level classes. However, this is not being permitted by management, as our requests to do this have been denied. The official line is that the school needs this for cover.”

The SSTA survey also reveals that it is the subjects considered “the poor relations” - such as art and design, D&T and drama - where teachers are most likely to be asked to teach two or more courses to the same class.

The subjects that had most single-course teaching were French, maths, chemistry, English and biology.

The subjects least likely to have single-course teaching were art and design, D&T, and administration and IT.

‘Vast majority’ of students affected

The revelation follows the news last week that the “vast majority” of secondary students are in the same classes as peers taking courses at a different level.

The SSTA survey of 1,247  teachers, upon which these latest findings are also based, found that only 23 per cent of classes involved teachers working on a single qualification, while 51 per cent of classes had two qualifications and 21 per cent had three qualifications.

Speaking as the new findings emerged, SSTA general secretary Seamus Searson said: “If some subjects don’t take children of different levels they are told the courses won’t run. Teachers say they feel blackmailed into taking these children because they are being told, ‘If you don’t, your subject will be taken off the curriculum.’

“These subject teachers are having to put up with that and, unfortunately, it’s the poor relation subjects that have the bigger proportion of two or three or four courses being taught in one class.”

He added: “This survey has highlighted the subject hierarchy within national qualifications and the challenges teachers face in trying to meet the needs of pupils of all abilities across a range of subjects.”

Earlier this year, the Scottish Conservatives revealed that 100 schools out of the 238 they had information for were teaching three qualifications in the same classroom, with a total of 11 delivering four courses in the same class.

One school was teaching four maths qualifications - from N4 to Advanced Higher - in one classroom.

The SSTA survey, however, found that the subjects where teachers were most likely to be delivering four courses in the same classroom were D&T, drama and art and design.

The Scottish government has announced an independent review of the senior phase of Curriculum for Excellence after an inquiry into the narrowing of the secondary curriculum under CfE by the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee.

However, the education secretary John Swinney warned at the Scottish Learning Festival last week that one of the potential “unintended consequences” of getting rid of multi-course teaching could be to narrow subject choice.

During a question-and-answer session after his keynote address, he said that, if schools were trying to maximise the choices available to students, they would sometimes have to “operate multi-level teaching as a consequence”.

He added: “One of the things we’ve got to watch is if we take action to remedy multi-level teaching. One of the unintended consequences of that might be to reduce subject choice that’s available to teachers and I don’t think that would be a step in the right direction.”

However, a teacher in the SSTA survey commented: “No teacher can teach more than one course to a class of pupils. In biology, the content is different in N4, N5 and Higher. This is the equivalent of asking Mr Swinney to run three ministerial departments at once. Nobody benefits from the cost-saving exercises, not the teacher, not the pupils and certainly not attainment.”