SQA Scottish set texts for National 5 and Higher English 2026 to 2027

Every pupil sitting National 5 or Higher English in Scotland studies at least one text from a short prescribed list of Scottish writing. In the Critical Reading paper one section prints an extract from that text, asks close questions on it and ends with a question that reaches out to the whole work or to other poems by the same writer. The critical essay elsewhere in the paper is open to any text the teacher chooses, so the set list is narrow by design.

The list was refreshed in November 2024 after consultation with teachers and pupils, and the first exams on it were sat in 2026. It covers drama, prose and poetry at each level, with some crossover texts shared by both. The changes were the most noticeable for years: Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Sunset Song and Robin Jenkins's The Cone-Gatherers came off, as did John McGrath's The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, while David Greig's Yellow Moon and Ely Percy's Duck Feet arrived at National 5 and Donald S Murray's Sequamur and Jenni Fagan's The Sunlight Pilgrims at Higher. Men Should Weep, first staged by Glasgow Unity Theatre in 1947, and The Slab Boys, first staged in 1978, remain the established Higher plays. Every novel and play on the list is below.

That text is Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and it is a genuinely collectable one. Longmans published it in London in January 1886 as a slim book in paper wrappers, with a cloth issue alongside; the front wrapper of the London first is known for its printed date of 1885 corrected by hand to 1886. Copies in wrappers in good condition are scarce and command high prices, and the New York edition from Scribner's appeared in the same month. The newer Scottish texts are recent books whose first printings are still cheap to find.

A school copy of any set text is a modern reprint worth a few pounds. The book's page identifies the first edition against two sources and shows a value band once we hold recorded sales of that printing.