My daughter's a level teacher just threatened

A decade plus at school and three years at university taught me that grades are all a load of wank at the end of the day.

My first boyfriend sat A levels at the same time as me, having repeated the year due to not turning up. Instead of answering the questions, he sat and stared in front of him for every exam, except for the one where he answered two and a half questions before he gave up.

He got two Us and, for the one where he got as far as a third of the way down the second page of the booklet, he got an E.

That's the level of performance that gets an E grade after 18 months of not studying; if somebody can't get above that for an end of unit question when it's all fresh, it could well be better to start thinking about alternative pathways.

Op there are some very harsh comments on this thread. If you set aside the issue of the grade for a moment, is she enjoying the subject and is she learning? Are we educating to pass exams, or educating to encourage enjoyment in learning. She has only done this for one term. If she is really not thriving/enjoying then fair enough, but maybe she just needs some time and encouragement from her tutor. You might like to tell her there was a specific paper on one of my A levels which I found very difficult. I got 15% in the mock A level - 4 terms in. Got a B in that paper at A level - suddenly I got it - with help from a lovely teacher.

Did she get higher grades at GCSE than expected? There was some grade inflation last year so she may have been impacted by that. Some students starting A-Levels this year may not actually be suited for them

Sorry, just liking "academic chops" @WhereverIGoddamnLike, and imagining my dog eating a book.

Still no answer from the OP about what the teacher has actually said!

@SleepingStandingUp

I did a crash higher in physics. Studied chem and biology at standard grade and then went on to do higher for those in 5th year. In 6th year I did a crash higher of physics, never studied it before but thought why not, might as well get a higher in all of them.
It's fine if you've got the academic chops to do it. If you dont, then it's a waste of time.

@sleepingstandingup plenty of A Levels can be taken without having being studied before. Most schools don't offer gcse economics for example, but economics a level is popular. Similar with pysch, sociology, politics etc. And some others don't need Gcse, many schools will let you do geography with no prior qualification, for example.

Why is she (why has the school permitted her to) studying a subject at a level that she's never studied before

Might be something like psychology, philosophy or economics that people don’t usually study at GCSE?

Why is she (why has the school permitted her to) studying a subject at a level that she's never studied before? She's being set up to fail surely

Some subjects don’t have a GCSE , so it’s perfectly normal to start a new subject at A level. If all the students on the course are getting Es then you could have a point - but if others are doing well despite disrupted learning, then it will be more to do with the student.
I teach A level and we have most of the classes getting A/B. The few who are getting Es and below are mainly students who probably shouldn’t be doing A level.

@SleepingStandingUp many subjects are not taught at GCSE for example psychology, politics, economics, philosophy.

@Rowenasemolina that might be true for a science subject but for arts and humanities it’s more a gradual build up of skills in essay writing source assessment etc. My ds1 would have scored a D in January if year 12 he got an A five terms later .

No, and this really pisses me off. The same thing happened to me years ago when I was in school. I had only done one term of A Level French which is a huge jump from GCSE level and was then expected to do most of a mock full À Level exam in January. I also got an E and then got called into the deputy head to be asked if I wanted to drop the subject and carry on with just 2 A Levels. I was a bolshy self righteous sort of student and told them absolutely not and went on my way but my friend actually dropped out of school after the same chat. I ended up getting a B nearly 18 months later at the actual exams and after I’d had that much extra chance to learn the language!

Depending on the subject, it could be exactly the same for your DD and I am amazed that schools don’t offer more help rather than immediately asking you to drop the subject.

Also can you find out from the teacher what the issues are - is it that she didn't revise successfully / doesn't recall material accurately / can't present her ideas coherently / some other aspect of exam technique.

A few years ago Y12s did AS levels and they were modular. The first papers were done in the January after one term.
There were a lot of red faces when results came out. Kids who had managed GSCEs without too much effort and didn't realise the step up to A level.
Those early results often acted as a wake up call. Some realised they had picked the wrong subjects, others knuckled down.

Now this has to be done by the teacher. The teacher will know whether the child has worked hard or not and what the likelihood is of turning it around.

An E is a very low grade, but I've mentored high potential students from difficult backgrounds, and I've seen some turn things around after getting lower grades (C/D usually) at mocks, and end up with A/B grades in the final exams. For some students a bad result is the kick needed to up their game.

I'm not sure what the situation is this year, with the pandemic etc, but if this is a module, then it will obviously impact on her final grade. If it's a mock it won't impact her grade. Either way she needs to change something and up her game.

If she did well in her GCSEs then she can probably pull something out of the bag. If she got Es at GCSE then you have to wonder if she's doing the right thing pursuing A-levels when there are less academic forms of education/training out there which might suit her better, and where she might find something she excels in and can make a career out of. Might make for a happier child too.

What does she want to do for her career OP?

OP - if I was you, I'd perhaps work with your daughter to understand why she got the grade she did and how she might improve. Does she have areas she doesn't understand? Did she not fully realise what the question expected? Did she not include enough detail? Was her revision not thorough enough? You can ask the teacher what they think DD should focus on as well. And then see how she does in the next test (hopefully having put some of her findings into practice!)

It's not a good grade, OP, but there's no reason that she shouldn't improve between now and A Level exams. If she's doing 4 then it's probably best to drop it, though, and let her concentrate on other subjects.

I went to uni with 2 C's and an E, then went on to pass an MA with distinctions - getting an E is not a disaster. I think it's awful to say you'll be kicked out if your grades aren't high enough, that sounds like it's in the schools best interest for the league tables rather than for the students, appalling IMO.

Why does she think she only got an E?