exam cheat

[morbeus]

My daughter has been accused of cheating in her BTEC Art by her teacher. The teacher has set a pretty harsh penalty and there seems to be no right of appeal or even hearing. It is a strong accusation with possible far reaching consequences and I think my daughter has a case that should be heard independently of this teacher. Has anyone else had similar experience?

Hi, what a horrible situation.

To help we really need to know in what form the alleged cheating happened?

More detail needed!

What what she accused of and what does your DD say actually happened?

No one can advise you until they know these facts.

What kind of institution is it at? Can you go to the course leader and/or admin and ask what the formal procedure is? What evidence does the teacher have?

What case do you think your DD has?

Post in the secondary education section....someone might be able to help there

The centre with have a BTEC verifier. That basicallly means the one person who has over all responsibility for the administration of BTECS.

However as BTECs are entirely coursework (as far as Im aware) - they are vocational qualifications and don't have exams - then my guess is she has been accused of either getting someone else to do her coursework or out right copying someone elses work.

BTECs are administed by EDEXCEL/Pearson - dont know if I can put a phone number up here - but here is the link -
www.edexcel.com/Aboutus/contact-us/learners-parents/Pages/home.aspx

You won't get any joy though. It will be upto your daughter to prove she didn't cheat.

to be honest, a teacher wants everyone to pass, it is far too hassle to raise cheating therefore the teacher must have VERY strong grounds for this.
You can of course raise this with the head of department.

Art is also a tricky subject to prove you didn't cheat in. I'm not saying your DD did cheat just that she'll have a hard job proving it.

Art coursework takes weeks and I know someone who at GCSE art, got their talented, artistic older cousin to do their drawing, etc and just brought it into the workshop and passed it off as their own.

Teachers can be very spiteful and shan, a lot of them are twisted old spinsters/useless DH sad cases and they get jealous of young lasses. Especially bonny talented ones with a bit about them.

Confronted her simply say 'right you can either play fair with my bairn or we'll take it beyond the beyonds but trust me we'll never give in never let it drop until we get justice for our bairn' Then if she looks like she's going to argue cut her off 'your not talking today your listening end of' Turn on your heel and walk out on her. Let her worry about what your going to do for a change, who do she thinks she is HM the Q nobody has the right to stand judge and jury put some manners on her.

What does your daughter say, OP? Did she cheat? You need to know the facts, the real truth, and then take it from there.

I agree that it's in the school's interest for your daughter to pass her exam, there must be indisputable evidence and I expect that the school has already made the report to whichever education committee is applicable.

No teacher will disqualify a pupil out of spite - results are a reflection on them, their teaching, thier department. This will have been discused by the teacher, with the HOD, HOF and SLT in charge of standards and qualifications.

Soz, KB on lap, one eye on the telly. cant type straight

Beesimo... What if OP's daughter has been cheating? I know that parents want to defend their child to the hilt but part of being a parent is acknowledging and making the child acknowledge when it's done wrong, not just defending a child because it's your child, without getting to the truth.

Teachers can be very spiteful and shan, a lot of them are twisted old spinsters/useless DH sad cases and they get jealous of young lasses. Especially bonny talented ones with a bit about them.
Seriously?

who do she thinks she is HM the Q nobody has the right to stand judge and jury
They have the right to judge if they are in a position of responsibility. As maddy says, its a right pita for a teacher to accuse someone of cheating, it won't have been done lightly.

put some manners on her
Again, seriously? After you have just advised someone to cut her off 'your not talking today your listening end of' Turn on your heel and walk out on her?
OP, you need to ignore useless and potentially dangerous advice like beesimo has given and speak sensibly to someone at the school (college?) to find out what they think has happened.

BTEC's have a detailed plan of who to appeal to if a student does not agree with a decision about coursework. There has to be a BTEC co-ordinator within the establishment who is the first port of call for appeals about assessment decisions, then it goes up the chain; all students have to be informed of this before they start the course.

As others have already stated, a teacher has a lot of pressure to ensure results and therefore will go through heaven and earth to ensure students produce the coursework needed (usually through losing a lot of their own time to work with students) and for a teacher to fail a student because of cheating there must be a strong case for the accusation.

op - before you go all guns blazing ensure you are fully informed of the facts and that your DD is telling you the truth. The problem I have had before teaching BTEC is that if a student cheats, it is usually copying from another student and therefore both students have been 'failed' as there is no way of proving who has copied from whom (although we always 'know' what has happened) but sometimes I have come across students who have 'borrowed' coursework from a previous year thinking I would not recognise it.....

Trog

I have read this thread have you? the default position is that teachers would want her to pass and therefore she must of cheated the case is somehow proven! Otherwise she will have to prove she hasn't cheated, how exactly?

Utter crap if you may a accusation it is up to the accusor to prove the case, the accusor can't make the accusation and then say I accuse and because I am above any wrongdoing you are therefore guilty!

Teachers are only people their not angelic beings.

What happened?

As maddy says, teachers want all their pupils to pass (both for the right reasons - so the kids do well - and the slightly more cynical ones - so our own careers and our school's statistics do well!) so I doubt any teacher will shout 'cheat!' without strong reason to. You'll need to try to get to the bottom of it by talking - calmly - to the teacher or head of department.

There must surely be a right of challenge, where you can go and ask the teacher on what grounds the accusation was made and what proof there is that it's true. There must also be a HOY and HOD who should be involved.
I don't see how the child can defend herself against an accusation of cheating unless she knows the specifics, which pieces for example.
It's a horrible situation for her to be in, and I would challenge the accusation vigorously.

Beesimo - I thought I was pissed!

Thanks for responses and advice so far. Knowing DD like I do, I have no doubt whatsoever that she did not cheat - and I know I would say that, but truly, she is a lot of things, but a cheat she is not. She has explained in detail what happened but to put into a nutshell, she brought some work home with her and it later transpired that she should not have done so. Dd says that at no time was she told that she could not do this, and has several witnesses. We are going to speak to the headmistress when school starts again after half-term.

This whole situation is so distressing because a) the accusation was made on Monday when she had 6 further GCSE's ahead of her that week, b) the teacher making the accusation has called her deceitful and a liar, whilst not allowing her to speak for herself, c) this teacher has spoken to other senior members of staff and informed DD that her place in the sixth form is looking extremely unlikely, and d) at no point were we, as her parents, contacted by the school.

When Dd came home on Monday saying that she was being disqualified from her BTEC and possibly all other GCSE's we tried to reassure her that there had been a misunderstanding as we felt sure that in such a serious case school would have contacted us. They still have not done so, and the appointment with the headteacher has been made by us. Even if she had cheated (and I truly would want her to accept responsibility if she had) I can't help but feel that the school have dealt with this very unfairly.

Again, thanks for the advice, will follow up all links.

They have dealt with it unfairly, as they haven't contacted you, which is ridiculous. However, if your daughter took work home that is exam related and shouldn't have left the room, I would think that the school has no other option but to class it as 'cheating' and fail the student.

From what I know about Secondary Exam boards, this does then involve lots of paperwork being filled out by staff and then potentially all exams that a child takes with that board, being disqualified.

I hope this doesn't happen and you get to the bottom of this, but the schools hands are tied.

That does sound awful. I'm surprised the school haven't contacted you and pleased you've got an appointment. When is it? After half term presumably?

Can I make a suggestion? Don't call the exam board until you've spoken to the school. By all means look at the specification websites and ensure you understand all of the rules yourself before you meet the head, but personally I'd be worried to flag up the issue to the exam board unnecessarily. If she has had more time than she's supposed to (regardless of who's fault that is) then the exam board may have no choice but to cancel her qualification, but the school may be more flexible and not tell the exam board

Good luck sorting it.

without going in to the actual cheating aspect,I'd agree that the process and handling has been poor whether she is guilty of cheating or not.

I know with GCSE and A level Art they have a certain number of hours in the classroom that they can spend on their coursework. They can prepare for it in advance, at home, and they can still work on research etc at home whilst the hours are in progress, but the work cannot be taken home and worked on there, for obvious reasons. It sounds like BTEC is similar.

The thing is, though, that it is the teacher's responsibility to make sure nobody takes work home during that time. It's like an exam room - you make sure nobody brings in or takes out anything.

I can't see this affecting subsequent GCSEs. It would be different if, say, she'd taken notes in to a History exam; the teachers might suspect she'd done it for other exams but hadn't got caught.

This seems like a misunderstanding and the teacher hasn't policed it well.

I'm surprised the school hasn't contacted you. As someone's said, the LAST thing they want is someone to fail; despite some people's opinions, the teachers do want the students to pass, if only for the sake of their own reputation. Even if someone's been a PITA throughout the last five years, the teacher still wants them to pass.

Sorry, but I am struggling to understand your 2nd post op. BTECs are not like controlled assessments and therefore work can be completed at home so thus can not be a reason for the accusation. I would strongly suggest the meeting take place asap as this sounds very odd and not in line with QCA guidelines