Fuming with school, I think they have made a cock-up

[CrochetPocket]

So DS is in year 10. He is doing triple science - science is one of his favourite subjects - and is looking at doing science A levels. We received an email telling us DS would be doing an assessed piece of work this week which would count for 25% of his GCSE grade (which surprised me so early on in the course, but hey, what do I know). It was emphasized how important this was.

Anyhow, the assessed work is being done today (I am going to call it an exam for want of a better word).

However, yesterday, kids who had won prizes in the school annual awards thingy had to go to a two hour rehearsal, which clashed with their last (double) science lesson before the exam. I told DS not to go to the rehearsal - the science lesson was more important as it was essential preparation for the exam - the kids were told it was vital they didn't miss any science in the two weeks before this exam.

However, DS was told he had to go to the prize award rehearsal by his tutor. DS found his science teacher, who said opps, but yes, he had to go to the rehearsal. So DS missed the science lesson.

After the rehearsal, DS and the other affected Year 10's were told there was a catch up lesson for them after school, so not to worry. However, DS had a hospital appointment (we've been waiting for months for his - it is important), so he couldn't go.

So, last night DS was pretty worried, then didn't sleep because he was worried, and has gone off to school to do this exam which counts significantly towards his final grade in his favourite subject, without getting the preparation he should have got.

AIBU to be flipping cross with the school, and more importantly, is this it? Does anyone know if he can do it again if he feels it doesn't go well this morning because, due to the school cock-up, he missed a vital preparation session? It sounded to me like the teachers at the school had not talked to each other by scheduling these two important things at the same time. However, it may affect DS's GCSE grade in an important subject

I thought Mrs Leigh was being kind.

You're a bona fide AIBU'er through and through, though op.

I will take that as a compliment HoneyDragon however it was intended :p

I think I am justified in being cross that DS may have been disadvantaged by his school in missing what they said was a 2hr vital part of the preperation process for this exam. I was proud of my O level grades - I don't want DS to feel he was let down by his school with his.

As I said up thread, I will see how DS feels it went, and continue showing him my calm and breezy approach to his school stuff as always. And then have a bit of a rant on here and be told I am over-reacting

Can children seriously be be given predicted grades already?!

You need to chill op. You sound way too worked up and panicked about this.

Science teacher here! No need to panic! Do you know the exam board? It will take a number of lessons to complete and he can catch up. The exam board think these can be done in 4-6hours. Last year my top set yr 11 & bottom set yr 10 took closer to 15hours! If he does not do well then he should be able to do a different piece in the future. We do OCR and theres a choice of two per subject. We are actually doing two with all of them to give them the best possible chance. Oh dear X has only got an A but she could get A*...

Don't forget the school want him to do well too!

Please don't mistake my politeness at trying to respond to everyone's posts with panic PaulAnka. I am not panicked, nor do I need to chill. I think I am justifiably cross with school, that is all.

And yes, DS has predicted grades for all subjects, except Maths and English, where he has been given grades in old GCSE terms, rather than the 1-9 scale, and told these will be revised as more becomes known about the exams in time.

You sound absolutely furious, extremely panicked, and determined to read insult into every poster telling you to calm the fuck down. Polite, though, nope.

I'd have been narked as well actually. I'd have phoned the school first thing this morning to ask if they didn't think that what they had done was a bit rubbish.

PS I think MrsLeigh was trying to say, as you must know, what with your O Levels etc, a 2 hr crammer the day/night before won't make any difference. If it does, then there is something wrong with the original premise of the programme and attainment thus far.

I think an A predicted student will really be ok. The ones to worry are those having to pull out all the stops to get a B. Obviously the school are going to stress that's it's super important for them all to be at every session but children miss all sorts for all sorts of reasons. With an A prediction as long as he's not actually slacking off or going to pieces with nerves he should be fine.

There's no point really in being too annoyed about it until you've heard back from the school. I see your point, I wouldn't be best pleased if my kids' school made them prioritise an awards ceremony over exam prep. And if there isn't any possibility of making up lost marks I might make more of a complaint about how they handled it. But you don't know yet if the rehearsal has adversely affected his grades. So wait. Fuming may be a bit premature.

It sounds as though the whole issue is compounded by your DS's anxiety. So probably the biggest gain you can get out of this situation will be if you can help him see that his opportunities won't be dashed by one less than perfect assessment. A "crucial" prep lesson might not be so crucial to someone near the top of the class, there may be other opportunities to make up lost marks and there are many ways to skin a cat if it does end up impacting on his final grade. So going over other routes to success, building his resilience, could be really useful to him perhaps? And remember even though the GCSE is important to him, soft skills, that things like awards ceremonies can help develop, are also crucial to success, they just aren't so clearly graded. (That's a bit Pollyanna-ish, but not necessarily bad advice for that!)

As virtually everyone else has said, that you've conveniently ignored, is that there will be more ISAs to do. If he doesn't do enough prep for this one, then he can do another Chemistry one, when they next do a Chemistry topic for which there is an ISA. It contributes 25% to the Chemistry exam, not to all three. There'll be Biology ISAs and Physics ISAs, MFL speaking CAs, writing CAs and probably others too. And clashes. Every schools has this, and things generally work out with other chances to catch up.

Oh and wait till the teachers gives him a really high mark for it, then it gets downgraded after exam board moderation, even though no external examiner actually saw it, because the sample they did see were marked too high, then you can really complain. Not that I'm bitter.

I don't know what exam board your DS is doing, but I'm pretty sure they all allow a second one. Technically it isn't resiting, the students are allowed to sit two or three different ISAs and the school only has to put forward one mark (the best mark, not the average). If it is triple science then it will be one for each subject. In addition, the average mark in an ISA is a grade A, so the exams are pretty easy and your DS will no doubt do very well in the end. Certainly for my A* candidates I expect 48/50 as a minimum.

I can see why you are annoyed, and it does seem like poor planning on the school's part, but mistakes do get made in every professional environment. The school will (most likely) have a back-up plan for students who have an off-day on the ISA exam day, so it your DS will probably just join those students.

I appreciate that the rehearsal probably seemed like frippery to you, but for some students being part of a school event is quite a big thing and having a few people missing from rehearsal can really mess it up.

Overall, I think that your level of annoyance is disproportionate to the problem, so YABU.

Dd is doing triple science. Do yu mean he was doing the experiment thing (sorry can't remember proper name )

If so dd sailed through hers with little prior preperation in fact I don't think there is much work you can do to prepare for it

I think there's an argument for teenagers to fight their own battles at a certain point, I would have been mortified as a teenager if my Mum had emailed the school to complain on my behalf rather than letting me handle it. You sound pushy, to be blunt.

Well, I agree with the OP that it sounds like piss poor planning and communication on the part of the school. This is the sort of thing that would also send me into a tail-spin because they may know that the exam isn't the be-all and end-all and that the pupil will have the chance to try again, but that isn't what they have communicated to the parents. They have sent an email saying that this will count for 25% of the final grade, and the OP (and her son) is naturally really confused by the strangely blase attitude they are showing to a supposedly vital preparation session. I too would have expected the pupil to be told to attend the preparation session and never mind the rehearsal, and I would have been really surprised by the response he did get. The son may well then go into the exam really wound up and poorly rested and perform badly as a result.

I take the point that it is very hard to plan for everything in a school, fair enough. But in that case, give the pupils and the parents an accurate picture of the importance of each event so they don't wind up stressing about it!

Actually op, I'd also be annoyed with the school. Work has to be done before fun stuff, particularly where the work might matter for longer than a lesson. The school seems to me to have its priorities wrong.

Thank you for the supportive posts. As you say, what are we to think when we are told this exam is really important, and then told it is ok to miss a 2hr preparation session for it the day before?

DS isn't home yet, so I haveno idea how it has gone.

And, yes he did try to 'fight his own battle' Alexandra but didn't get anywhere. So far all I have done is email the school and ask if a resit is possible if he hasn't done well. Not very pushy, and quite reasonable seeing as the school haven't furnished us with this information.

Many teenagers would have felt a bit off put by missing this lesson, and DS is resilient, but by nature a perfectionist. He likes to think he has covered all bases. We do work on this as I know it can be a unhelpful trait. However, he has always been like it. It used to be called over conscientious I think!

I may post later to tell you DS's verdict

ISAs don't tend to need prep lessons anyway so your son should be fine if he's doing well in school as it is.

I think you can resit your lowest grades ISA can't you? You could when I was in school anyway.

Oh yeah YANBU the school should pay more attention to exam schedules

I absolutely agree with you OP and i don't think you've been rude! People have been a bit patronising and rude to OP I think. Why should ds have one of his opportunities to take this wasted, even if he can re-sit?!?

GCSEs are his future, not some non-curriculum item. He should have been allowed to choose the lesson for himself. Yes he probably can re-sit, yes he probably will be available and on good form for the next attempt but not the point at all.

Hope it went ok for him OP.

I have done fairly well for myself education-wise (masters level degree in science and 8 years practising pharmacy- all A*'s and A's at GCSE and A level before then) but decided to let my career take a bit of a back seat when it dawned on me that my success was largely a result of having quite pushy parents, overly concerned with academic success (less so with other qualities such as being kind and considerate) and it just wasn't what I wanted from life. I was labelled a perfectionist at school but my motivation was largely the anxiety created by the thought of letting my parents down and their approval of me being conditioned upon achievement. I'm not saying that you're in the same situation with your DS but your response to this situation is typical of how my mother may have reacted to similar issues at school and the sleepless nights I had were mainly as a result of worrying about the impact of any 'failure' (not getting the very top grade and almost 100%) on my parents. I'd have been way more relaxed and enjoyed childhood/teenage years far more if my parents had been able to occasionally say 'in the grand scheme of things, it just won't matter that much'. And it really, really won't.

I agree with all the posters who say that this is only one of many and in the great scheme of things not important enough to be "fuming with school".

titchy yes that moderation thing happened to DS1 as well. At the time he was upset as it meant the difference between A and A* at GCSE. Many years later it really, really doesn't matter.

Utterly - the scheduling of ISAs, CA etc are the department's decision.

The ignoring of schedules is actually the science departments fault. Awards evenings will be on the school calendar which would have been published to staff in September, unless this is the first time a rehearsal has been done the staff (unless all are new) would know that a rehearsal takes place prior (my school always runs theirs the day before and as the op's DS' s school attendance is mandatory).

I agree completely with the OP. I'd be annoyed with the school too. Stop telling her to chill, ffs. Schools always go on about how important this stuff is, and then forcing, actually forcing, a child to miss the important final lesson is ridiculous.

DD has done ISAs, and yes they are a significant part of the final result, they do sit some of them early on, and no, you don't get a chance to redo them. So the school have behaved like twats, imho.

OP, I agree that the school have been shit, and you should definitely follow up on this - how dare they deny your DS the opportunity to attend the last pre-exam lesson even when he stated that that was what he wanted to do?! Not acceptable at all.

Oh, and good luck to your DS, I really hope today went well for him.

If its AQA exam board, they take maximum 5 hours to do, and there will be 3 different chemistry ISA assessments he can do and put forward best mark.

And some schools take them off timetable for day to do it which ideally would be on calendar, but some do it in lesson time so it wouldn't be.

FWIW we do off timetable days but it never gets on the calendar. We get permission from management to hold it that day, so assume they have checked for clashes as well when they approve it.