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 woudl write to the head and ask what can be done to rectify the situation. It all sounds really unprofessional.

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.

I agree. The point is, the OP's son is a hardworking and conscientious pupil who is anxious that he was forced to miss an important lesson.
To the extent of having a sleepless night.
This makes me really angry.
Why could the awards rehearsal not be held after school? If that had been the case, since the DS had a hospital apt, would they have been trying to insist he cancel that for the rehearsal? I doubt it.

I agree that you are justified in being angry as would I be. Hope he did well regardless.

I think your son must be very like you op
you'd be wise to watch his mental health at this point in his life.

I think Joy has a point.
Given you don't actually know just how this will affect you your DS, you seem incredibly agitated. Why not just call his teacher and ask for clarification?

And MrsLeigh had a good point.

Hello, another science teacher here. ISAs are worth 25% of each of the GCSEs. If he is doing triple science, he will have three ISAs over the course. These are done in school and marked by the class teacher. There are opportunities for retakes but these will probably need to be completed outside of lesson time. ISAs take 6 hours to complete in my school - prep included. There are usually 2 exams plus a practical, table and graph to complete.

Students DO need to prepare for them but in my experience, triple science students tend to do much better even with little prep. We have just completed one this week and one girl turned up on the day without having prepared and was absolutely fine.

In this situation, I would perhaps contact the school to see if there are opportunities to retake. However, it would be better to wait until the mark comes back (you won't be given a grade) and then see about retakes etc.

What really confuses me with science ISAs is that they are worth 25% of the marks, but teachers definitely don't put 25% of the lesson time into preparing for them: in my DD's school they seemed to be a bit of an afterthought.

I think my DD probably missed out on two science As because of a combination of below par ISAs and lack of a chemistry teacher. (She got high As instead). So she has 4As instead of the 6 she needs to be in the Oxbridge preparation group in sixth form college. And her Oxbridge dreams are pretty much out of the window.

The OP is right: sadly kids today are in such a competitive situation that small slips can have big consequences.

I'm sure it's all sorted now.
I'm currently studying a science degree at 'a russell group university'.

I did GCSE's and A levels relativley recently and had to do ISAs and you get soooo many chances. I missed one when I was on holiday, one I paid no attention to as it was my birthday and another was scheduled after I had a break in lessons. You'd think for that one I would have stayed at school and revised, nope, I went to lunch with my Mum, lost track of time, ran back to school, ran to the library to collect my stuff that I had left there and fell down the stairs in front of half the school. I then ran into my ISA late trying so hard not to laugh at my own stupidity, which was really hard as you have to do them in silence which, as a teenager, makes you want to laugh more. I then remembered half way through that my friend had my calculator so I had to go and ask him for it, after asking the teacher, who then asked him etc etc. (Those were all A level ones)

Seriously, don't sweat it.

Also, I just remembered that I refused to do a biology GCSE ISA because we had to use fruit juice and the juice was mouldy. I have a phobia of mould (useful as a biologist) and was backed against the wall saying I wouldn't do it.
Must have done fine in a later one as I got 100ums for my biology gsce. preens

Blimey! I have a DS in Y11 and a DD in Y10. Try to relax a bit

Have the school given target grades already? I find that unusual, but accept it happens. I think it adds to the pressure personally.

Secondly, have the kids already been told whether they are doing triple or double science already? Again, this doesn't happen here, all the kids do the three sciences have the opportunity to do triple science until at least the first term of Y11, some are late starters, for want of a better word.

DS is a straight A* student with a good work ethic. He has his mocks. He's been studying hard. He also had make a commitment to perform at a home for folk with dementia on Monday night. He really wanted to not go. I did make him go, despite him having 2 mocks the next day in hard subjects, he moaned like crazy. He will be fine. I doubt the extra study will make a difference to the grades. I felt there was merit in him honouring his commitment and making a difference to those folks lives. He puts enough pressure on himself to do well, I think my role sometimes is to counter this a little.

I mean this kindly, but honestly, you are getting quite stressed and a touch defensive when challenged. Will it really matter if he got an A and not an A* overall?

Good grief woman you are lucky your child has a science teacher
If this is a state school you need to take a chill pill.
Believe me there is worst to come and you'll be a nervous wreck at the end of it all.
Children are so lucky today that they can reattempt most things and use the best mark. Far better than having one attempt.
Step back and let him and the school navigate it between them.

Thanks for your supportive comment though. Hun.

Hun?

Gosh you're a bit acidic. There was a certain amount of truth in MrsLeigh's post. If he's heading for all science A levels, he shouldn't be a student most in need of last minute sessions.

TBF to the school they did try to address the clash by scheduling in a twilight session for the affected pupils, so it's just an unfortunate pile up of circumstances.

Talk to them (nicely). It may be that it is the 'one of three attempts' situation PPs refer to anyway.

I think MrsLeigh was damn right, actually.

Yes, it's annoying he missed the session - the school offered extra which he wasn't able to get to, not their fault. But if he'd gone into that session, suddenly realised he didn't know enough and then spent the night worrying about that, you'd have the same end result. If he doesn't know it now, that two hour session would have been of limited use.

These school-arranged revision sessions are a very recent innovation. We all managed fine without them, I must say.

Ah I see OP that is a pain in the arse then. But as others have said it'll be okay and a small percentage of the over all grade. He will have known his stuff as he cares about the subject and wants to do well in it. The two hours will probably have been going over how the assessment works does and don't and will have been revision rather than anything new to him.

My school did revision sessions for science practicals 30 years ago. I appreciate some people are older, but it's definitely not that recent.

This is frustrating but also a learning curve for both you and your child. If he knew he was missing the lesson and missing the catch up then the sensible thing to do would be to have visited the teacher at break/lunch etc and asked what he needed to learn in preparation. Then he could've done some self study at home. Far too many people try to say they made the effort to prioritise but if it really mattered he would've found out the relevant details and done some self study. If he wishes to go onto further education then self study skills and being an independent learner is crucial.

Self study skills are crucial, and if the school were using this opportunity to teach those skills then maybe the OP wouldn't be annoyed. But saying he "should" have done that, when it isn't something that the school is set up to encourage, and didn't (as far as we know) suggest, and when there was no time for him to get help in how to solve the dilemma he was faced with is pretty victim blame-y really. Most people don't magically get self study skills because they're thrown in the deep end. They get them because they are guided into those sorts of habits.

My school did revision sessions for science practicals 30 years ago. I appreciate some people are older, but it's definitely not that recent.

You're a decade older than I am.

I think maybe in the early years of GCSEs was I was) we hadn't reached this meta situation where coursework and intermittent assessments were also something to be revised frantically for. Admittedly our final exams accounted for roughly 90% of the final mark of each subject (it varied slightly) so there wasn't this hysteria around continual and periodic assessments at that time; they were a minor element in the mark. Science practicals were something we were expected to be able to do blindfold anyway and very much a side issue to the content of the curriculum.

MrsLeigh is totally right and not rude IMO.

If this ISA business is like the old practical assessments (GCSEs 1998-2000) and your DS is a good chemistry student then he has nothing at all to worry about. There definitely wasn't any prep needed in my day.

I don't remember what chemistry was but the biology one involved turgid and flaccid tubes of potato.

I think you guys are being unfair to the OP. The school made a mistake and her son needs to focus on his studies, not pointing out the obviously glaring mistake made with scheduling by the school. The son is also a child and it would be completely inappropriate for him to raise this with his school.

As to the timing of the replacement session, I think the OP has a point. It would make little to no difference if any child had missed the rehearsal for prizegiving but it could very well make a difference to any child, hers included, missing the revision session. Scheduling the make up science revision class after school hours is not acceptable IMO. You can't expect a pupil to drop a medical appointment at last minute.

Yes we had lots going on at school but the number one focus was on exams and getting the best grades possible. I got 100% on all my science practicals and we had revision sessions the day before to recap what we were doing in each session. It didn't make a difference to our knowledge but it did increase of confidence and lower the anxiety which I am sure helped us get those top marks. I think it would be an awful shame if this child missed out on an A grade and that affected his opportunity to apply to competitive universities for courses such as Medicine or Law. I know for Medicine they are looking for a minimum number of A grades but expect them in the sciences. It would have an effect on his application to most of the medical schools if he had an A in Chemistry instead of an A*. Sad yes but that is the world we live in today.

What really confuses me with science ISAs is that they are worth 25% of the marks, but teachers definitely don't put 25% of the lesson time into preparing for them.

Not true. In the ISA, students are tested on how to plan an investigation, identify variables, draw a table, draw graphs and interpret data.

Students should have been trained on how to do this in science from year 7.

The preparation for an ISA is due to the fact that they have to do this in the context of a specific part of the specification. This practical may well even be one that they have done before. Students need to research different methods and come up with their own way of investigating a hypothesis. They should all be capable of doing this but they need some guidance.

There seems to be the misconception that ISAs are an afterthought. They are not. Decent departments have been training students for years.

If this ISA business is like the old practical assessments (GCSEs 1998-2000) and your DS is a good chemistry student then he has nothing at all to worry about. There definitely wasn't any prep needed in my day.

I don't remember what chemistry was but the biology one involved turgid and flaccid tubes of potato.

Yes, just testing basic lab skills and approach to experimenting, right?

CarShare my brother was the same. He wasnt naturally academic but because he was into science everyone yhought he was smart and was very very pushed. He ended up having a nervous breakdown the day sfter graduating from uni

You can tell by my typos that I'm not the smart one (broken keybored)

please let us know how he got on. I would have been angry too, but more for how anxious they made him!

Yes, just testing basic lab skills and approach to experimenting, right?

Yep that's what I remember. There was graph paper and you had to evaluate something. Evaluation used to be a big thing.