To be angry at school predicted A level grade

[user29]

How can DD be predicted a lower grade than she has proved she is capable of achieving (by a margin) in her mock?

Yes, @IrisVersicolor Westminster with its mixed Sixth Form typically dominates. I did correct my first post, but thanks for catching it.

Sorry my pp was meant to say independent schools as that’s what the poster was referring to re “highly selective boys’ schools” ie Westminster, Eton etc.

For the total picture of state + independent, a list in no order: Westminster, St Paul’s boys, St Paul’s girls, Eton, Magdalen College School, King’s - London, Hills Road, Peter Symonds, BHASVIC - Hove, Greenhead - Huddersfield.

In all: 6 mixed or mixed 6th forms, 3 boys’ and 1 girls’.

Don’t knock medieval French.

Yeuch. One module of Chansons de Geste was quite enough. I was glad to swiftly move on to the 18th century!

I love a bit of Chanson de Rolande…

Regarding Peter Symonds it is absolutely huge, about 4000 per year. As the largest sixth form college (by a long way) you would expect it to have a lot of applicants get into oxbridge.

Hi, @SkygardenTower - As Peter Symonds is also an excellent college, your point is valid. But the reason it is a real standout is for the very high percentage of its Oxbridge applicants who are successful. That is different from the number. (I nearly said the percentage was independent of the number, but I don’t think that is quite true. I imagine that to some extent PS can do all that it does partly because of its size.)

The exam boards mark to a standard across all entries. The standard is set in standardisation meetings where the senior examiners, having agreed the marks across a wide range of entries for standardisation, then standardise the examiners. The marking is monitored for the duration of the process. There is always the right to appeal a mark if you don't agree it - errors do occur. But the boards can only mark the work that was submitted.

We are talking about predicted grades not actual grades

OK so the teacher said that although she performed very well on the mock, it was in covid times (Nov 21) and so the grade boundaries may have been lower.
However, it turns out that a number of people who got signicantlyblower than her have been predicted a*.
So that blows the teachers explanation out of the water.
I don't think she will get any where with the subject teacher ( who told another group she is worried about parents being cross with her ifv they dont meet their prediction - which of course is not an academic reason) so she is going tonspeak to the 6th form team

Before she speaks to the 6th form team can she go back and ask why others who got lower mock grades have A* predictions?

The SLT have overridden the teacher UCAS grade in that subject, so all is well

Result.

Good luck to her for uni entrance.

Well done OP and good luck to your daughter with her Oxbridge application! It's definitely attainable to get in. My younger brother went to Cambridge and had I not completely messed up my Cambridge interview, I would have probably got in too and we're completely ordinary people with nothing exceptional going for us.