To tell you to tell your teens to read the f*****ing question!

[BorrowedThyme]

I'm spending hour and hours and hours combing through GCSE papers back from the exam board cos mum says Jonnie has told her he had written loads of high quality answers and should have got higher than a 5...

YES! Jonnie has written loads and loads of very high quality content, showing excellent understanding, recall and application of the subject

NO! his answers don't in any way match the question that was asked, so no! he gets no marks for said answers.....

FGS - what a total waste of time and energy for everyone.

And I have spent my entire weekend on these wastes of time

When my son got his results a couple of years ago, we received a letter from school recommending that we have two of his papers looked at so we did. We didn't have a clue and had accepted his marks, it was the school that recommended it to us.

One of his results stayed the same and he did receive a higher mark for the other.

Find another job with a good pension

I was waiting for this reply and you didn’t dissapoint. Maybe the parents of these little darlings should have more sense. I wonder if it would be different if they cost money to be re marked.
why shouldn’t she be in the job? Because she’s fuvked off with parents thinking their kids are better than they really are.

You won’t get a better pension , it’s the best in the U.K.

I’m so sorry she isn’t glued ( for free) to marking exam isomers. I can’t quite hrlieve this comment. Bring nasty for the sake of it.

Exam papers.

Like I said, school politics are not that black and white. It might not be in your contract and you might be able to negotiate your way out of doing it. You might also find yourself failing lesson observations the same year and being constructively dismissed.

Well teachers aren’t the only ones that sometimes need to work in their holidays - everyone else with a career that they care about put some extra bit into the job - for example by working overtime … working in their holidays …so no teachers are not more precious than everyone else …and if they don’t want to do some overtime then they shouldn’t have chosen this career.

Maybe they couldn't answer the question.

Should they leave a blank question paper or write about something they know instead?

I take it you aren't checking a subjective subject then? My daughter has just had her English language grade reviewed.. We questioned her mark on results day and mentioned the possibility of remark. She was told not to bother (despite getting a 6 when always scoring 9s in practice) Her head of English told us this since she was dead center of the grades boundary. We applied anyway and she's gone up a grade. They changed her score on 1 question to achieve this!

It's scary that children's futures are determined by random people making subjective decisions that the children are discouraged from questioning. And disheartening that teachers don't seem to care enough to want to help. We also never knew/were told that there was a possibility of a teacher taking a look at her paper first.. We just paid the £80 fee. Thankfully that was affordable for us and she's happy to settle for a 7, but still.. Thank god she's heading in the science direction for A level.

The impact of Covid and anxiety drummed up in press I would imagine will have impacted on this. I can understand why parents want to check things out if grades are not as predicted. Seems a bit harsh to lay the blame on them in the face of worry and disappointment. As others have stated perhaps this isn't the job for you. A bit of reflection on what has gone wrong rather than simplified blame (and oozing anger) may be a more productive course of action. This is about children's lives and futures. Your irritation will pass while the impact on them may be much wider reaching. Be kind.

Shit. I'm Johnny's Mum

and if they don’t want to do some overtime then they shouldn’t have chosen this career

Overtime is paid.

If I have read the first post by OP correctIy, the issue she is having is with parents compIaining about marks when "Jonnie says he gave GREAT answers!" It's something of a different discussion than most of what I'm seeing. The onIy answer one can reasonabIy give to that is, "Yes, but not to the actuaI question asked. He needs to read the question!"

I've noticed that poIiticians are very good (bad) about that, as weII. These kids may have great futures in poIitics.

Like others that have been selective with their reading and for those that cannot read and comprehend things at the same time, some of us have been contacted by the teachers to gain access to the papers of our DC, it is not the parents doing the chasing!

As you have not antagonised or shown contempt for parents at all with your previous posts- complementary remarks like the following: 'Maybe the parents of these little darlings should have more sense'

How are your comments anything but contemptuous.

It's exams 101!!
It's drilled into us all.

A classic mistake.

As a tutor in a former life, I drilled it into the kids. I had them tell me what the question was asking before answering.

Err, yes YABU as it's your job and just the time of year that we have to do this. I'm a teacher too and have children so I fully understand from a parents point of view. GCSE gradings have been harsh this year, especially in English.
I have to say that you are coming across as a stereotypical teacher - it sounds like you are not in the job to help children?

Going off the subject of the thread but that sounds an interesting job. I did a proofreading qual a while back and loved it, then started looking into stenography/ verbatim transcription type careers but never took it any further. Do you mind me asking how you got into it?

That was to Precottdanii124. Sorry, no idea what’s happened to the quote function.

Prescottdanii123. Gah! Fat fingers.

On a level you’re absolutely not being unreasonable. But when my DS worked his socks off, predicted an A* for one particular subject, then yes, I do worry that he has been harshly marked.

For the other two subjects, then yes, he may very well not have read the questions. Equally, because one aspect of a subject wasn’t his thing, he may well have tanked.

But also exam panic - have you taken one lately and do you remember the dread and stress of taking them?

Poor kid 😢

Haven't RFTF but 30 years ago when I was doing A Levels I sat my European History paper. We had studied 3 or 4 countries and had to do 3 essay questions. One girl answered a question about Sweden in the 1600's (Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina etc) and probably wrote factually correct things. Unfortunately for her, she had misread the question - which was asking about Spain in the 1600's!!