marking mistake or teacher was badly wrong

[bloomburger]

This may be long and I may not understand some of the terms myself so forgive me.

DD got her results of her GCSEs, 5 A*s, 5As, 2 Bs and a C.

The C she got for chemistry which means she is probably not going to be able to do it at A Level. She's devastated. She's wanted to be a scientist for as long as I can remember, she's out in loads of effort and was 5 marks off a B which would mean shed automatically be able to do Chemistry A level.

The bit that let her down was her coursework for which she got a D grade. This girl she can't understand and neither can DH and I is that she was told she had an A for her coursework by her teacher. She had submitted it and got a D, worked on it again and got a B then again after spending most of her free periods during study leave and lunchtimes and he said she'd gotten an A.

How can the mark he said it was worth and the mark the exam board said it was worth a be so drastically different? We can't ask him as he left mid term to take a job in industry due to the better pay.

The science teacher who was there said they would look into whether she is able to do the A level based on which parts she scored highly on, A for 2 of the modules (she got a C in one but it's the one her left before completing teaching the class the subject matter). If the A level is made up of the ones she scored hilly on they may let her, if not she won't.

We are in shock. She has worked so hard, she's diligent and would not have submitted coursework without it being as perfect as she could get it.

Where do we go now?

She's taking about giving up sciences altogether as she thinks she will struggle at A level if she has done this badly at the GCSE. I've reassured her that her marks are excellent we are extremely proud of her and we are sure things will be ok but she's so disappointed.

On line it says it unlikely that they'll remark coursework as it means the whole years coursework will have to be remarked. It's so bloody unfair. How could the teacher have got it so wrong?

that does seem really unfair :( and I'm not surprised she's so disappointing.

I've been asking the same questions today about coursework. According to her teacher, my dd got an A for one of her pieces of industrial tech coursework, but it's come back as a D. I can't understand how it can be that far out :(

In your daughter's case, hopefully they will let her carry on if the exam marks were OK, they might excuse the coursework as a blip? hope you get good news

disappointed not disappointing! sorry those grades are excellent!

Sounds like the same thing with both our DDs Mrspigling.

She's so sad about it. I can't believe such a huge difference wasn't picked up by the teacher. If the first piece she submitted was as bad as she now thinks it obviously was it would have been a U!

How have the school explained this?

Any coursework resubmissions at my school were marked by a different teacher, or at least reviewed by one. Someone should have picked up a massive difference between 'D' grade work and 'A' grade work...

I'd speak to the school as a matter of urgency. I'm not sure what they could do about the C grade now, but they should at least let her go on to the do the Chemistry A-Level if it's their fault, and then her A Level results will be more important than her GCSE results so the C shouldn't affect her too much.

I'm not sure how this could happen tbh. Which exam board is it? I would certainly be asking for a call from the head of dept to look at coursework and explain what's happened.

Which exam board is it? It's unusual for science coursework to be done that way.

I'm a private tutor (I have previously taught science in schools) and had a lot of work from one particular school where the chemistry teacher should have quit the year before and just didn't teach the class anything at all. It was horrendous.

Your daughter's done really well to get As in the first two modules, and depending on which board it is a lot of the unit three material is repeated in year 12. I'd b's surprised if the college wouldn't take her for A level based on the unusual circumstances surrounding the results, although you should be aware that A level chemistry is a HUGE jump from GCSE so your daughter might still struggle.

Really good luck to her, and congratulations on her results.

Sorry, I'm not implying your dd is not correct, just that it sounds as if teacher was a bit crap ('left' in middle of term?!) and potentially the dept have not picked up the crapness of the coursework. This shouldn't happen, but could do in a small number of scenarios. Ask hod if coursework was selected by exam board for looking at. With aqa, students shouldn't be 'redoing' coursework in this way.

She can do science without Chemistry!!! Physics, Maths and Biology would make a good set, and can lead to all sorts of interesting places, both in science and engineering. My bio physicist friend has done some really cool stuff.

I'm not sure which exam board. She's at her dad so will text her.

She won't contemplate doing maths a level even though she got A*s in both maths and further maths and won't sophisticated because 'I hate it!'

The teacher who marked the coursework seems to have been good as he taught the first 2 modules she got the As in. The last one was taught by a new teacher so looks like this has been a problem too.

She was shocked at not getting the projected A or A* in all sciences and we didn't look at the breakdowns till I'd calmed her down.

We've emailed the head of sixth form and the woman responsible for any appeals to do with grades/remarking.

She wanted to go to Cambridge so is now thinking that it's out of the question.

Not sure why the bold. She got A*s in both French and Spanish so may consider languages.

I think I'd prefer her to do that but don't want to crush her dreams.

If she wants to be a scientist, then she should study maths, no question.

Speak to the school ASAP. The grades the teacher tells her are based on previous grade boundaries so possible scenarios are:

• The grade boundary has dramatically changed hence the drop; unlikely
• The whole centre was marked down due to issues with the quality of marking. All centres internally moderate CA marks but if some bad marking slips through the net and ends up getting selected by the exam board for moderation then it can affect the whole group; this is quite likely. The school should be able to tell you this.
• The teacher lied to your DD to get her off his case
• The teacher marked all the coursework incorrectly, it wasn't moderated and ended up at the board being adjusted downwards.
• The school submitted marks for a draft instead of the final CA; this is the most likely.

You need to find out what happened. I don't teach science but CA generally cannot be remarked individually, it has to be the whole cohort. I've not heard of it happening.

Saying that there is no reason your DD can't do science at college with those grades. A C is not bad. I'd be surprised if the school didn't allow your DD to do it either. Please don't panic.

Have you checked the marks against the exam boards grade boundaries? We've had a similar issue with a controlled assessment and after looking at the exam board's information we think that they have entered the raw mark instead of the UMS.

You can ask for her exam and coursework to be remarked. There is the chance she will get her grade dropped, but as she is only 5 marks off the upper grade boundary this is highly unlikely. I had one of my a levels remarked and was moved from a B to an A. It is definitely worth a shot!

CanIhaveacoffee - Coursework cannot be remarked

Individual coursework cannot be remarked. The school can send back the whole centre but are unlikely to do this.
Any "grade" given by a teacher for coursework / controlled assessments are provisional as grade boundaries are not decided until after all the work is moderated by the exam board. The task is different each year so although previous years boundaries can be used as a guideline, the mark-scheme will change each year.
Science controlled assessments use a different way of marking to exams. This isn't exactly how it works, but a pupil could have some of the A grade criteria in their work, but only be awarded a C grade as they haven't completed all the criteria to obtain a grade B. To obtain an A grade they need all the grade C criteria plus all the B grade criteria and some of the A grade criteria. I hope that helps.

I'm a teacher and a GCSE examiner, Controlled assessment cannot be marked, changed and remarked, that is cheating. It has to be done in school in exam conditions, it can't be redone if you don't like the grade.

I taught GCSE Science this year - AQA.

I don't have my raw marks to hand, but I thought they were OK - a spread from about 45% to 100%. When they were given grades, they went from A* - E, so the lower performing students were quite severely punished.

What I find with Science CAs is that some of the clever kids don't do so well because they don't listen to the teacher's advice, whereas some of the weaker ones hang off your every word and do better than you might expect.