Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Higher education

Talk to other parents whose children are preparing for university on our Higher Education forum.

Original poster

A Level Anxiety

895 replies

Toffee22 · 14/08/2011 22:42

Only 4 more "sleeps" until the A level results come out - not that I will be doing much sleeping...

Eldest son wants to study medicine. 3 "A's" required no slip ups allowed. Have just checked and most medical schools don't accept re-sits. How can I face looking at the cold hard facts at some point on Thursday. I'm sure it will be difficult for my son too! When I tried to talk to him about it today instead of a response he said he would do an "impression of a tree". It wasn't even a very good impression. What does this mean?

OP posts:
Ponders · 20/08/2011 11:12

From the same piece:

'Those still feeling flat at the sight of less-than-desired results might take inspiration from Thomas Edison. When asked about his 1,000 unsuccessful attempt to make a light bulb, he allegedly said: ?I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb.?'

Grin
mrswoodentop · 20/08/2011 11:13

Yes perhaps thats where I got confused.Ponders can I ask what offer your ds had for Sheffield.?

mrswoodentop · 20/08/2011 11:14

Oh yes and I really like that quote tooGrin

Ponders · 20/08/2011 11:17

AAB, mrsw - it's their standard offer for Pol/Phil according to their website

mumofsoontobelawstudent · 20/08/2011 12:27

did anyone see the article in the paper this morning, the DM Blush - I just get it for the tv guide! A dad is threatening to sue his son's private school for his son not achieving the AAA he needed. Hmm Views?

ProfessionallyOffendedGoblin · 20/08/2011 12:30

He failed on the coursework, so I think that if the school can't produce evidence that all the necessary areas were covered and good feedback given, in order for the coursework to match the examiners requirements, they are going to be facing hard questions. And law suits.
Which being as it is an independent school and parents are paying fees, shouldn't come as a surprise.

Yellowstone · 20/08/2011 12:40

Tbf he got a 'B' overall and didn't 'fail'.

Since the son has gone to Durham I think they'd find it hard to get much compensation even if they succeed. If I were the school I'd ask for evidence that going to Durham rather than UCL impaired his future job prospects and earning capacity.

Coursework can be marked down quite savagely across a whole cohort, despite excellent teaching and guidance. Sometimes you just have to swallow it.

jgbmum · 20/08/2011 12:40

The link is here

Ponders · 20/08/2011 12:42

yes, I saw it online - usual incisive DM reporting Hmm I struggled to make sense of what happened when (the son is now 20, this process has been going on for ages!)

Ponders · 20/08/2011 12:44

\link{http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027884/A-level-results-Father-sue-Silcoates-School-son-fails-achieve-predicted-grades.html\this is the suing story}

ImperialBlether · 20/08/2011 12:44

He obviously did really well on his exam if his coursework dragged him down so much, so clearly he's a very bright boy.

It sounds as though the coursework was marked by the teacher, but when it was moderated, the marks dropped dramatically.

That IS the teacher's fault. Yellowstone, I don't know why you wouldn't think that was due to the teacher - the teacher should have gone on training courses, listened to advice in previous years, gone onto a forum, asked for advice from the exam board etc etc. Being marked down by one or two marks is acceptable, obviously but in this case he went down several grades.

However, there's nothing he can do about it now and that's the problem, isn't it? He can't redo the coursework (unless he takes the year off and pays a lot more for his fees.) Durham is a great university, so I hope he does well there, but I don't blame him for being really pissed off with his teacher.

ImperialBlether · 20/08/2011 12:45

It's going to be very stressful for teachers if they win the case as the onus will be on them to make sure they're up to date with everything - many schools refuse to give time for that (eg training days.)

carpwidow · 20/08/2011 12:46

Fellatio and others Feel a bit of a "fair-weather" mumsnet friend as I was posting a lot on here in anticipation before DS got his place at Uni. Just to let you know that I am continuing to read the thread and hope your DCs manage to get things sorted soon.

Ponders · 20/08/2011 12:47

He's already finished his first year at Durham, IB (must have had a gap year) so I assume there's no question of him going to UCL now anyway - it's about making the school apologise?

ImperialBlether · 20/08/2011 12:48

OP, you didn't post back once the results were in. I hope everything's okay.

merrymouse · 20/08/2011 12:57

Fellatio Nelson, I think those stories are interesting. There has been a shift over the last 50 years from vocational careers being taught on the job/at evening classes to an expectation that any post 18 training must take 3 years and take place at university. However, as far as I am aware it is technically still possible to work your way up to being a fully qualified accountant having left school at 16, as long as you take the right professional qualifications.

The truth is that we didn't all get paid to go to university and receive grants - up until recently the vast majority of the population didn't go any where near a university. Employers are often quoted complaining that graduates aren't prepared for work. However there isn't much discussion of the fact that in the olden days, employers funded and managed most vocational training, blue collar and white collar.

Anyway, hope everybody got the results they are looking for/is rising to the challenge of finding a different path.

Yellowstone · 20/08/2011 12:58

I can see quite well that it might be due to poor teaching and it certainly sounds on the face of it as though it is. I merely made the point that the damages side of things may be compromised by the son having gone to Durham. I'd be pissed off by poor teaching too, but sometimes coursework gets savaged even with everything covered, was my other point.

In a case where the school has held out for two years I'd be very wary before assigning blame on the back of a DM story and a quote from the dad (who is the one quoting the HT and the exam board).

If the school is just fudging it, then it's being shortsighted in the extreme.

saggarmakersbottomknocker · 20/08/2011 12:58

Will £9k fees mean the beginnings of a complaints/compensation culture in universities do you think?

ImperialBlether · 20/08/2011 13:05

The problem is that if coursework is re-marked, the whole cohort has to be re-marked. You have to get permission off everyone to do it. Given that the others have (presumably) accepted it, there's no way this boy's coursework can be re-marked on its own.

That's a shame, really, as it would show whether the actual moderation was wrong.

Ponders · 20/08/2011 13:12

'All six on the geography course had lower than expected marks and the school said they would send them back to the exam board. They all came back unchanged.
'When I queried this with the head he apologised and said he couldn't discuss individual cases. He still maintained the work was of a sufficiently high standard but said the appropriate marking criteria had not been met.
'I then spoke to the exam board who said the coursework did not meet the criteria set by the exam board. They didn't question the quality of the work just the structural content.'

...'They say they are not to blame and the exam board did not mark the coursework correctly.'

Is that what the exam board said? "did not meet the criteria" suggests the presentation/content of the coursework wasn't right? (Like the issue with history source questions higher up the thread?)

ImperialBlether · 20/08/2011 15:20

But coursework has a markscheme (obviously) which the teacher has to use throughout the year. So the students' work was of a high quality, they just hadn't done the right thing.

So in ICT they could say, create a database and use SUM, COUNT, IF and AVERAGE functions. If they actually didn't do that but did other functions instead (harder functions) then they wouldn't get the marks, no matter how good their work was. It's down to the teacher to know the criteria inside out and avoid doing anything that won't get them a mark.

The school and the exam board (above) seem to be saying completely different things.

eatyourveg · 20/08/2011 15:32

ImperialBlether it was coursework where ds1 was 1 ums short thinking back. I remember asking if ds1's work was one that went for moderation and it wasn't. That's what was frustrating. Had he been science minded I think I might have shouted more loudly but I don't think I'd go down the road of suing - after all, as the old addage goes, you can take the horse to water but you can't make it drink the stuff no matter how much you have paid for the stuff

ImperialBlether · 20/08/2011 15:43

It depends on the teacher, eatyourveg. With my students, I want them to get an A in their coursework as I can put that in their UCAS references (or expected to get an A, if they're an early applicant.) There's no way I would let someone go through with nearly an A - they would have their checklists put into their hands and told to go away for a good long think about it!

eatyourveg · 20/08/2011 15:56

It was nearly a B not an A ImperialBlether It was having a rogue C that I didn't like about it but ds1 wasn't bothered and at the end of the day they were his results not mine

Changing tracks- Have just gone through todays clearing vacancies from the paper which are different from what ucas website was saying at 6am this morning! Ucas website says that there are no English courses at Hull when the telegraph claims there are loads of courses. (All gone since paper went to print I figured though same happened yesterday) Conversely why has Kent according to UCAS online got several english courses but nothing in the paper except QQ2J

Can anyone explain why?

Ponders · 20/08/2011 16:00

So the head is trying to say the error lies with the exam board's marking; but the exam board says the school just didn't meet the required criteria to match the exam board's marking.

The school is at fault then.

The father says he isn't looking for compensation - just for acknowledgement that his son was let down.

I wonder how the school's Geog coursework fared last year & this...