Coursework moderated from an A* to a C

[Fossie]

DD lost out on uni place as her Product design coursework (50% of her grade) has dropped from a borderline A* (according to her school) to a C which changes her overall grade from an A to a C. How is this possible? The school and her teacher are ‘puzzled’. This has happened to all in her class so all are affected. Neither firm nor conditional will take her now. Any ideas how to challenge this?

The reason why I am writing to say these procedures are dictated by exam boards, is because I have had a moderator comment on a coursework scenario that my students didn’t even attempt-they chose another one but the moderator got them mixed up. Still took until the middle of September for the exam board to admit fault and even then, the grades were not altered. You can see why teachers quit, eh? Yet teachers still always get the blame by default.

The moderator will write a report to the school to explain why the marks have been changed but this report will go to the teacher / Head of department so exams officer may not know.

If the exam board is OCR, the moderator's report will be uploaded to OCR Interchange which the exams officer will have access to.

I am really shocked the the HoD is not available on results day to deal with issues like this though. At our school it is a requirement of the post that the HoD is contactable (either in person or via email/phone) on both A Level and GCSE results day.

I wouldnt be blaming the teacher. Marking has become a complete farce in recent years.

OP, you need to be asking school about their internal moderation processes and records.
A school should be cross checking and second marking marks themselves before it even gets to external moderation and many occasions where there are overall problems is where this hasn't happened.

I would suspect they have missed a critical part of the assessment (evaluation of a certain aspect etc) which limited grades.

(I work in this field but not ocr)

Do you work for an exam board spinn?

More often than not, it is because a moderator has interpreted one sentence of a mark scheme differently to a teacher (on very little training for the moderator, I might add, especially if you are AQA or EdExcel)
For example, in Product Design, a sentence such as Full and objective consideration of relevant materials and possible technical requirements when required throughout the design process. is a full mark band below the sentence Exceptional consideration of relevant materials and possible technical requirements when required throughout the design process.
Surely people can see how this comes down to personal judgment and not a simple right or wrong answer and how a moderator could disagree with a teacher and vice versa?

Why would a firm offer be taken away? I thought a firm wasn't dependent on grades?

Another point is that asking for remoderation for a cohort is expensive (£251 for A-level with AQA and other boards are similar) - and that - certainly in our cash-strapped state school - the exams officer or Head of Department probably can't just unilaterally just decide to do it without other budget-holders agreeing it's a good use of the school's resources... (The money is refunded if the original marks are upheld but the school would want to really carefully consider the moderator's report first before applying).
Centres until 19th September to apply, then have to wait to receive details of the reviewing moderator and send the sample off to them, and then the board have up to 5 weeks to complete the re-moderation.

Thus it is not at all a quick process and is unlikely to be completed in time for any grade amendment to affect a university offer.

@Honeyroar I think you're referring to an unconditional offer.

“My DSis is a teacher and goes in for results day and is as nervous as her pupils. All the heads of subject and years and the head of school are there too- checking the results and supporting the kids.”

My husband is a teacher and all of the schools he has worked at have said they do NOT want staff other than those involved in university applications and exams officer etc at the school on results day. He has therefore never gone in. He always checks the results from home. Please don’t assume the teacher doesn’t give a shit because they aren’t there. They aren’t paid to be there and may have been told specifically not to come in.

Sorry not read everything but I think your best option is to raise this with the school and wait for a response, pushing if necessary. The adjustment sounds quite severe so school may ask for a remark. I don’t think you need to ask to see the moderator’s report, which is produced for teachers not parents and may not give you the answers you need anyway.
Mark schemes for coursework in creative subjects can be quite subjective and one mark deemed to be ‘out’ will bring down the marks of the whole cohort. It’s tough but does happen. Until recently it wasn’t a requirement to give students their provisional coursework marks, which I thought was a better approach.

I would contact any uni depts directly if they are in clearing and explain the situation. Don't just rely on the website "if the computer says no"

This is not a direct reply to you OP but for people generally interested in the marking / moderation processes.

BTEC (Edexcel) are really harsh with their marking criteria.There will be a number of things that will get a pass grade, another group that give you a merit and a final group that give your the distinction.

Quite often they are:

Pass - list the components of X
Merit - explain the components of X
Distinction - analyse X

There will typically be 3 or 4 criteria for each grade.

A student who achieves all the pass criteria, all the distinction criteria but misses just one of the merit criteria can only get a pass grade.

If they achieve all the merit and distinction criteria but miss one pass criteria then they do not pass.

The coursework is marked by the teacher. A sample of the work at pass, merit and distinction level is handed over to another teacher to internally moderate, ie they mark it and see if they give the same grade. If you have a piece of work that is borderline or you are unsure about in some way this goes to be internally moderated.

The external moderator visits and the work is put into pass,merit, distinction and the external moderator checks the marking.

Not shocked that teachers can grade differently to moderators but that it can only become apparent on results day and that the teacher would be abroad and the rest of the staff unavailable!
Why is this surprising? The module results for A Level modules come out on A Level results day.
I'd expect senior staff (senior leadership team) and the exams office present but that's it. After that it's up to staff whether to go in during their holidays for a morning.

My DSis is a teacher and goes in for results day and is as nervous as her pupils. All the heads of subject and years and the head of school are there too- checking the results and supporting the kids.
That's ridiculous. Sometimes I go in, sometimes I don't. I'm not planning my holidays around GCSE and A Level results days as that blocks off almost a fortnight of my holidays (flights from regional airport to some places are set days only).
I'm not nervous on results day. I've taught the course as well as I humanly can, attended the board training and the pupils have revised. After that it's up to them.Most of them know if they've got into uni already as UCAS updates earlier than they get to school

Sometimes I think too many staff getting worked up actually makes it worse for students, most of whom want to open their results with us loitering nearby, say thanks and get a hug and then they go.

@crazycatgal That's what I mean - what's the difference between a firm offer and an unconditional offer? If an offer has conditions it's not firm, surely?

Op's opening post says "neither firm nor conditional will take her now"..

Honeyroar-on UCAS, students are asked to select one offer as their firm choice (could be conditional or unconditional offer) and one insurance offer (could be conditional or unconditional offer)
I think the OP means neither firm nor insurance will accept the current grades, which means that both offers are conditional on the grades. If either her firm or insurance offer was unconditional, the grade drop would not matter.
The OP can go through clearing however, and phone up the institutions directly to see what places can be offered (amongst other options)

@Honeyroar If I remember rightly the firm choice is the offer that the applicant selects as their first choice, this may be a conditional or unconditional offer.

The board is Edexcel not OCR. My mistake. I’m not sure if that makes a difference.

The moderation isn't really fair but I don't think they have time to moderate all papers.

Dd was potentially in an awkward situation with her course work.
There were 3 teachers. teacher 1 (teaching one class) very new to teaching, who seemed to aim to be fair. Teacher 2 (head of the subject with 3 classes), teacher 3 (who dd had, again with 1 class)

Unbelievably, teacher 3 told that his class that teacher 2 over marks, so he deliberately undermarks to make up for it. DD's seen the marks for previous years, and, yes he significantly undermarks. She reckoned having gone through her coursework that he undermarked hers between 6 and 10 marks.

But here's the real rub. When they moderate the coursework and pick ones at random, there are three times as many from teacher 2, who over marks. So generally the coursework is moderated down again.

Thankfully in dd's year it's only gone down one mark, and she got her firm uni place so it doesn't matter.
However it would take her marks up from being a safe A to possibly being just into the A* category.
This particular subject has a history of not getting good grades.

It's not worth appealing the coursework mark. However I am currently composing a letter to her 6th form SLT outlining several, to my mind, serious issues in the teaching (not just in this subject) and this will be mentioned. I suspect they will just put that down as student talk, however if they wish to look at the coursework marks for those teachers it should be clear that there is an issue.

Witchend. That's terrible. It's good that your daughter has still got into the Uni she wanted but imagine if it meant she hadn't. 😱😱😱

Thanks Crazycatgal, my stepson says that's right. In my day it was simply known as your first choice! Calling it a firm offer is strange, it's not firm at all, is it!

Witchend

What should happen with the internal moderation is that the marks are standardised so that they are not adjusted by the moderators.

We have always gone for the box that says marked leniently but within tolerance.

What should happen with the internal moderation is that the marks are standardised so that they are not adjusted by the moderators.
We have always gone for the box that says marked leniently but within tolerance.
I agree. We mark the first draft harshly and the final draft as generous as possible within tolerance. The mark that goes to the board is agreed by a minimum of two members of staff (but I've known it go to 3 where there's been inexperienced staff seeking a mor experienced view/folder we think is borderline / will be the top or bottom in the cohort so will almost certainly be called).

In the situation above, someone else should be calling the generous marker and the harsh marker out for inaccuracies.

The fact is that, on average, across all subjects and across GCSE, AS and A level, about 1 grade in every 4 is WRONG. This is admitted by Ofqual, who, in a posting to their website on Sunday 11 August, (www.gov.uk/government/news/response-to-sunday-times-story-about-a-level-grades) write this: "more than one grade could well be a legitimate reflection of a student’s performance". But they don't state how many other "legitimate" grades there might be, or whether they are higher or lower. See also www.hepi.ac.uk/2019/08/15/dear-ofqual-%EF%BB%BF/

Personally, I would like to see second opinions on all coursework grades that have been adjusted by an external moderator so that the DC drops 2 grades. If you have a DC who achieves 100% UMS points (or thereabout) in their written exam and the moderator adjusts their coursework so the overall grade drops by 2 grades then this need to be reviewed. I do understand that not all DC are as good at coursework as per written exams.