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Higher education

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Original poster

A in mock exam. E in A level

98 replies

Ceci03 · 18/08/2023 22:18

So we are querying DDs result in drama. The coursework was 60% and she got A*. In the mock exam she got an A. She got a C overall in A Level and it turns out she got an E in the exam. She was brought up to a C by her coursework.

I work in a Uni and come from a family of teachers and I have never heard of a student going from an A to an E ??? She didn't have a panic attack. She answered all the questions that has been confirmed.

Grateful for anyone going through so then g similar... I feel that her teacher needs to explain himself? Was he using a different masking scheme? The CW mark be awarded was confirmed by the external tho so hd Aug know what he is doing. Am so puzzled. I would accept she could drop a grade to a B but to drop to an E? She worked so so hard.

OP posts:
Boosterquery · 19/08/2023 22:37

NB I completely agree with you that if the teacher has been giving your DD A grades throughout, the teacher does owe you an explanation. That's not to say that the teacher has necessarily done anything wrong. The explanation might be that your DD fundamentally misunderstood the questions or gave answers that were far too brief. However, the teacher does owe you an explanation.

ASoapImpressionOfHisWifeWhichHeAte · 19/08/2023 22:41

GlitteryGreen · 18/08/2023 22:43

In one of my AS Levels, I went from predicted A to a U (!!) in the exam. It was just a misinterpretation of the question, and therefore my answer was completely wrong. I retook.

This. Same thing happened to me in AS RE. I also retook. That was the beauty of the AS system!

twelly · 19/08/2023 22:48

I think getting a second opinion on the paper from another teacher of the subject would be best. There could be an error in the marking, equally the student could have tackled the question from the wrong angle. Sometimes the more perceptive answers get missed. I think the points about the teacher owing an explanation are inappropriate - it would however be useful too know how the rest of the group performed but you cannot get access to that, however your daughter may have some idea as that would give more of indication if this was across the school cohort

Oneweektogo2023 · 19/08/2023 22:59

If the mock marks were based on any years after Covid that could explain the difference. My sons mocks were marked using the 2018/2019 grade boundaries and his mock results reflected what he achieved in the A level exams.

Hellohah · 20/08/2023 06:57

@surreygirl1987 thank you, that's great. I think he was 2 marks off the grade boundary so maybe they are considering a remark.

We're not too bothered about that, as he did badly in the other 2 subjects as well, so no point going up in one as it doesn't really achieve anything. All the grades need to improve if he's considering University.

We'll see what happens. How long does it take for them to get the scripts, do you know? I don't want to mither them as there's not any urgency.

HeBeaverandSheBeaver · 20/08/2023 07:14

I am not suprised that this has happened tho I am sorry for your dd.

It feel's obvious to me that some schools/teachers will mark on unconscious bias. Good student. Good coursework. Etc. Assume good pass mark. This isn't always the case in the real thing. Im expecting the same next week for gcse.

Sadly this year group are well and Truly screwed over thanks to covid.

CheesecakeAddict · 20/08/2023 07:52

I would recall the paper and ask the teacher to have a look at it. Last year I had a student who should have come out with an A (and I was secretly hoping for an A*) and she came out with a C, having scraped a D on paper 2. I was gobsmacked but when I looked at the papers she'd clearly panicked and ignored everything on exam style and mark schemes I'd taught her and just wrote everything she knew on the topic. It was such a shame.

EnidSpyton · 20/08/2023 08:01

You don’t need the school’s permission to get a remark. The HT may have said there’s no point as it’s such a low E, but he can’t stop you from getting the paper remarked. If you respond and say you want a remark and you will pay, then the school will have to submit that request for you. Remarks and so on all have to be done with the permission of and/or the request of the student and their parents. The school can’t refuse, they can only advise for/against. However, you do need to be led by the school’s advice as they will be looking at the grade boundaries and the overall risk involved in being remarked. It’s really important to remember that marks can go up or down in a remark, and so students do need to be safely within their existing grade category and not sitting right on the mark for a grade to make requesting a remark a safe thing to do.

To make an informed decision, here’s what you need to know:

  1. How did the rest of the class do? Was your daughter’s E grade an anomaly or did everyone do worse than expected on that paper?
  2. Has your daughter’s Drama teacher read the returned paper and do they agree with the examiner’s mark, or do they think it needs a remark?
  3. What is the grade boundary for the overall exam and is your daughter at risk of losing her C if she gets downgraded even further in a remark?

Drama is a subject that is marked with a degree of subjectivity, but it also has a very specific markscheme where responses are expected to tick certain boxes. It’s the same with English. I teach both. I’ve had brilliant students in the past totally flunk GCSEs and A Levels because they’ve gone totally off piste in the exam and not actually answered the question. I still remember one student who was supposed to be going to Cambridge getting a shock C in her A Level Literature exam. I couldn’t understand it and got the paper back - she had written a brilliant essay, but it didn’t answer the question at all, so she had zero marks for an entire assessment objective. That’s the problem - no matter how fabulous an answer is, if it doesn’t meet the criteria, it will be marked down.

I suspect as this happened in two subjects, that your daughter went off piste in the exam, perhaps didn’t read the questions properly, and hasn’t met the marking criteria for the questions as a result. I would be concerned if the coursework had been downgraded, as that might suggest a teaching issue, but as that hasn’t happened, and if the rest of the class have achieved as expected, then it is most probably an exam performance issue, I’m afraid. It does happen. Nerves can make students do totally
out of character things.

However, to make a decision, you need to have the Drama teacher’s opinion on the paper, and you also need to know what risk there is for the mark to go down and what that might mean for her overall grade. She has a C overall right now, but if she’s literally only just got the marks for a C, and the paper is a bit dodgy and the teacher isn’t sure whether she will go up or down in a remark, I wouldn’t risk it. If the Drama teacher thinks there’s a case though, I would insist on a remark and see what happens. Sometimes you do get rogue examiners and you’ll see marks go up by 20 points.

Good luck to your daughter and keep encouraging her to understand that she is not stupid - she has just tripped up in an exam.

surreygirl1987 · 20/08/2023 11:10

We'll see what happens. How long does it take for them to get the scripts, do you know? I don't want to mither them as there's not any urgency

It depends on the exam board, but students are currently getting theirs back at our school very quickly- within a day in most cases. We do have a very efficient exams officer though, which helps. He emails thr paper to the students, and if the students are on the ball checking their email, they can then email it on to their teacher if they want it looking at.

WayDownInTheHole · 20/08/2023 20:05

EnidSpyton · 20/08/2023 08:01

You don’t need the school’s permission to get a remark. The HT may have said there’s no point as it’s such a low E, but he can’t stop you from getting the paper remarked. If you respond and say you want a remark and you will pay, then the school will have to submit that request for you. Remarks and so on all have to be done with the permission of and/or the request of the student and their parents. The school can’t refuse, they can only advise for/against. However, you do need to be led by the school’s advice as they will be looking at the grade boundaries and the overall risk involved in being remarked. It’s really important to remember that marks can go up or down in a remark, and so students do need to be safely within their existing grade category and not sitting right on the mark for a grade to make requesting a remark a safe thing to do.

To make an informed decision, here’s what you need to know:

  1. How did the rest of the class do? Was your daughter’s E grade an anomaly or did everyone do worse than expected on that paper?
  2. Has your daughter’s Drama teacher read the returned paper and do they agree with the examiner’s mark, or do they think it needs a remark?
  3. What is the grade boundary for the overall exam and is your daughter at risk of losing her C if she gets downgraded even further in a remark?

Drama is a subject that is marked with a degree of subjectivity, but it also has a very specific markscheme where responses are expected to tick certain boxes. It’s the same with English. I teach both. I’ve had brilliant students in the past totally flunk GCSEs and A Levels because they’ve gone totally off piste in the exam and not actually answered the question. I still remember one student who was supposed to be going to Cambridge getting a shock C in her A Level Literature exam. I couldn’t understand it and got the paper back - she had written a brilliant essay, but it didn’t answer the question at all, so she had zero marks for an entire assessment objective. That’s the problem - no matter how fabulous an answer is, if it doesn’t meet the criteria, it will be marked down.

I suspect as this happened in two subjects, that your daughter went off piste in the exam, perhaps didn’t read the questions properly, and hasn’t met the marking criteria for the questions as a result. I would be concerned if the coursework had been downgraded, as that might suggest a teaching issue, but as that hasn’t happened, and if the rest of the class have achieved as expected, then it is most probably an exam performance issue, I’m afraid. It does happen. Nerves can make students do totally
out of character things.

However, to make a decision, you need to have the Drama teacher’s opinion on the paper, and you also need to know what risk there is for the mark to go down and what that might mean for her overall grade. She has a C overall right now, but if she’s literally only just got the marks for a C, and the paper is a bit dodgy and the teacher isn’t sure whether she will go up or down in a remark, I wouldn’t risk it. If the Drama teacher thinks there’s a case though, I would insist on a remark and see what happens. Sometimes you do get rogue examiners and you’ll see marks go up by 20 points.

Good luck to your daughter and keep encouraging her to understand that she is not stupid - she has just tripped up in an exam.

I also teach Drama and I would absolutely endorse all of the above.

mynewusername2023 · 20/08/2023 20:22

Happened to me (although over 25 years ago). Got a top A in the coursework and ended up with an E overall because of the exams. I failed the other A level having dropped the third. Didn't stop me though. Got into uni through clearing and they were more interested in my GCSEs.

Turns out I'm entirely grateful I basically failed my A levels as otherwise I'd have gone to do a teaching degree and I now know I'd have hated being a teacher.

Original poster
Ceci03 · 21/08/2023 09:51

The drama teacher is uncontactable. DD is refusing to talk about anything. They haven't sent through the English paper yet. I've been so low over the weekend. I know we just need to move on but it's hard to let go of all the hard work and expectations. She has a couple of offers through clearing but is very wishy washy about them, not a bit excited. Am wondering if she is even right for uni and is it worth the huge debt to go somewhere she's not very enthusiastic about .

OP posts:
WayDownInTheHole · 21/08/2023 09:59

What exam board was she with?

Choux · 21/08/2023 09:59

What was she planning to study and hoping to do afterwards before she got her results? Would she consider resits to stay on that path?

I think you are right that education is an industry and some places will take students who then incur a lot of debt and never really earn a degree educated salary.

EnidSpyton · 21/08/2023 10:44

@Ceci03

You will need to just hold tight until school reopens.

When the papers come back, the Drama and English teachers will be able to give you a better picture of what is going on. Teachers aren’t paid to be in over the holidays, so that will be why the Drama teacher hasn’t looked at anything yet. He may well be away. When they’re back for inset this will be the first on the list of tasks to do and then they will be in touch with next steps.

Your daughter obviously needs some time to process what has been a big shock. When academic success becomes part of your identity it can be hugely damaging to self esteem when you don’t achieve what you expected of yourself for the first time. It will help her when she can understand where she went wrong.

With all due respect I do think you are catastrophising and by questioning your daughter’s suitability for university after achieving still very respectable grades, you will be fuelling her feelings of inadequacy.

Exams are not the only measure of intelligence. The most brilliant students can fail exams through running out of time, reading questions wrongly, or forgetting information in the heat of the moment. The most average students can revise like crazy and come out with all As. Your daughter does need to understand this. Doing badly on a couple of papers doesn’t make her stupid or not university material. Please don’t make any decisions until you’ve got the papers back and can see what actually happened. It may well be that they’ve not been accurately marked, or it may be that she simply misunderstood the question and so didn’t manage to tick the right boxes. She could take a gap year, retake the papers and come out with the results she wanted and so reapply for next year. She has plenty of options and she doesn’t need to decide anything right now.

Please don’t make any decisions until you have the actual papers in front of you. One thing I can tell you is that if your daughter has always been a straight A student, then she still is one, regardless of what her grades say. So what if she had a funny moment in a couple of exams. That doesn’t prove anything about her or define her in any way.

surreygirl1987 · 21/08/2023 15:23

The drama teacher is uncontactable. DD is refusing to talk about anything. They haven't sent through the English paper yet.

Have you tried contacting the Head of Department? I wouldn't be surprised if the drama teacher is uncontactable - I don't expect my department to be available during the holidays - but as Head of Department, from results day onwards I am checking my email. Or speak to the exams officer directly? GCSE results day is this Thursday so there will be some people in school then. Otherwise, yes, wait until term starts.

mushroom3 · 21/08/2023 16:10

It is worth getting the scripts looked at to see if errors have been made on the marking side. Last year one of my DS2 GCSEs was an 8 overall, 9 on one paper and 6 on the other. The 6 paper was reviewed and jumped up to a 9! The marks for a whole section were missed. Errors do happen.

ell32 · 21/08/2023 16:14

This was 10 years ago but I was getting A* in all my mock GCSE PE theory exams. Then felt unwell on the day and also got a horrendous paper and got an E. That was my strong point and I only got a C in the physical side so ended up with a D when I had been predicted an A.

It only takes one hard paper unfortunately ☹️ I'm still annoyed about it now thinking about it😂

curaçao · 21/08/2023 16:21

Have others in her classes dome much worse than expected?

dancingsands · 21/08/2023 17:15

It wasn't an e though, she got a c 🙄 which seems to be in line with a huge amount of students

jayritchie · 21/08/2023 19:10

If you have access to the paper I wonder if it would be possible to find an experienced teacher in another school to read through it and give their thoughts?

AliciaLime · 29/08/2023 07:12

How are things @Ceci03

Stroganoff88 · 03/03/2024 20:55

Did you get it remarked in the end and how is your dc doing?

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