Any A Level History Teachers - advice re - coursework disaster?

[courseworkdisaster]

DD has just has A Level NEA mark back of 29 / 40.

This has come as a complete surprise as she is predicted A Star * *and does well in all of her school work/ exams consistent a star /a

She was told throughout the process that she was on track with the coursework too. Some amendments were suggested and she was told by her teacher not to make any further amendments.

So today she's received the above mark which equates to a B according to last year's mark scheme. To say she is surprised/ disappointed is an understatement especially given the feedback from school.

She now thinks there is no chance she can get the A she needs overall in her A Level for uni. It doesn't help that today is her 18th Birthday so she's really upset.

I know that things can go wrong/ etc and that it's only one element.

I've emailed the school to ask to speak to the teacher to check no obvious error etc.

But can anyone give any glimmer of hope. Can marking mistakes happen? what would you advise.

At the moment she feels like completely giving up!!!

Yes, I get that and if it were not for the general lower coursework scores in History across all the students taking it, I’d think it was that.

In my sixth form we had a science and maths genius that couldn’t pass Eng Lang GCSE. Twas ever thus

@poetryandwine I have a maths mental block.

So using your maths above can you help me to try to work out what it means in real terms.

She got 29/40 so 72.5 percent. This accounts for 20% of the overall mark.

If the grade boundary last year for an A was 139 out of a possible 200 (69.5%) and an A Star was 157/ 200 (79.19 %) what percentage across the exam papers would she need to get to achieve these grades? I don't think this is as bad as she thinks it is to achieve the A.

I'm sorry I'm a complete muppet at maths so I know I should be able to work this out I just can't.

128/160

Self correction

Hi, OP - For some reason I wrongly thought that your original question was to do with Art A Level. Possibly because I am travelling and was distracted by art as I was writing.

I am very sorry, especially as it threw off the calculations in the example I gave you. The good news is that the coursework element in History may count for as little as 20% of the overall grade.

So if an A grade is 80% in all elements, which seems very high, we solve

.725x .2 + ??x .8 =.80,

to see that DD can get an overall A with a mark of ??= 82%

Very doable! Please find out the weighting of DD’s mark of 29/40. If she did AQA, it should be 20% and we can hope this is consistent across exam boards. That makes her result negligible. But she will need some tips on improving her analyses for the exam papers. This teacher believes in her, she can do it.

So school are saying they can't talk about this mark because the A Levels are not completed.

We can ask for a remark but I don't know if that is necessary or a good idea.

I've gone back to make the point that it may be that she got the wrong end of the stick regarding the teachers comments and some guidance on whether at least that is the case might be helpful.

Just adding to the sympathy for your DD. I don't blame her at all for being cross with the teacher. Very similar happened with my DD re coursework. But all is definitely not lost and she can certainly still get an A, even an A*. She needs to channel the justified crossness into her revision. Good luck and happy birthday to her!

That's for the A*, I think the A is 111/ 160.

It just seems odd to me that the course work attracts higher percentage boundaries.

Who knows.

If the NEA marks are low compared to other History marks for the Exam Board, hopefully the moderators will catch this.

@LIZS , am I missing something?

128/160 =.8 or 80%. Not quite enough for the A star, overkill for the A using the values OP gave us.

Yes you are right, I misread the A/A*. If she needs 139 and already has 29 , it is 110/160 or more on the written papers.

For A star using OP’s values

.725 x .2 + ?? x .8 = .7919
?? = .808 which an exam board will round up to 81%. Sorry about that, and about sounding pedantic.

For the A grade, OP, note that DD’s NEA component is already a solid A! I trust @LIZS in her method, you may need to round up one mark to be super safe. The great news is that the situation is far from hopeless. The caution is that DD should learn what she is missing. She like most will likely be needing help at times at uni. This is a great opportunity to learn to seek it, from someone who clearly believes in her despite the current wobble.

Exactly, there are so many of them on the A/B boundary that it’s fairly likely

Well this is better than she was catastrophizing this morning. She was telling me she would need 86% in the rest of the papers for the A. Just shy of 70% should be achievable.

Either way she's got to pull her finger out and not assume the marks previously given in all of her work have been correct, presumably!

I think the issue now is lack of confidence in the teacher. Especially if they won't now talk about the incongruence between what she thought the feedback on the coursework was and the actual mark!

Never mind. Onwards and upwards. In a way this proves she can't rest of her laurels.

That's what I can't quite get my head round either.

Why is the percentage boundary in the coursework so much higher for the A than the rest of the components? It definitely seems to be.

Thanks for the supportive posts though , really helpful. DD has some challenges, having this slight confidence knock might well stand her in good stead for the future.

Sorry for your DD.

Homever, bear in mind that teachers are limited in what/how much advice they can give on NEA or it's malpractice.

It's not great practice anyway to enable an anxious literal thinker to redo coursework multiple times. Especially in a subjective piece of work. They need to focus on the other 80% and their other subjects now. Good enough is good enough.

I’d have thought coursework grade boundaries would be higher because students have so much time to perfect it. Whereas exams are “what can you do in a very limited time frame without knowing the question beforehand”.

I don’t know, OP. It could be that the boundaries for the NEA and the exam are different, which would change the computations.

Except to reassure, I don’t think it helps to focus on computations. Candidates usually do best if they focus more on the work and less on the outcomes. I hope DD believes this teacher is truly on her side, because I do, and I think a couple of short conversations could benefit her hugely.

I'm now worried I'm misunderstanding the grade boundaries, can anyone have a look at this and check?

https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/690902-as-and-a-level-grade-boundaries-june-2023.pdf

what I don't want to do is further compound the situation by giving DD incorrect information.

I'm not sure which are the exact papers so I've based on the highest required marks. The coursework was definitely out of 40 so the top one.

Really grateful for all the help with this , I think it feels worse because it's her birthday! Just want to be able to celebrate!

You can’t ask for a re-mark: you have two weeks to appeal the grade on the basis that you don’t think the teacher has applied the marking criteria accurately (if that’s what you think). Once coursework marks have been sent to the exam board and have been externally moderated, individuals can’t request a review of their coursework in the way they can in exams. If the centre’s marking is deemed to be accurate by the external moderator, then the marks can’t be appealed. If the moderator adjusts the centre’s marks down, the centre can appeal the moderating of the whole cohort but your DD can’t appeal as an individual.

I'm hoping when they see the message to the personal tutor to say it's probably that she's misunderstood and just needs reassurance that they will. I've said that I understand they can't discuss the specifics.

When I said remark that's what the school said we can ask for! How can you tell if the teacher hasn't applied the marking criteria?

DD is so hands off with us with her work.

Ok, so first thing is, don't panic. As an A level History teacher, I do have sympathy for the teacher. We are only allowed to mark one draft so if feedback isn't acted on appropriately then we're limited in what we can do. The mistake the teacher made is saying no further work needed - there are always things that can be done and it should be the students call if they're satisfied with the work and ready to submit.

She shouldn't view 29 as a B grade. It is the first 29 marks she needs towards the 170 (ish) she needs for an A* or the 155 (ish) for an A. Coursework is only worth 20% so unless she is on the cusp of the grade in the exam then she should be able to achieve either. Please don't expect marks to change in moderation unless there is a dramatic difference, I've never had a mark changed in 15 years and neither have my colleagues.

As far as next steps go, she needs to find out why she got 29. If it's Edexcel then that is the middle of a Level 4. Which means either she produced level 4 work but went over the word count or it was level 4 with elements of level 3. She needs to find out which skills she missed out on as this should be her target for the exam. Especially Paper 1 which assesses the same skills.

Hope that helps! All is not lost!

This. As someone who taught two subjects which had coursework at A level and EPQ, there’s such a fine balance between support and telling students what to write.

It is indeed malpractice to give too much feedback after a certain point and allow redrafting with teacher input. That can lead to whole cohorts being disqualified. Broad brush comments are all that are allowed although I might have suggested they go back to the mark scheme and try t assess what they had/had not done.

But 20% is nothing. A couple of good exam papers and she’s away. Just check those mark schemes to understand what she needs to do.

@Talipesmum is correct, OP. The boundaries for the NEA are much higher - stricter - than the boundaries forcthe exam papers. For example, the A star boundary is 36/40 for the NEA and 36/50 for one of the papers. That is a huge difference.

So the formula for determining what mark DD will need on the exam papers is more complex, and not known to us.

I had not realised this. At my university, we use the same boundaries across all assessed elements. It is much easier for everyone. Apologies to all.

Perhaps it is best to double down on the following points:

80% of marks still available;
Exam papers are marked more leniently than NEA;
It is almost impossible to figure out the formula used without access to the OCR methodology, because of the boundary difference;
Candidates do best to focus on process rather than outcome

Best wishes to DD

I'm an A level History teacher and an exam board marker and coursework moderator. I teach AQA. Firstly, teachers shouldn't be giving grades for coursework - that's not how it work. They should just be given the mark - not told 'oh that's a B grade'. 29/40 is reasonably high - I think you've worked the % out. I'd probably expect an A grade student to be around the 32 mark as a minimum, but honestly, it's 3 marks dropped.

The A level (AQA) is marked out of 200 marks. 40 of these come from coursework, 80 on Exam paper 1 and 80 on Exam paper 2. All your DD really has to do is to (try) and ensure that she picks up an extra mark on half her essays and she will be perfectly capable of getting an A grade.

If the grade boundary last year for an A was 139 out of a possible 200 (69.5%) and an A Star was 157/ 200 (79.19 %) what percentage across the exam papers would she need to get to achieve these grades? I don't think this is as bad as she thinks it is to achieve the A.

If she is taking AQA then she now needs (roughly - remember grade boundaries change every year and teacher's can't guess what they will be) but she now needs 110 on two papers to get an A grade. So roughly 55/80 on each paper. AQA has a 30 mark question, then 2 x 25 mark questions. Tell her she needs to get 23 or just over for the 30 mark Q, infinitely doable if she is an A grade student - and then roughly 16/25 on the other two. She should regularly be getting these kind of marks for essays if they think she'll achieve an A.

She's really not dropped anything much on the coursework and can still achieve what she needs. I don't know other exam boards in enough detail to comment, but I wouldn't be worried if she was mine.

The other thing to remember (as I think a pp said) is that teacher's cannot mark and give feedback on coursework, there are really strict JCQ guidelines. She shouldn't have been told not to make amendments; teachers are allowed to question the way you are tackling coursework and that is all. The only way to ask for a re-mark if is you can say WHY you believe the teacher has marked it incorrectly. Be aware that with a re-mark marks can go down, as well as up.