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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Too Mature comment on my son's essay

35 replies

Magpie27 · 17/09/2010 17:36

I have just joined this board and it looks great. My son has had a 'too mature' comment on his essay at Soham Village College in Cambridgeshire.

He IS mature for his age because his parents are getting on a bit now.

Has anyone else come across this from teachers? What do they mean, do you think?

By the way - I have a superb Mother travel cot if anyone wants to buy it.

OP posts:

webwiz · 17/09/2010 17:41

How old is your DS Magpie? My DS is very "old headed" (he's 13) but his teachers have always praised him for it rather than criticized

Lancelottie · 17/09/2010 17:45

Is it code for 'must have got your parents to write it'?

Kez100 · 17/09/2010 18:02

That's the way it sounds. While I know a lot of concern about coursework surrounds parental input I also know a child, my son's friend, who is 12 and is amazingly mature in speech, understanding and knowledge. He can bat me into a corner any time. I would hope, if he or any other child writes that way, it wouldn't attract such a comment, as any teacher should know exactly what to expect from him.
Very odd.

sandripples · 17/09/2010 18:06

I agree very odd and would ask teacher what it means. Its not helpful.

IHeartKingThistle · 17/09/2010 18:43

If I suspected parental input in an essay (what year are we talking about here?) I would say so. You're not allowed to submit anything for GCSE that you suspect is not the student's own work, so a vague comment is not enough of a response to that issue.

Perhaps the content of what he wrote was a little inappropriate for school work? I have taught a few students, particularly in Years 7 and 8, who are much more 'teenage' than their peers and more aware of adult topics. That's what I would be most likely to write 'too mature' as a response to.

If in doubt, ask the teacher. I don't suppose he/she will mind!

jem44 · 17/09/2010 19:19

Agree with Iheart. Only the teacher who wrote it will be able to tell you what it meant! Just pop a note in the h/w diary and ask (nicely) for clarification - much less effort that trawling through our endless suggestions!

Vallhala · 17/09/2010 19:30

I haven't a clue what the teacher might have meant and agree with others that there's no harm in asking. If you have concerns which you feel aren't being answered wrt your son's English tuition, have a word with Miss Muir.

She can come over as quite tough but she is fine really.

One further piece of advice - if you ever have any issues with SVC, for goodness sake PLEASE put all of your queries in writing AND MAKE SURE THAT THEY ANSWER IN WRITING TOO. (Bitter voice of experience speaking).

cory · 17/09/2010 19:41

Adult reading material?

lionheart · 17/09/2010 19:49

Magpie, you might want to keep the name of the school to yourself. Internet can be a small world sometimes.

But I'd ask the teacher, it's a strange comment.

brassband · 18/09/2010 13:38

What school is going to not submit a good piece of work unless they have definite proof of plagiarism? I know several teacher friends who have been made to submit work by their H of Ds in the pursuit of grades which they know has been done by a peer.

jem44 · 18/09/2010 14:10

brassband This is quite an accusation. You cannot extrapolate from your anecdotal evidence from your "several" friends that all schools cheat.

jem44 · 18/09/2010 14:11

And teachers know their students well enough to know when the work is not their own.

IHeartKingThistle · 18/09/2010 14:47

Teachers have to sign every coursework folder before it is submitted. So does the student. I would never put my signature to something if I thought it was not their own.

My department in the past has made students complete coursework in school if they have obviously plagiarised but refuse to admit or change it.

Anyway, the new GCSE English syllabus has no coursework, I would imagine for precisely these reasons.

bumbletoes · 18/09/2010 15:02

If it is in English, then it could be that the tone your DS has adopted isn't quite right. Language use and content should match audience and purpose. If he was asked to write something that was informal or chatty to a friend, or for someone younger, then his style may not have been as well-matched as his teacher wanted. If this is the case, it suggests he can write well and maybe the teacher was nit-picking in order to stretch him. My higher-achieving students sometimes need to be reminded that their fantastically wide vocabulary and enjoyment of complex sentences isn't always the best style to adopt. They always do very well because they are able to write in their usual 'mature' way for analytical work and in different styles for more creative work. The comment probably needs context - ie. 'Too mature for...audience or purpose'. If this isn't the case, I can't shed any light.

If I spot plagiarism or suspect parental help, I have a chat with the student concerned; I wouldn't just leave a cryptic comment.

brassband · 18/09/2010 15:39

Jem - the teachers I am speaking about do not suspect cheating because the work is better than their normal standard ( come back to that), they KNOW for a fact that another student has done it.But what can they do-would you blow the whistle.Who is the HT going to side with HOD & Grades Versus young idealistic teacher?

To come back to teh first point.How do you get round the matter of a self-fulfilling prophecy ie you predict the student to get (say) a C.They hand in an amazing piece of A coursework and you won't submit it because it is too good!!The poor little bu*ers are damned if do and damned if they don't!

brassband · 18/09/2010 15:41

'the new GCSE English syllabus has no coursework'
When does that start?

jem44 · 18/09/2010 16:11

Brassband I am sorry to hear about your friends HT and HOD. I think they are atypical.

bumbletoes · 18/09/2010 18:12

Year 10s have just started the new GCSE specifications which will have 'Controlled Assessments' instead of coursework. Work can be prepared at home and in class but actually written (with only one side of notes - not drafts - to help them) under pretty much exam conditions over several hours in school. Other subjects are doing the same, many having started last year. The aim is to stop students relying too much on internet notes / essays which, even if they didn't plagiarise, they were relying on too much instead of thinking for themselves. I hope it will save me all the time I was spending googling parts of my students' essays!

Speaking as a HoD it remains to be seen how the Controlled Assessments will all work out in practice...

IHeartKingThistle · 18/09/2010 18:35

I'm interested to see how it will work too! Still, if it will keep my students taking chunks from Wikipedia I'll be delighted!

And brassband, it's our job to know the writing style and capabilities of our students. A massive improvement would be applauded and rewarded but it is bloody obvious when it isn't theirs. I've never come across a plagiarised A* anyway; if they're stupid enough to cheat they're not normally clever enough to tailor it to the question properly anyway!

brassband · 18/09/2010 20:54

I'm not a teacher myself, but i would imagine you would have to be very very brave to block the submission of a pupils work without definite proof of cheating.
Wouldn't the student have legal recourse?

IHeartKingThistle · 18/09/2010 21:10

It's not about 'blocking' it. Most times a quiet word with the student involved will work and they'll do it again, or print out a copy without the offending paragraph if it's that simple.

Proof is easy if it's the internet (which it generally is). If they deny it you can Google it in front of them and generally they admit it then (and quickly go away to do the work themselves!)

Admittedly it's the ones where a parent or sibling or friend has 'helped' that are difficult. For those you have to tread carefully depending on the child.

I don't know why I'm feeling defensive about this, I just don't want you thinking we all want to stamp on kids!

bulby · 18/09/2010 21:22

From experience the plagiarised course work Is obvious ( they all use the first suggestion on google lol). To be serious though we know our students well enough to spot work that has had too much help, and a bit of questioning about the work can help to reinforce suspicions. And yes we can be wrong but most of the time any plagiarism is so obvious eg. Several pieces of work with exactly the same wording or language used that the pupil clearly does not understan

cory · 21/09/2010 08:28

An obvious stylistic break in a text is also a good clue that you need to google a passage because somebody else has. Even at university level, some students are not literate enough to realise that if they submit a whole essay in a childish and ungrammatical style but with one large chunk in the middle written in beautiful scholarly prose, people are going to get suspicious...

And I agree with IHeart. The ones that would be clever enough to cheat and get away with it have no reason to do so and are usually too proud of their own unaided efforts.

tokyonambu · 21/09/2010 09:01

As several people have said, the controlled assessment scheme means that cheating now requires the teacher to actively connive, rather than just look the other way.

But my elder has just started the new scheme, and we were talking about the way it'll still clearly differentiate people with literate parents. Especially given The bloody Crucible is still a set work thirty years on from my O Level (especially odd in these post-Venona days, when we know the critical difference is that there were no witches in Salem, but there were spies in the State Department), candidates with literate parents who wish to "help" will arrive in the C.A. room with a theme for the essay that definitely answers the question, a well-structured essay plan, a list of page numbers for quotes, and will have (if they're smart) actually written the essay at home the previous night so they know they can fit it into the time/words/effort/etc limits of the format. They may even have a few well chosen phrases ready to go.

Weaker candidates, and those without the advantages of the middle-classes, will arrive with a few notes, a vague idea of what they're going to say, and a lot of hope. It may remove some of the overt writing of assignments by parents, but it probably doesn't reduce the advantage much.

IHeartKingThistle · 21/09/2010 09:42

You don't think it possible that the teacher might adequately prepare ALL students for the assessment?

'The Crucible', by the way, has been the most successful play I've taught in terms of the enjoyment of students and the quality of the responses.

I can sort of see what you're saying but what are you suggesting exam boards do - penalise students with helpful parents?

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