marking terminology/deterioration in scores

[duover2000]

Hello, I am wondering if anyone can offer any advice. I have a 14 year old who has just commenced year 10. She has always been in the top literacy sets and was projected an A/A* for English at GCSE. However, almost immediately since beginning the school year she has begun receiving scores such as C/C- for any written work submitted along with comments such as "yuck" and "horrible" and consistent comments regarding her "vague and weak written style". There appears to be absolutely no comment regarding what she can do to rectify her work, just lots of negative commentary. I am concerned about the huge deterioration in her work but not sure whether these types of comments are standard from teachers and don't want to raise that issue if it is just to be regarded as a parent being petty and oversensitive. Can anyone offer their thoughts? Thanks in advance.

If my DD (y10) gets a significantly lower than expected grade for any work, I check that she knows what she needs to improve. If she doesn't I send her back to talk to the teacher. If that doesn't work I email for clarification myself.

Those comments do seem rather vague to me.

Are you sure work has deteriorated. Might working at a C now not improve upwards to an A end year 11?

Hi duover, my dd is only y7, but that sounds like a piss poor teacher to me! Has the teacher changed? It sounds likely and I think you should react with a demand for explanation before your daughter has half a chance to decide that her good performance up to now is the "blip"!

If you request a meeting and say it's to identify specific areas of weakness for your dd to work on (if by email, I suggest copying head of year, as they may have a more rounded picture of her), I can't think that a good teacher would refuse you. That isn't petty or over-sensitive, it's a sensible response to an unspecified problem. If you send it today and say that it would be ideal to have the meeting before the end of the week, so that your dd has the chance to do something about it over half-term, that is also reasonable (though timing isn't something you can rely on, as teachers also have lives).

My post crossed with yours, TeenandTween. You're right that Duover's dd should initially ask for clarification herself (not fully lost the habit of doing these things for my dd!), but defo follow up if that fails.

I have come across some teachers who seem to feel that kids who never get bad marks will get bigheaded and lazy: it seems to be a purely British thing. I'd be a bit suspicious that this may be part of it...

Teachers do change their marking policy when children start their GCSE courses so instead of the NC levels, they give the Grades that the children would obtain if they were doing the GCSE now. Children would be expected to improve over the course so a grade A/A* at the end of Y11 would still be possible. I don't think that this has been explained very well to you or your dd though! Overall I do think that the marking comments should be more positive to show how your dd can improve her work.

Thanks everyone - this is my first child to reach year 10 and I have asked her to speak to the teacher for "guidance" first but she is avoiding that (my daughter not the teacher) and I know that I will have to set up a meeting. It may be that they are marking as if it is the end of the two years but it hasn't been explained to the parents if so. Also there are children two sets below gaining B's and a boy in my daughters class who managed a B whilst inserting a "dunno" in his work (not in context).....just really don't know what is going on but I will begin with an email as suggested and then a meeting probably with the head of year present. I will raise the use of juvenile commentary in the marking as well...thank you all.

Agree with others - certainly my dd's school in year 10 marks are what they would get if they sat the exam today, so a high C at the beginning of year 10, with normal rate of progress, should equate to low A at end of year 11.

So her low C's are not the end of the world - just she needs a bit of a boot up the arse! And she should be asking her teachers how to improve. In fact her teacher may have already had that discussion with her - but she might have forgotten to tell you this!

I am a very blunt marker but I would still refrain from words like 'yuck', especially with students I don't know. I might write something like 'I don't understand this point' or 'poor grammar' though. I would also have a list of targets at the end to help so it might say- 'this is very brief, you need to analyse the effect' or ' please use apostrophes correctly.' I really wouldn't take much notice of grades though. The start of year 10 is a steep learning curve. If she does a controlled assessment and gets a low grade it would be worth questionin that as they will count towards gcse. I also would not berate the teacher for 'juvenile' commentary as that will only get her back up. Ask for targets for improvement as she should definitely be giving those.

Also, of course Denis marking as if it is the end of the war. If your daughter is producing gcse grade c work then that is the grade she should be given. It is for this reason that I rarely give a grade for work before January of year 10. It gives the students a chance to settle in and see what the expectations are.

Denis should be 'she is'

The grades would be expected to improve over the next two years, but the comments are completely inappropriate. They need to be constructive and help your DD improve a higher grade. 'Yuck' or 'your writing style is vague' are not helpful comments in the slightest and I would certainly raise this with the teacher.

I would suggest this teacher needs to read the school's marking policy because I would bet a lot of money they are not following it! You could ask for a copy OP. Ofsted will take a dim view too. Are they due to be inspected shortly?

This sounds like peer marking to me...def worth a word with the teacher.

My top set (Y11 now) were working at Grades A-D last year and are now A-C with a couple of A* candidates. Hopefully, by May most will be on target A/B). Because English is skills based, there should be progress throughout Y10 and Y11. This year I have a middle set and I'm expecting first assessments to be C-E. Most should end up with Bs and Cs, with some As and, probably, a couple of Ds.

A lot of my marking is just ticking notes but pupil's writing is marked and at least one target set. Assessments have two or three targets and I track whether they're meeting them. I wouldn't write 'yuck' but might write 'This makes no sense', or 'How is this relevant?' but mostly I'm writing 'Text detail needed', 'Don't misuse commas' or 'losing control here' when it comes to pointing out errors or weaknesses.

Thanks again - particularly useful to get information from a teachers perspective. In all honesty I didn't realize that they were marking as if it was the end of the course. Naïve of me but having gone through the Scottish exam system 27 years ago it's a learning curve for me!

Dominodonkey I won't mention anything about juvenile remarks as it would be inflammatory and of course I would wish that the work is marked accurately and honestly whether good or bad. I just didn't understand what looked like a huge fall which now makes sense from both your post and that of Cynderella.

So thank you everyone.