Challenging Teacher's Controlled Assessment Mark GCSE

[Dancingdreamer]

Advice please on creative writing piece- sorry not sure what exactly called. Expected higher grade based on course work and previous exams. However got new teacher this year where clearly personality clash. Assessment marked down with comments that seem to relate to style eg "overly metaphorical" when had been taught to include metaphor, similes etc to get more marks!

Asked school for explanation but fobbed off with loads of technical data and nothing specific about reasons for marks. Refused a meeting to discuss. How can this be approached please?

Whose CA was it?

You could ask nicely for it to be IVd (Internally Verified) by another staff member in the department?

Op please don't take this the wrong way, I'm sure your op was just written in a rush but there are errors in it - if you're communicating with the school via email etc over this then I'd try to make sure your emails etc are spot on.

Who refused the meeting? The teacher or the head of department? Has the work been through moderation?

Whatever you do, do not try to suggest that the teacher has deliberately marked your DC down because of a 'personality clash'.

Sounds like eng lang descriptive writing task to me. If so, be assured it is worth tiny amount of final marks (5%ish for our exam board) meaning that the difference between a and a* grade is completely negligible by the end. It will also be subject to stringent internal moderation, so if it was under marked, this will be rectified.

This is no biggie, in reality. However, if it had knocked your child's confidence, you could have a word with the head of dept as pp have suggested.

If your dc wants to rewrite, just ask for directed feedback and then ask for the opportunity to redo the piece.

However, if it's AQA and marked at a 7 or above, it's not really worth it. You're scrabbling around for a couple of marks when time would be better spent preparing for paper 1. The exam is worth 60%. If your child is an A-grade student with reasonable coursework marks, they should ultimately achieve the grade they are capable of..

If dc is doing IGCSE, it's probably worth re-doing the coursework and clarifying what the teacher expects.

Once you get into B grade writing, creative writing marks are highly subjective, whatever anyone says. One person's "exceptional" can be another person's "overworked"

We argue a lot in moderation

While there is some element of subjectivity much relies on the specified mark scheme of linguistic devices and variety of language would be expected. Going in citing artistic or personality issues may not be constructive. As there have said the ca will be moderated internally and a sample externally so there no yet be room for change.

I didn't mean to suggest that teachers don't work hard to get marks exactly right. We agonise endlessly over this (precisely because there is an element of judgement required). If a student and I get on particularly well (or not) I will often get a colleague to moderate as I want to be objective and fair. The moderation done by the board is pretty thorough and no teacher wants the wrath of the exam board rained down on their department because of their errors

Email was sent to teacher and copied into Head of English. Reply came from Head of English. Reply did not say this piece was internally moderated just stated generally that there was an internal moderation process.

It's AQA English. Not sure more than that. Mark is at B grade when high A or A* was what we thought capable of based on previous stuff. As haven't seen what was done, it is very difficult to argue a case. Just all very surprised and shocked. And the vague feedback does not suggest there is a strong defence from the school.

Can we ask that it go to external moderation?

Mayfriday - what mistakes have I made? Agree don't want to make mistakes in emails!

It may just be that your DC doesn't do as well in this style of writing. Teachers work to a mark scheme. If you haven't seen the work then I'm not sure why you think it deserves a higher mark.
Oh and please don't go into school blaming a clash of characters. Students are there to learn. Teachers to teach. Suggesting a character clash (unless the teacher is a complete arse) reflects poorly on your DC.

I know am not a teacher but prior to assessment looked at mark scheme in detail. Didn't seem any reason to be concerned as past work seemed to indicate that would be comfortably in expected band.

We have looked again at what has produced in past and compared to work from other family and older friends who have gone on to get As and A*s. Having done this, don't understand the mark. Was very comfortable with subject matter and confident that would do really well in this section. In fact expected this to be one of stongest pieces.

It's the strenght of reaction of DC which am responding to as highly unusual to be so vocal about something like this. Feels real injustice has been done and sadly does now think the teacher is real arse!

No point asking for external moderation - this is part of the process, and as PP have stated, no one wants to risk the whole cohort being affected by a rogue high/low mark.

It is more likely that the marking is accurate than it is that the teacher has an axe to grind with your DC.

Unless you've seen the whole final written piece then you really can't be certain that it has been incorrectly marked.

Individual pieces of work can't be sent for external moderation, a random sample of the whole cohort will be sent which could contain your child's work (but also may not).

It's unlikely that a teacher would and could get away with deliberately marking a students work down. If it is mistakenly marked down then internal moderation should pick this up. If you are certain that a mistake has been made then ask specifically for another teacher (HoD probably) to look at the work and confirm the teachers marking. They may agree to this if you ask, but they don't have to.

Well as you haven't actually seen the work, and don't know what the final grade boundaries are you haven't really got anything to go on have you. Do you really think the teacher is going to risk her cohort getting lower marks and put her career in jeopardy just so she can get her own back on your child?

Here's a thought - he didn't do as well as he could have. You have been told why and what he needs to work on.

Believe me the teacher's concern will be for your dc to get the best mark possible as her pay and progression depend on getting good results. Students think that it is personal because they are immature and to them it is personal. Unfortunately by accepting your dc take on the fact that they didn't do as well as they would have liked you are reinforcing this rather childish way of thinking. If your dc has decided that they dislike this teacher then there is every chance that they are not taking her teaching on board and are perhaps not working as they should in class. I have seen this happen. Child dislikes teacher so decides not to work for her or him. Your main focus here should be to get your dc to understand that their attitude may be affecting their progress rather than talk about personality clashes and other such rubbish. I would also imagine that the piece of work has been looked at by now, given your email to the HOD. I think you have done yourself and your son no favours in approaching it like this. As a teacher I would be very offended to be accused of deliberately marking a student down because they didn't like me. I remember a parent telling my then head of year that there was a personality clash between myself and a student. I didn't see it myself. All I could see was a student who wanted to call out, make jokes and generally sabotage the teaching of the others.

There are lots, and more in subsequent posts (you don't use 'the' where it needs to be used for example) I don't teach English but it really is obvious that your take on your child's work wouldn't be accurate enough to even guess at a grade.

Yes - to get a 9 or 10 the work needs to be almost flawless in terms of grammar, spelling, sentence construction and whole text construction. As you haven't seen the final piece, you have no idea whether this was the case.

If you have written in, the piece of work will have been moderated by the HOD. As other posters have pointed out, whether or not a "personality clash" exists, departments are under huge pressure to get the best possible results, so it is far more likely that marking of CA will be as generous as possible.

I also second the advice that you encourage your child to work whether or not they like the teacher. It's not a personal relationship, it's a professional one... Teenagers (most human beings ) obviously find that distinction difficult.

Moderation takes hours because the exam boards request a random sample of work and therefore the marks awarded have to be as consistent as possible.
Instead of complaining about the marking, a better approach would be to talk to the teacher and ask about whether it is worth re-doing as your DC was very disappointed with their mark. Teachers do make mistakes, but this is why we have internal moderation and it really isn't in anyone's interest to mark down controlled assessed work there is too much riding on it especially in English.

mayfriday The OP is quite clearly summarising in shorthand not writing a flippin' essay! Pedants' corner is situated in the topic 'other stuff'.

I don't understand why the op is being berated for making mistakes. After all, it isn't her CA but her son's!

I think if I were you I would ask if my son could submit a different piece. :)