Low A level assessed grade from teacher who doesn't like DS - WWYD?

[Wonderwine]

DS has always had a problem with one of his A level teachers who doesn't seem to like him (a vibe we picked up early on at parents' evening).
Some of it is of his own making, as in Year 12 he was a bit disorganised/lazy and didn't do very well in his mocks. However he admitted this and has pulled his finger out and worked hard this year.

We had a bit of an issue with this teacher when A level grades were being predicted as he predicted a B for DS on the basis of his mock exam, whereas all his other work pointed to an A being appropriate. In the end we challenged it with the school as it was important for his UCAS application and the teacher reluctantly changed it. However he said that he 'saw DS as more of a 'B' sort of person' and that DS would need to do something very 'different' to change that .

Anyway, DS has worked hard this year, but still feel this teacher dislikes him (and us) for challenging the prediction.
As part of his A level he had a piece of internally assessed work
(20%) which this teacher has given a 'B' equivalent mark. It is a small class and DS knows it is the lowest mark. Knowing the usual quality of the work of some of his peers, he feels that he has been unfairly marked harshly.

What if anything can he do? The teacher is also the head of dept, so there is no higher teacher to appeal to.
I don't know if all the projects get moderated by the board, or just a sample of them.

DS has been told he can appeal to this teacher, but he has no information about why he has been given the mark he has, so doesn't know on what basis he would appeal?

I'm beginning to find your posts quite aggressive and offensive now

Are you? Because I'm not agreeing with you? Gosh!

I'm merely pointing out that your DS might have got a B because that's what the piece (and his effort since he has form for being "lazy") deserved. But as I say you are very clear that that cannot possibly be the case so I'll leave you to discussing why it's everyone else's fault but his and wish him good luck in his A levels.

Any "grades" given for coursework by the school are provisional as the grade boundaries aren't decided yet.
If the external moderator doesn't agree with the teacher's marking then they do adjust marks (either up or down).
If the teacher is marking correctly then there won't be much change after external moderation. However it can happen that the teachers are applying the mark-scheme incorrectly and that candidates are either up or downgraded. It's quite rare though.

Probably best I step away from this thread now as clearly some MNers have issues with it.
Unless I have missed the point, nobody has an issue with discussing exam and NEA situations.

People are questioning the teacher doesn't like my child so must have been biased against them line. Believe it or not 'teacher doesn't like me/my DC' is a ridiculous common line trotted out on anything from mock grades, coursework, expecting behaviour policy to be followed etc.
It does seem you are very quick to account for a provisional B on coursework (no published boundaries for this year) as being the fault of anyone/thing other than your DC.

It doesn't make sense for a school to downgrade a child's coursework just because. If anything, it's in their interest to try to push a wobbly candidate's folder up slightly.

I agree with previous posters that you sound very biased.

Was the coursework not internally moderated?

Sorry, I just saw that they were moderated.

Anyway, according to the rules I am marking under at the moment, the student can challenge the mark. Another, disinterested member of staff will look at it and make a decision before submission to the exam board.

Do that.

I am surprised and quite taken aback at how many posters have attacked the OP. There has been so much research in the field of psychology on the various sources of teacher bias that to argue that it is vanishingly impossible that a teacher might undermark seems counter to what has been discovered time and again. Indeed, a refusal to admit the possibility of bias is worrying. If the teachers's marking stacks up, why do so many feel affronted by OP's wish to have it verified? I would worry about any child being openly labelled at an early stage as a B student. As we all know boys often mature later than girls so to fix in stone what someone is going to achieve seems limiting and a potential source of bias.

FordPerfect

Because there are numerous safeguards in place to prevent such biased marking. You have to justify your mark in writing. You have to moderate them. The students can challenge them. The examiners can change them. Your whole cohort can be altered if you get it wrong. It's not something a teacher would do deliberately because their performance management relies on students doing well.

So the chances of a teacher not at least doing their very best to be objective are low, and there are processes in place whereby their initial judgement can be refined.

Exactly what Pengggwn said. I really don’t think a lot of people actually understand how marking NEAs work (along with old controlled assessments etc.)
You have a very strict mark scheme to follow in all subjects that do them and have to justify to the exam mark why you have awarded those marks. They get checked by the exam board as well.
In addition, teachers want as high marks as possible come results day, regardless of how they feel about their students. This is because their pay depends on it, their department budget depends on it and if it is a subject like Computer Science, May even lose their job if SLT decide not to run the course in the future. The amount of schools no longer teaching computer science in any form has shot up recently.

So the OP’s reason for her son getting his mark being due to the teacher ‘not liking him’ is so wide off the mark, it’s not funny.

A teacher (or two teachers when moderating) can still make a mistake on awarding marks hence the need for moderation but it will not be deliberate

FordPerfect
Because they have a set view that the teacher doesn't like their DC so obviously it must be the teacher being mean.

When we did our coursework, 4 of us spent a day off timetable and every single folder was 2nd marked by someone who doesn't teach the student.

If a student/ parent called us up wanting a review of the NEA before the marks go off then we'd do it but would be surprised given the pieces have already all been marked twice and where borderline 4 members of staff had looked at it. It would mean getting someone in a related field to do the review though as we moderate as a whole team anyway. Usually on explaining our moderation, parents with queries are usually satisfied.

If a parent called us up giving the old my DC only got a B because the teacher doesn't like him then we'd find it hilarious. Firstly, how could 2-4 members of staff possibly decide they dislike a student so much they'd mess with scores, when at least 2 of the 4 wouldn't teach the student?
Secondly, we could probably bet that the parents who call up with th excuses and teacher didn't do their job/is mean/doesn't like my child are the parents of those students who coasted, didn't work hard enough on it, expected spoon feeding with limited effort on their part.

All teachers have their marking verified. Internally and externally.

@fordlperfect at an early stage?! A Level is the end of their academic career in terms of A-G taught subjects.

Please, link me to one of these studies.

There’s way too much riding on teacher bias. The kids that are borderline would be pushed up and rinsed for every mark we could find.

If, as you’re saying, boys take longer to mature than girls than maybe he won’t shine til uni.

A B is BRILLIANT in the new A levels. An A is phenomenal, and reflects two years of absolute dedication.

Is this a private school, @wonderwine?

FordPerfect

I have repeatedly said that the OP should get it remarked.

I am waiting for you to admit that the OP has a bias.

Whether the OP has a bias is surely not the point as she isn't marking anyone's work. OP has a hypothesis which may or may not be accurate.
The process for marking and double-checking the marks given does sound robust but if OP wants to be certain that the marking is accurate, what is the problem?

There's no problem with her D'S asking for a review. And lots of posters have pointed to the procedure for that. The OP said she wasn't sure she wanted a review. So I'm not really sure what she is after.

There are lots of papers on teacher bias, I am not sure where to start. If you do a search you will find almost too much information to digest on the various types of bias, as found in an educational environment, but also very applicable to everyday life. The studies are very interesting and I imagine that our various biases are an adaptive response to cope quickly and easily with constantly meeting new people and assimilating new information.

FordPerfect
Whether the OP has a bias is surely not the point as she isn't marking anyone's work.

Except that it forms the basis for her complaint.

OP has a hypothesis which may or may not be accurate.
The process for marking and double-checking the marks given does sound robust but if OP wants to be certain that the marking is accurate, what is the problem?

I have no problem with the OP wanting a remark, (I've posted this several times, in case you missed it), I have a problem with the OP pointing the finger at someone other than where it should be pointed.

FordPerfect
There is a huge difference between bias that is part of being a human being and the OP's suggestion that the teacher has a personal issue and doesn't like their child.

Schools moderate work. Coursework is moderated. More than the teacher has seen it.

Despite this she is more hung up on some kind of daft personal issue that this teacher is supposed to have with her DC.

As many posters have said, it is not in any teacher's or school's interest to artificially lower marks.

As someone in the middle of grading undergraduate coursework I can say I absolutely experience bias while marking. I;ve done 3 or 4 training courses now on what to look out for and how to mitigate for the biases I personally happen to experience. That's the norm within higher education I think...certainly is in my department. One thing we absolutely look out for is 'feeling a student is a grade X student' and 'gut instincts'. These are strong indicators of bias.

Of course A-level markers must be an entirely different species to us UG level markers, as they are perfect and suffer no bias, not even when they are on record saying that their instinct is a student is a B student....

maisy there really isn't a difference between 'bias' and spontaneously taking a dislike to someone.

It might not be obvious why you like one person instinctively and not another...but it ALL comes down to internal biases.

Cross posted with this:
I have no problem with theOPwanting a remark, (I've posted this several times, in case you missed it), I have a problem with theOPpointing the finger at someone other than where it should be pointed
This through and through.
By all means ask for a review.
Don't go into it with excuses how obviously the teacher isn't doing their job.
Somehow if DC had an A I don't think the OP would be all 'poor DC'.

Morphene
Of coursr there's a difference between bias and disliking someone. E.g. I might assume neat handwriting is a sign of a good answer, or that printed bubbley type writting is typical of middle ability students etc. They are biases to be aware of.

That's different to disliking someone.

Plus, how on earth am I meant to have some sort of agenda whem moderating coursework of a student I've not taught (or even met in many cases)?

We don't do training courses on how to spot bias. We do have internal and external moderation.

Morphine - dh’s university goes one further. All work is submitted anonymously under a candidate reference so in theory he doesn’t know whose work he is marking.

But fallen none of that matters.
Exam board training
Own marking
Internal moderation with single staff
Internal moderation with the department
External samples and moderation from the board

Nah. Don't you realise that the most important element of our job is taking a random dislike to a student for no reason at all, not doing our job properly for that one student and then somehow all the moderators (some who will have never met the child) will all have the same personal dislike.
Obviously

We don't do training courses on how to spot bias. I know....this is why school teachers systematically under estimate the abilities of girls in STEM subjects.

Sad...but true.

There is so much evidence out there that girls are predicted lower A-level grades at the same ability as boys. I saw it all the time when we had UMS marks to look at. I'd be like, why is this person predicted A when all their grades are A*? Oh its a girl....what a surprise (not).

Of course now we aren't going to have UMS marks to attempt to compensate for biased grade predictions...which will be a serious issue.