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?

alex we do that for exams, but there is no point when its project work and the student would be identifiable anyway....

I teach Science in fact

maisy taking a random dislike to someone is due to internal biases. eg. you don't like people who seem very different to you, you don't like people who remind you of someone who treated you badly, you don't like people who wear certain clothes that signal different social class to you etc. etc.

By taking a dislike to a student you are responding to your internal biases. Its not something you can avoid. What you can do is mitigate for the results.

this is why school teachers systematically under estimate the abilities of girls in STEM subjects

Am I the only one that sees the irony of someone saying that school teachers are biased posting this

fallen even more sad then that you are apparently proud of having no unconscious bias training...

dunno boney what is ironic about acknowledging the evidence that shows that all graders, whether primary secondary or tertiary educators are biased?

Morphene

The irony is that you yourself are biased and are speaking for 'all people' about how biased teachers are.

At no point did I deny bias nor say I was proud that we weren't trained in it. Not sure where you got that from. Training of any kind is pretty rare in teaching because of squeezed budgets. The moderation reminder was because some posters were suggesting that teachers were keen to avoid it. There is no avoiding it.

It really pisses me off that fixing the gender gap issues in STEM is a job left at the doorstep of universities while school teachers, who are actually in a position to do something to remedy the issue, are all, yeah sure we under grade girls and don't do unconscious bias training...what of it?

The days months YEARS of academics time poured into outreach and ambassador programs and open days and saturday science...and then trying to support female undergraduate when they lose what precious little confidence the system has left them with .....

what is the fucking point.

Morphene
Ok, so again, how am I meant to take some instant dislike to a student's which affects my marking of their coursework when I've never taught or met the student?

How in a moderation panel of 4 when at least 2 teachers don't know or teach the student does this inherent dislike of a student mean they get a lower grade?

Serious question here.
I'm aware that an individual teacher may be within tolerance but differ a little from another because of internal bias.

What I'm not buying is that following rounds of moderation (where it is in the school's interest to push the highest marks possible forward) that a parent can argue they need a remark because Mr Bloggs doesn't like my child.

Seek a review of marking all they like, but lose the my poor DC is the victim of a teacher who doesn't like them.

reporting the fact that school teachers are biased isn't perpetrating bias....its reporting fact.

not sure how that isn't obvious.

yeah sure we under grade girls and don't do unconscious bias training...what of it?

Again the bias is shown.

But what has gender bias got to do with the OPs son or are you trying to change the direction of the thread?

If universities have that expertise maybe they could offer to support schools?

Might that be more effective than some of the other programmes?

boney
I think their point is 'look at the fact that unconscious bias exists therefore obviously OP's son has totally been a victim of a teacher who just doesn't like him. Ignore the fact moderation occurs because it's obviously a the teachers opting to reduce their own results over some hypothetical dislike of a child'.

maisy I haven't said anything at all regarding moderating. I rebutted your statement that instinctively disliking a student isn't the result of internal bias.

I am glad you agree on that point.

Moderating anonymised work by students you don't know, when the original grade given also isn't known, seems a perfectly reasonable system.

I would have doubts in a small department that students wouldn't be known to all the teachers in the department, particular if there is a personality clash issue going on, (I'm sure teachers talk in the staff room) but if the moderators are from a different school that would seem robust.

thefallen we are doing that - its how I know its not happening as part of teacher training.

But why the hell should academics from universities be doing teacher training in schools?

We can't get everywhere, and there is a perfect opportunity to expose all training teachers during their actual training. Does that not make more sense?

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....

Sigh.

No one is saying bias doesn’t exist. Those who mark A Level NEAs are saying that there is so much in place to prevent this-primarily from the DofE, JCQ and from the exam boards.

We don’t set our NEA tasks or marking criteria like you do at uni Morphine, where your ‘biased’ marking doesn’t get checked in the same way. I’d agree with you if you were talking about my Key Stage 3 Exams where I write the paper, mark scheme and mark them and I would be very open to discussion on that. However, we are not. The two situations are not comparable and this isn’t an ‘A Level vs. HE’ debate.

Even in a school/department where you do know the students, the aim is the best possible grade for the student and the school.

That's my point. It's simply not in anyone's interest to put forward lower marks.

That's why the OP's claims of the teacher not liking her son is a bit daft. What's clear in the post is that if teacher had given her DC the grade she wants then there's be no questions, take the A thank you very much. Claims of teacher doesn't like... only ever xome up when students haven't got the grade they want/they don't like being told to.follow rules.

yeah its a total derail - sorry about that.

It just really pisses me off when teachers aren't aware of unconscious bias in any or all of its forms. its really really important, and i'll always get sucked into any thread in which there are teachers denying its existence or effects....

Why should university staff support school staff with something they have identified as an issue in schools? That they have expertise and experience in and schools clearly don't? To avoid wasting "years" in outreach that is less effective at increasing participation than this training would be? Dunno...

maisy people's intentions don't make as much difference as you would think.

Everyone walks into a recruitment process hoping to hire the best person for the job - but the stats show that unconscious bias prevents that from happening systematically.

The teacher may well have marked with 'getting the best grade possible for the student' in mind. That doesn't mean they were successful or that 'B' was the right grade. If its been moderated by someone who doesn't know that teacher, the student or the original mark, then that lends huge credence to the result. It didn't sound like that is the case here though. The OP said a teacher junior to the original marker in a small department had done the moderation.

fallen yes that is why we ARE doing it...but teacher training would be a far more effective means of delivering the message to ALL teachers.

Morphene

I've spent three hours blind marking work from pupils in my school to prevent bias. I can't speak for all schools but those that I have worked in know about bias.

What is not spoken of is the positive bias that teachers are supposed to put on work. If in doubt mark it up.

Morphene and others are reporting the results of scientific studies that show unconscious bias exists in the marking of schoolwork. That isn't a personal slight on anyone here. Some teachers are better or worse at compensating for bias. Some schools may have good processes for moderation or what is much better blind double-marking. (Seeing someone else's marks already on a piece of work does heavily bias anyone.) A small department (which OP's case sounds like?) has much less capacity for independent review.

The teacher in this case did shoot himself in the foot by making that ungrounded statement about "feeling like a B grade student". If he'd said he "thinks" a B grade is most likely because X y and z, I think OP would be much less concerned about bias. Apparently he didn't have good reason to think it, given it was overruled. Though that could be a sign of weak senior management? but again would weak management reassure you about grade review processes within a school?