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?

God yes, it definitely should be in teacher training. But that's going to take a while to filter through.

And your institution might be supporting schools, but that support is not available in our area. Despite university proximity.

catkind

Apparently he didn't have good reason to think it, given it was overruled.

We don't know that at all

Though that could be a sign of weak senior management?

Yes it could

but again would weak management reassure you about grade review processes within a school?

Yes they would, as weak managers tend to be very good at protecting their own backsides at the expense of others.

OP I would definitely ask for more information and if unhappy challenge the mark. It's your DS's A level and it's important. If there is any chance a mistake has been made I think you owe it to your DS to check.

I think it's entirely possible for a teacher who has already stated that your DS 'seems like a B grade student', will be predisposed (perhaps unconsciously) to find that his own prediction was correct.

Morphene, sorry but it is pretty rude to lump all teachers under a stem bias and accuse us all of giving lower predictions to girls. Having previously worked at a RG uni for several years as a lecturer, fortunately I know you do not propose a universal view.
At my school, like at my dcs, predictions are data based not random opinion based.
( anecdotally in both my y13 science classes, this year, last year and the year before the girls are systematically outperforming the boys when viewed as a homogenous mass, which of course they aren’t because they are individuals).
The suggestion of the OP that teacher bias would lead to a lower score though is in every case ludicrous, as many pp have said, the aim is always to get each one to as high a mark as possible. You would have to be seriously off the ball, fixated and bizarre to deliberately sabotage your own performance management criteria and pay progression just because you didn’t like a kid.

catkind
Saying someone is 'a B grade student' is often shorthand for 'based on what I've seen...'

Last term a student was worrying about their grades. They have D targets and are getting Ds in all but my subject (higher in mine). I've said to them not to worry about their future (they need higher grades for their aspirations) because in my honest opinion they aren't a D grade student. Their knowledge of content is higher, their essays are better and their whole approach is better. They better fit the pattern of a hard working C grade student.

People only seem to have an issue with statement if they don't like what's been said.

If the teacher had said 'DC is clearly a straight A student' then there'd be no issues at all.

If the teacher had said 'DC is clearly a straight A student' then there'd be no issues at all.

Except that the teachers competence would be being questioned for not seeing that the pupil wasn't producing "A" grade work.

I meant in the eyea of the OP boney.

If people get the marks they want, no question. Obviously tje whole process is fabulousm
If people get a statement pf performance that they like and confirm their view that their child is always on As, no questions.

DC doesn't get the grade parent wants, the teacher must dislike them.
Teacher outlines a student isn't working at the grade the parent wants, teacher is so awful and unprofessional for making a judgement.

MaisyPops

Sorry, I wasn't clear, I am fairly sure that the OP would still blame the teacher if her ds was predicted an "A" and got a "B"

I agree with you boney.
Unless the outcome is what OP wants then the responsibility lies somewhere other than the child.

fallen where are you at (just in case you're anywhere near us)

You could PM if you don't want to state it on the thread...

rosie its worse than you think - I am accusing all teachers including lecturers of bias...and further I will accuse all human beings of bias.

Some people have different levels and types of bias to others, but we are all programmed to 'feel more comfortable' around people 'like us' and to react to patterns that used to be important in keeping us safe in our evolutionary history.

I saw systematic under predicting for women even in the small number of UCAS applications that passed my desk. I also saw a person with an obviously ethnic minority name predicted a full two grades under his actual UMS verified scores. That could genuinely have been a one off but I doubt it. I also saw a ton of students from public schools predicted 1 to 2 grades higher than their UMS scores indicated. In one case it would have been impossible for the student to get the grade predicted given their current scores plus 100% in all future modules. Obviously repeated resitting could fix that, but still!

I honestly despair at how we are going to sort all this out once the UMS scores aren't available...although our offer is so damn high we could just make offers to everyone and then take anybody that actually gets the grades!

If the OP's story is correct and her son has only turned in a single B level piece of work, with all the rest A's then a teacher saying they 'just think he's more of a B student' is not being fair or accurate. I would very much question any future marking done by that teacher...though to be fair if I thought a teacher was dismissing the ability of my child I'd pull them out of the class rather than let them continue undermining my child's confidence or belief in the fairness of the system.

Students are more than just a number that you see on an application. Their teachers will see them daily for years and get to know them. Their history. And develop a working relationship. To dismiss the awarding of a predicted grade as purely down to bias and the whim of a teacher shows a lack of understanding in the process. There is more to a predicted grade than you think. And to entirely blame bias for what you see is the STEM problem ignores many other issues that are out of teachers’ control. Performance is measured against the accuracy of predicted grades. If the grades we predict are too high or too low, there are consequences to us.
As I said before, predicted grades are not target grades and the two often get confused, very notably on this thread.

If theOP's story is correct and her son has only turned in a single B level piece of work, with all the rest A's then a teacher saying they 'just think he's more of a B student' is not being fair or accurate
Even then context is key.
I can think of a lovely student, very hard working who got Bs on many of her essays. Her mocks and exam work was Cish. We did more class work than mocks so on paper you could say 'but she got 6 Bs and only got a C in her mock'.
If I'm being honest, she was more of a C grade student. She did really well on submitted essays because we'd worked on them in class and they were on recently studied topics, told to revise a small area for a question etc.
Was the student capable of getting a B? Yes witj quite a bit of hard work.
Would it depend on the questions on the day? Absolutely.
They weren't a secure B student. They were more of a C grade student based on a holistic view of the student and the course.

But Maisie, "based on what teacher has seen", he's been giving this student consistent A and A* grades. That isn't going to make the student feel like he's a B grade sort of student is it? I can think of various possible reasons for a drop, but no reasons for not giving some kind of explanation beyond a "feeling". We get more explanation of interrim infant school meaningless report grades, and this is A-level predictions potentially affecting student's uni application.

Ah op - rookie mistake posting this on secondary education. They all close ranks (I've been there).

I think some people underestimate how difficult the Computer Science NEA is. A full working system programmed and a report to go with it, averaging 500 odd pages (one of my students this year got to 900 pages). It’s an NEA that takes about a year to do. This needs sustained focus and a lot of sustained hard work and understanding. If the student is estimated at a ‘B’ grade-that’s 50-59 roughly out of 70: a pretty amazing score in itself.
Not many students around the country will be getting even that.

If he has consistently been giving this kid A*/A grades then why the suspicion that he would suddenly give him a B grade only because he sees him as a B grade student? If he had a grudge/particular view, wouldn’t he have been marking all his work down?

Absolutely ask for a remark to set your mind at ease, but ‘all his mates reckon it’s an A grade piece of work’ isn’t a great argument when they are not teachers trained in marking coursework. You need someone who knows what they are talking about it to look at it.

cat
I agree and see where you're coming from.
Just saying that it's not uncommon for classwork to be a grade or so higher than exam work. I always explain that to students when the conditions are different (eg if we are looking at essay structure then working on speed isn't appropriate). It may well be that the student knows he's had a lesson to prep and a lesson to write some of these answers and in thr exam the whole thing needs to be done in 45 mins.

Or the teacger could have done what a colleague did to my bottom set once and tell them they were doing well... for a low ability group.

One of my students who will probably get a C/B depending on the day in the exam has handed in a few As. I would love them to get an A. Do I think their exam technique makes this likely this year? No, but maybe by the end of y13 they'll be more A/B.

Equally, I had a student once who could have been an A student, As all year (moderated) and then they decided they were going to walk the course, stopped listening and we told home if they carried on their DC would be no higher than a low B. DC got a C.

There's so many options other than teacher doesn't like child so is going to pull their NEA down and underpredict them based on nothing more than dislike.

hmc
It's not about closing ranks.
People are being quite open about the need for moderation on NEA.

We're just trying to explain to the OP that usually things aren't as simple as i didn't get the mark i want because the teacher doesn't like me'

Okay Maisypops - I see that there have been quite a few helpful and constructive posts on this thread, I just bridle a bit at the minority of posters who seem to think teachers always behave as consummate professionals and there can never be an instance of them discriminating (wittingly or unwittingly). We all know that one teacher who doesn't always make fair and transparent decisions (I am thinking of my dd's PE teacher who is an older man and quite sexist!) - although I concur its also difficult for parents to be objective and dispassionate concerning their own child's coursework marks

noblegiraffe
If he has consistently been giving this kid A/A grades then why the suspicion that he would suddenly give him a B grade only because he sees him as a B grade student? If he had a grudge/particular view, wouldn’t he have been marking all his work down? confused*

It could be that the teacher has been forced to upgrade the work due to the complaints by the OP as she has already forced the UCAS prediction up.

It could also be that the pupils class work is an "A/A*" grade due to the input from the teacher, yet when the pupil has produced the NEA their work (without help) is at a lower grade.

Or it could be that the teacher is as the OP perceives him to be.

Absolutely hmc.
We are all guilty of being open to influence. It's human nature. It's why moderation is key.

I've had colleagues pass papers/ coursework to me because they have had a frustrating coursework process with the student (usually them not listening, not working hard enough etc) and they want the folder marking entirely by someome else because they know that the parent is the type who will claim you are picking on my child rather than tell their child to do the work (see also 'but they need a.... ... prediction to get their uni offer')

Anecdotally, the type of student in 6th form who claims their teachers don't like them and have home on the phone complaining about coursework, mocks, why staff aren't doing their job etc are usually the students who are complacent / lazy / think they are entitled to a certain grade / think the teacher should ensure they get a certain grade regardless of work / don't use their study periods well / spend a lot of time on hear say with other students where they decide they know the course better than staff.

Most students/parents who have queries manage just fine without the poor me. It's not my fault. The teacher doesn't like me attitude.

@KittyVonCatsington what board are you doing?! Our AQA CS NEAs average about 80 pages including code listing - the OTT kid did 130 pages

We’re doing OCR, peodar but did do AQA for about 12 years in the old spec. Even then through, 80 pages would have been a C or below grade-usually D grade as there wouldn’t be enough justifying etc for the top Mark band. Never had my marks adjusted.
However, have no idea how AQA has changed (I know their complexity rules have got a bit more lax, as before, if the program didn’t meet complexity rules, didn’t matter how much they wrote, they could never get an A)

Morphene, you are either deliberately (or worse accidentally) missing my point.
Of course all individuals will experience bias.
You accused all secondary school teachers of being biased over their determination of predicted grades, and that of being the whole problem of the sex imbalance in stem subjects, and that we were leaving it all up to the universities when thr issue could be easily solved.
I ponted out there was ( at my school) no bias in predicted grades as they were data determined, why reply to a post and then ignore its contents.
The whole issue of the underrepresentation of girls in physics/engineering has fuck all to with predicted grades and everything to do with complex societal fctors, for which neither schools, nor universities can be held solely responsible.