My daughter's a level teacher just threatened

[LNSL]

not to even enter her for her a level exam. Seems a little harsh no? She's in the lower sixth. Got an E on a recent test, which I thought was decent enough.

What do you think to this?

Sounds like she’s not working hard enough or not taking the subject seriously.

[quote Rowenasemolina]@RosesforMamabut that E indicates what she will get in that part of the curriculum when she is examined at the end of the course[/quote]
Well, it indicates what she got when tested on it now, who knows what she would get when tested at some future time? No one.

But you'd hope that the teacher is taking more into account than the raw mark.

She's done one term of the subject...pretty sure I was getting Ds at this stage. I would expect improvement after another 18 months!

@LNSL what's the subject? How did she do in GCSEs

At this stage, it is possible to bump the grade up by 2 boundaries, which would see her pass with a C grade. That's with lots of extra remedial study and then exam prep. You as parent will need to organise and manage this through school and private tutor. The grade could go higher, depending on what the problem is. I'd find out ASAP to have best chance of improving it. I have had students turn E into A but its not as simple as saying that there's time between now and exam.

I expect the resilience my DS showed in completing his A level course in the face of dreadful mental health problems would mean a lot to many employers, of the sort that deserve my son working with them

Sadly @RosesforMama ime there isn't really a way to get that information in front of an employer when initial selection is done on results ime

Anything below C is a fail.
Also who is marking on letters anymore ? It's all numbers now.

@LNSL

She's done one term of the subject...pretty sure I was getting Ds at this stage. I would expect improvement after another 18 months!

What has the teacher actually said?

[quote WunWun]@rosesformama with all due respect to your son, employers would not care less about that. If he went to an interview speaking about his mental health problems he would sadly be very unlikely to get the job.[/quote]
Wunwun
Actually in the sort of work my DS will go into, his resilience will be respected, as it should.

He isn't looking at joining a city banking firm of anything. He will most likely be working with autistic youths like himself for a charity, and his insight into burn out will be invaluable.

The point I am making is, success is so much more nuanced than a set of A grades and a city job. It takes all sorts and everyone's story has its own value, provided that the path each choses is appropriate. Of course with those grades my DS isn't going to become a doctor or an accountant. But he never was.

An E is a very poor outcome. It won’t keep the doors open to uni. Is it a state school? The school will get in a lot of water if they are kicking students out at the end of Y12 as a consequence of poor progress or outcomes. There is a selective school who got some very damaging national headlines a couple of years ago as a consequence of this policy when parents went to the press.

An Ofsted inspection of the Sixth Form would definitely scrutinise this sort of selection and performance tables report progression from Y12 to Y13 to stop this sort of gaming and stop schools inflating results by only entering students expected to get the highest grades.

It would be reasonable for the school to make her resit Y12, potentially with another subject though.

@RosesforMama

Jesus Christ, this thread.

Your daughter has done ONE TERM of A level study. An E now is a pass and might translate into a C or even a B by the end of the course. Naturally every fucker on Mumsnet has teens getting 6 A* at A level and having Oxbridge begging them to come in, but the real world isn't like that. Only you, she and her teacher can say, based on her prior results, whether she has a technique problem, a revision problem, has been very disrupted with covid etc, or whether she is doing ok.

My son has got 2 Us so far in one of his subjects. He hasn't quite got his head round the way he needs to present information in order to score, it's a new technique. I am not extrapolating from that that he will get a U in his final A level exam, although I accept it's also unlikely he'll get an A. He has learned that he has to put more work in to revision (of course he didn't take his GCSE exams, which hasn't helped) and will get the technique eventually.

My older son had a nervous breakdown during his sixth form, had to drop one A level completely and got CE for the other two. You know what, he still had two A levels and the fact that he had those two A levels is a far greater testament to his resilience and determination than if he had sauntered through 4 A* with ease.

Sometimes the people on here seem to live on a different, problem free planet, I swear.

This, basically.

The teacher will have 'threatened' this for one of two reasons:
1- she knows your daughter is capable of far more and isn't trying, hence this is trying to motivate her

2- it's a horrible school (and there are quite a few) that won't enter students into subjects if they're likely to get low grades as they don't want them to affect their stats. This is an awful practice, because an E is a pass, in a really tough, higher level exam, which is a huge success for many people. A Level passes can be used to access universities, further education or work, and that includes D and E grades.

It's not modular. It was just a recent test.
She did ok at GCSE - 8s,7s,6s
Some learning issues and she tends to 'get' things late , ie needs to go over them several times to fully understand.
I wouldn't be happy with an E at the end but this is a new subject and we are one term in. Some v harsh answers here. I have other children who are v academic but this one finds things more of a struggle.

An E is one step above a fail. It's not decent. Is there another subject she's better suited to?

Yes there is but she wants to do this one.

@LNSL

She's done one term of the subject...pretty sure I was getting Ds at this stage. I would expect improvement after another 18 months!

I assume that the test was on the part of the curriculum that your dd has already covered, @LNSL - so as I said, an E suggests she either hasn’t done the work, didn’t do the revision, or is really struggling with the subject.

Why does she think she only got an E?

@CockerSpaniel3

I think it really depends on the subject. If it's something like history where they learn the content, then do a test but are still learning the exam technique, which will vastly improve over time, then it's fine. If it's an end of module test, then an E may be more cause for concern. However, it is NOT a shite grade or worthless. Look at ways you could help her, she doesn't necessarily need to think whether a levels are "right for her" or consider a different course. My dd (also lower 6th) got a low D in her history test in Nov but got an A in her test a couple of weeks ago.

But of course on MN, if your dc aren't getting 5 A*s and going to Oxbridge, they're a failure.

This is really important - my Y12s tend to get about 5/20 for an essay in the beginning. By the end of year 13, having learnt how to write, the best ones of course get 19-20, and some get 8-9. As long as they've tried, that's a great result for them.

I went to uni with 2 C's and an E, then went on to pass an MA with distinctions - getting an E is not a disaster. I think it's awful to say you'll be kicked out if your grades aren't high enough, that sounds like it's in the schools best interest for the league tables rather than for the students, appalling IMO.

@LNSL

She's done one term of the subject...pretty sure I was getting Ds at this stage. I would expect improvement after another 18 months!

So are you saying she sat the whole paper and got an E because she had only studied a small part of the curriculum. Otherwise your statement makes no sense, why would you assume she would be any better at the part she has studied in 18 months time when she may have forgotten it? In answer to your original post, they haven’t chucked her off, just said she won’t be able to stay on unless she improves significantly. It seems like a sensible teacher who wants to encourage your daughter to put the effort in she needs to in order to achieve the grades she deserves.

@TopBitchoftheWitches

Anything below C is a fail. Also who is marking on letters anymore ? It's all numbers now.

It's A Levels, not GCSES. It's still graded by letters and anything from A* to E is a pass.

It's not a good grade, OP, but there's no reason that she shouldn't improve between now and A Level exams. If she's doing 4 then it's probably best to drop it, though, and let her concentrate on other subjects.

OP - if I was you, I'd perhaps work with your daughter to understand why she got the grade she did and how she might improve. Does she have areas she doesn't understand? Did she not fully realise what the question expected? Did she not include enough detail? Was her revision not thorough enough? You can ask the teacher what they think DD should focus on as well. And then see how she does in the next test (hopefully having put some of her findings into practice!)

What does she want to do for her career OP?

An E is a very low grade, but I've mentored high potential students from difficult backgrounds, and I've seen some turn things around after getting lower grades (C/D usually) at mocks, and end up with A/B grades in the final exams. For some students a bad result is the kick needed to up their game.

I'm not sure what the situation is this year, with the pandemic etc, but if this is a module, then it will obviously impact on her final grade. If it's a mock it won't impact her grade. Either way she needs to change something and up her game.

If she did well in her GCSEs then she can probably pull something out of the bag. If she got Es at GCSE then you have to wonder if she's doing the right thing pursuing A-levels when there are less academic forms of education/training out there which might suit her better, and where she might find something she excels in and can make a career out of. Might make for a happier child too.

A few years ago Y12s did AS levels and they were modular. The first papers were done in the January after one term.
There were a lot of red faces when results came out. Kids who had managed GSCEs without too much effort and didn't realise the step up to A level.
Those early results often acted as a wake up call. Some realised they had picked the wrong subjects, others knuckled down.

Now this has to be done by the teacher. The teacher will know whether the child has worked hard or not and what the likelihood is of turning it around.

@LNSL

It's not modular. It was just a recent test. She did ok at GCSE - 8s,7s,6s Some learning issues and she tends to 'get' things late , ie needs to go over them several times to fully understand. I wouldn't be happy with an E at the end but this is a new subject and we are one term in. Some v harsh answers here. I have other children who are v academic but this one finds things more of a struggle.

Why is she (why has the school permitted her to) studying a subject at a level that she's never studied before? She's being set up to fail surely

Also can you find out from the teacher what the issues are - is it that she didn't revise successfully / doesn't recall material accurately / can't present her ideas coherently / some other aspect of exam technique.