Going to miss out on an A* in English because my teachers won't mark my coursework...

they can get into trouble for giving you too many drafts officially (only ever heard on teacher actually have this issue though)- i only ever got one in all my subjects that was normal and we never moaned.

also they dont like top give out actual marks becasue it can change when its standardised quite a lot in subjective subjects

Firstly, little details matter an awful lot. Besides, if you've already decided what details matter and what don't, then why are you trying to get a second opinion on it?

Secondly, it's coursework. Teachers can't mark it, give it back to you and let you correct the mistakes, then mark it again, and so forth. If that were the case, anyone who cared a toss about their academics would come out with 100% every time!!

I came here to vent my anger really, and advice is always nice because people come up with some pretty good ideas a lot of the time.

And as for your second point, that is what drafts are for. I don't understand what you mean. We have to hand in all our drafts alongside our final piece just to prove that we have built on it and improved it...

Edit - People who care about their academics should be helped surely? There are still many people I know who just don't care and procrastinate and they will fail no doubt, so when you imply that people who care shouldn't get 100%, then I'm afraid I don't agree. People who make the effort should attain better grades, whether that is a C, a B, an A or an A*. And that doesn't mean they need to get their coursework marked 20 times a week; just a few drafts before the final one.

I'm not saying that people who care about their coursework shouldn't get 100%, but it shouldn't be so easy to do so, otherwise that would be defeating the point of coursework. I.e. if you get it marked over and over and over again, then in theory, you should come out with a near-perfect answer, which isn't really a good judgement of your ability.

I think the exam board would come down hard if they found out that a school was marking drafts and giving them back to students to rewrite. My school are very specific - they can give 'general' advice such as 'you might want to rethink this paragraph' (but not say specifically why) so you have to figure it out for yourself and produce a piece which more-or-less reflects your true ability in the subject.

I understand the importance of improving drafts, but if it's guided by a teacher 'marking' your draft and giving detailed feedback, it's pointless and unfair.

I'm not saying that people who care about their coursework shouldn't get 100%, but it shouldn't be so easy to do so, otherwise that would be defeating the point of coursework. I.e. if you get it marked over and over and over again, then in theory, you should come out with a near-perfect answer, which isn't really a good judgement of your ability.

I think the exam board would come down hard if they found out that a school was marking drafts and giving them back to students to rewrite. My school are very specific - they can give 'general' advice such as 'you might want to rethink this paragraph' (but not say specifically why) so you have to figure it out for yourself and produce a piece which more-or-less reflects your true ability in the subject.

I understand the importance of improving drafts, but if it's guided by a teacher 'marking' your draft and giving detailed feedback, it's pointless and unfair.

I do have the AO sheet, but English is so subjective that I find it difficult to accurately mark my own work. Like, how am I supposed to judge originality (one of the requirements for the top marks)? I don't have anything to compare my work to because I don't mark coursework for a living, and similiar (subjective) criteria make it very hard to mark my own work. I'll give it a try again though.

Okay, I see your point. I do strongly believe that the teacher should let you know roughly whereabouts your coursework is gradewise before you hand in your final draft, as from what I've learned during my time in my school is that coursework is something that you should definately be hitting your target grades at. But yes, general advice I am okay with, but my teacher's haven't even been reading it, let alone giving me advice But yeah, enough complaining from me, I need to get on with it regardless.

My school won't mark drafts at all, they read over them and then do the vague "maybe you could change this introduction a little" or "are you sure you have enough context in this essay?" OP is lucky they got one draft really

I came here to vent my anger really, and advice is always nice because people come up with some pretty good ideas a lot of the time.

And as for your second point, that is what drafts are for. I don't understand what you mean. We have to hand in all our drafts alongside our final piece just to prove that we have built on it and improved it...

Edit - People who care about their academics should be helped surely? There are still many people I know who just don't care and procrastinate and they will fail no doubt, so when you imply that people who care shouldn't get 100%, then I'm afraid I don't agree. People who make the effort should attain better grades, whether that is a C, a B, an A or an A*. And that doesn't mean they need to get their coursework

marked 20 times a week; just a few drafts before the final one.

Sat us all down on Thursday - Basically told us that each coursework folder took an hour to mark, which took up too much of their time if they had to mark lots of drafts. Baring in mind we've only had one draft marked (which was probably a month ago now), I assumed that 3-4 drafts would be reasonable, but no, we've got one shot left now; next time they mark it will be the final one

Your teachers' agreement to mark one draft and no more is very reasonable in my opinion. As others have said, you are lucky even to have got an inkling of what your grade would be; I have never heard of another school who has a policy like that. Asking your teachers to mark even one more, let alone 3 to 4 drafts, veers very closely towards making a mockery of the coursework - it is supposed to be YOUR work after all. To let you go back over and over again and change things and improve things that you wouldn't have noticed YOURSELF is to let you hand something in which isn't truly YOUR work.

In any case, this is a better practice for university, where you get one stab at the coursework, hand it in and that's it: that's your final piece. It won't be as scary to you if you've had only minimal feedback on your coursework essays at A-level.

Well it really must depend on what school you go to then; my school would give you 3-4 drafts and if you did more I can't imagine any of my teachers ever saying they wouldn't mark something! After all, they want you to do as well as you can, and you can be damn sure that at some schools teachers are doing more than just marking efficiently...that's my issue with coursework, and practical assesments in school come to that, the system really is just so very corrupt! My school in most subjects goes as close to the rules as it possibly can, giving us hints on questions in practicals, and doing another, 'coincidentally similar' practical before we do it. On the other hand, I know of schools where teachers let students look at their practical papers in advance...so really, I think your school is giving you an unfair disadvantage against other students whom you are competing against as if they do not go as close to the rules as possible! After all, if yours don't, others will, and I would stress that I am only talking about what is within the rules here - schools are ALLOWED to mark and give feedback on coursework at A level, so if they DON'T, then it is disadvantaging you against countless other students who will have had better preparation/feedback. It's not cheating, though it certainly is playing the system. The problem is if you don't, then it's a disadvantage to yourself.

Hmm... the rules that govern exam boards are pretty strict (JCQ regulations) and if what you said happens was reported to them your teachers might be out of a job. For coursework, the JCQ rules are clear - one draft and no specific guidance for corrections or detailed feedback on how to improve, only general guidance.

Of course teachers want to help their students but if they're cheating (which is what they're doing, not "going as close to the rules as possible" but hurdling the line, dropping their trousers and mooning at the rules) someone else is suffering.

OK, you may do well out of it (while your teacher has another nervous breakdown having to mark another 80 drafts of 2000 word essays because their HoD tells them that's the only way they're going to up their ALIS or A*-B profile), but another school down the road won't and I think that's totally wrong.

I think - as a teacher - that coursework is really important because it's one of the few occasions in the current system when students can work on something sustained on their own, and it's the closest to the approach used at uni that you're going to get, on the whole.

We wouldn't be in this situation if league tables were scrapped!