The Student Room Group

A Levels - teacher absence - poor grade

Hi guys, so bascially this year my teacher for chemistry has missed many hours of teaching. I was on track for an A my AS but in the end got a low B. My school seemed way too chill about it and it took several meetings, many emails and numerous phone calls to even find out their poor excuse for her absence. Has anyone else had a similar experience with a missing teacher and feel it affected their grade badly, and does anyone know if my school can somehow indicate this on my UCAS application that I had a teacher missing for a significant amount of hours....

I know the title says 'poor grade' but I am applying to medicine so ideally want highest grades/points possible to help me acheive the A grade next year. B is a good grade, but personally is an under achievement.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by joshohill
Hi guys, so bascially this year my teacher for chemistry has missed many hours of teaching. I was on track for an A my AS but in the end got a low B. My school seemed way too chill about it and it took several meetings, many emails and numerous phone calls to even find out their poor excuse for her absence. Has anyone else had a similar experience with a missing teacher and feel it affected their grade badly, and does anyone know if my school can somehow indicate this on my UCAS application that I had a teacher missing for a significant amount of hours....

I know the title says 'poor grade' but I am applying to medicine so ideally want highest grades/points possible to help me acheive the A grade next year. B is a good grade, but personally is an under achievement.


How many lessons did he or she miss. Weren't their a substitute anyways?
Original post by joshohill
Hi guys, so bascially this year my teacher for chemistry has missed many hours of teaching. I was on track for an A my AS but in the end got a low B. My school seemed way too chill about it and it took several meetings, many emails and numerous phone calls to even find out their poor excuse for her absence. Has anyone else had a similar experience with a missing teacher and feel it affected their grade badly, and does anyone know if my school can somehow indicate this on my UCAS application that I had a teacher missing for a significant amount of hours....

I know the title says 'poor grade' but I am applying to medicine so ideally want highest grades/points possible to help me acheive the A grade next year. B is a good grade, but personally is an under achievement.


Your school can indicate the situation in your reference if it so chooses, but as it is an admission of failure to rectify the situation, you may find them reluctant to do so.
Reply 3
Original post by alanconnel
How many lessons did he or she miss. Weren't their a substitute anyways?


20+ hours, which is about a half term. Nope my school doesnt have substitute teachers, we had to teach ourselves.
Reply 4
Original post by Carnationlilyrose
Your school can indicate the situation in your reference if it so chooses, but as it is an admission of failure to rectify the situation, you may find them reluctant to do so.


How can I ask them to do this, and would it be included in my academic reference?

Thanks for your reply btw:smile:
Original post by joshohill
How can I ask them to do this, and would it be included in my academic reference?

Thanks for your reply btw:smile:


It would be in your academic reference and you would need to have an honest one to one discussion with your head of sixth form, or whoever processes your application.
Reply 6
Original post by Carnationlilyrose
It would be in your academic reference and you would need to have an honest one to one discussion with your head of sixth form, or whoever processes your application.



I know who is writing my overall reference, should i talk to them too or just my head of sixth form and then i guess head can ask for it to be put in my reference. is there any other way for them to indicate it, other than on my AR?
Original post by joshohill
I know who is writing my overall reference, should i talk to them too or just my head of sixth form and then i guess head can ask for it to be put in my reference. is there any other way for them to indicate it, other than on my AR?


You need to have the permission of the head of centre to have something like this in your reference, so you need to have a talk with people at the top. There is no other place for it to go.
I had this with English Lit and Lang, there's been staff shortages all year at my college and for some reason my teacher was taken away from my A2 class and made to cover a GCSE retake class. For almost a month (so 12 hours worth of teaching since we had 3 hours a week per subject) we had no cover, and then when we did get cover for two months it was from a teacher who deemed what we had been taught was all wrong and instead of teaching us anything new retaught us the poems with different interpretations and told us strictly to stick to what she had told us and not to make our own interpretations (I've never heard discouragement to think for yourself and expand on your own interpretation). It wasn't until our teacher came back 3 months later (splitting time between our class and the other so she was scattered and we have 2 hours teaching for the rest of the year instead of 3) we learnt we should have started and finished our coursework. We hadn't even been told we should be thinking about our coursework and we hadn't been taught half of what was needed for it. It was chaos. Our deadline was the deadline for the teachers to hand it in, and there were a full two weeks where no one could get hold of our teacher because she went on holiday. I was still told I got an A and I ended up with a B. With being one mark off an A overall (I got a B when predicted A* with B in coursework and C in exam this year after two high almost perfect A results last year) it's frustrating. I asked if something could be done to indicate what had happened and the college just refuses to admit fault.

After several days asking my college to contact my firm choice (they thankfully let me in but I'm studying english and it's now my lowest grade) and them staunchly refusing...I think the best choice to show what has happened is to make a formal complaint to ofsted if you feel so strongly about it. I know that two other people in my class (there were only 5 of us) are doing so. And because the staff shortages messed up a lot of classes I know people from other classes doing the same.
Reply 9
Original post by InkedPage
I had this with English Lit and Lang, there's been staff shortages all year at my college and for some reason my teacher was taken away from my A2 class and made to cover a GCSE retake class. For almost a month (so 12 hours worth of teaching since we had 3 hours a week per subject) we had no cover, and then when we did get cover for two months it was from a teacher who deemed what we had been taught was all wrong and instead of teaching us anything new retaught us the poems with different interpretations and told us strictly to stick to what she had told us and not to make our own interpretations (I've never heard discouragement to think for yourself and expand on your own interpretation). It wasn't until our teacher came back 3 months later (splitting time between our class and the other so she was scattered and we have 2 hours teaching for the rest of the year instead of 3) we learnt we should have started and finished our coursework. We hadn't even been told we should be thinking about our coursework and we hadn't been taught half of what was needed for it. It was chaos. Our deadline was the deadline for the teachers to hand it in, and there were a full two weeks where no one could get hold of our teacher because she went on holiday. I was still told I got an A and I ended up with a B. With being one mark off an A overall (I got a B when predicted A* with B in coursework and C in exam this year after two high almost perfect A results last year) it's frustrating. I asked if something could be done to indicate what had happened and the college just refuses to admit fault.

After several days asking my college to contact my firm choice (they thankfully let me in but I'm studying english and it's now my lowest grade) and them staunchly refusing...I think the best choice to show what has happened is to make a formal complaint to ofsted if you feel so strongly about it. I know that two other people in my class (there were only 5 of us) are doing so. And because the staff shortages messed up a lot of classes I know people from other classes doing the same.


Wow, that sounds worse than my situation. I can however relate when it comes to the incompetency of my teacher. My school has had a same situation to you with german, classics and psychology teachers. It's amazing how many thigns they will try to cover their arses too. OFSTED route sounds interesting if they are being tricky!
Reply 10
Original post by Carnationlilyrose
You need to have the permission of the head of centre to have something like this in your reference, so you need to have a talk with people at the top. There is no other place for it to go.


Okay thank you!
Original post by joshohill
Wow, that sounds worse than my situation. I can however relate when it comes to the incompetency of my teacher. My school has had a same situation to you with german, classics and psychology teachers. It's amazing how many thigns they will try to cover their arses too. OFSTED route sounds interesting if they are being tricky!


OFSTED really is a last resort, unfortunately we've gotten pushed to it. In my group alone there's six of us who all contacted the college for various different classes and we always got a patronising answer and weren't taken seriously. We did say we would be going to OFSTED, but I think they were calling our bluff. Well, they might get a surprise. It's not just A levels either, it was GCSE resits for Maths who went without a teacher for a full term and were just given a MyMaths login and told to revise from that.
It's mind blowing how colleges can get away with things like this, things that have a major impact on someone's future.
Good luck to you with your college - hopefully they are more helpful and understanding than mine. :smile:

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