Is my teacher allowed to do this?

Hi,

I'm in Y12 and heading into Y13 in September. I have always been aiming for Oxford and failing that a Russell Group/highly ranked university. This is something that I have been working on for years and my head teacher, exams officer and head of year are all convinced that I could get the three As I need at Oxford.

We had our mocks at Easter and at the time I was studying for AS Level Maths to help support my uni application so essentially speaking between revising for that when I don't understand Maths well and three subjects to do mocks in in a very short amount of time, my revision wasn't as sufficient as it could have been. The school also did not tell us until after we sat them that this was where the majority of our UCAS information came from.

After the mocks I came out with BBC (English, Politics and History in that order) and I spoke to the exams officer asking if I could resit them now that my maths was out the way and he said (and I quote) "You're already where we'd want to see you at this point in the course, and your UCAS grades will be one maybe two depending on classwork higher than your mock results. So that's looking at AAB and all your teachers will be instructed to give any student that asks for it extra work to help build up their UCAS grade".

My parents and I spoke to the history department and they gave me lots of work to get on with and I left the other two subjects because I was under the impression that the UCAS front was fine and after the intense focus on history before the Oxbridge UCAS deadline, I would be able to start revising all three of them in depth before the exams.

Yesterday, we got our UCAS predictions and I got ABB (English, Politics and History) and I was gutted. This would mean I couldn't apply to my top 4 unis which all required a minimum of AAB (which is what the school had given me the impression I would be best applying to) and the particular course I want to study doesn't tend to offer places any lower than that wherever city you go to.

I spoke to my history teacher again and she said "don't worry you can definitely do this by the internal Oxbridge deadline" and that she'd check her emails every 2/3 days in the holidays and that I could keep in touch with any questions/essays etc.

My politics teacher... not as easy.

I told him I was confused as to how I got the B in the mock and even a low B would become a low A, which is still the A I need for UCAS. He said that I'd been bouncing around B/C all year but we've never done any official assessments and the majority of essay questions we have written were done in December time. This to me strikes as almost lazy on their front because most other subjects are doing regular in-class exam-condition assessments all through the year not homework essays before we really know the structure of them. If that B in the mock came with a maths exam, not much time and less revision than I'd like, then logically I will get an A in Politics next summer but I appreciate that my teacher isn't looking at that.

But anyway, I have the B and I asked how I could help bring that up. He didn't tell me to do anything. I asked if I could write essays "I don't want you to bombard me with essays". It's not bombarding him if it's one student in a class of seven and he only teaches three classes across Y9 - Y13. One GCSE Business class, our Politics and an A Level Economics so it's not really going to overwhelming like it might if I asked my English teacher who teaches everyone from Y7+.

He also said to me (with my friend in the room) this direct quote "I wouldn't put my mortgage, and I highly doubt your parents would put their mortgage, on you getting As in those exams. I don't think anyone would. I'm not going to say you can't but I think you need to find a university thats asking for BBB." This is the complete opposite of what I've planned for or what teachers and the head have told me in the past. I got home and started crying because he'd completely destroyed my confidence.

This feels wrong that my future lies in the hands of a man that couldn't care less about me. I am willing to start writing an essay everyday if I need to to build these grades up but I can't do that unless he's willing to mark them or even skim read them. Is he allowed to say that he's not going to help me? I'm not asking him to move me from a D to an A -- it's one grade and without that I'm not going to have the motivation to even work hard in my A Levels because what's the point in getting AAA and sitting there on results day and thinking "I could've gone to Oxford but I couldn't apply because I had a crap teacher".

I'm having a meeting with the exams officer/head where I will be calling out him and how he's treating this but is he actually allowed to say that he won't help? Especially if as the exams officer said, they've all been instructed to help us raise our grades.

Hi,

I'm in Y12 and heading into Y13 in September. I have always been aiming for Oxford and failing that a Russell Group/highly ranked university. This is something that I have been working on for years and my head teacher, exams officer and head of year are all convinced that I could get the three As I need at Oxford.

We had our mocks at Easter and at the time I was studying for AS Level Maths to help support my uni application so essentially speaking between revising for that when I don't understand Maths well and three subjects to do mocks in in a very short amount of time, my revision wasn't as sufficient as it could have been. The school also did not tell us until after we sat them that this was where the majority of our UCAS information came from.

After the mocks I came out with BBC (English, Politics and History in that order) and I spoke to the exams officer asking if I could resit them now that my maths was out the way and he said (and I quote) "You're already where we'd want to see you at this point in the course, and your UCAS grades will be one maybe two depending on classwork higher than your mock results. So that's looking at AAB and all your teachers will be instructed to give any student that asks for it extra work to help build up their UCAS grade".

My parents and I spoke to the history department and they gave me lots of work to get on with and I left the other two subjects because I was under the impression that the UCAS front was fine and after the intense focus on history before the Oxbridge UCAS deadline, I would be able to start revising all three of them in depth before the exams.

Yesterday, we got our UCAS predictions and I got ABB (English, Politics and History) and I was gutted. This would mean I couldn't apply to my top 4 unis which all required a minimum of AAB (which is what the school had given me the impression I would be best applying to) and the particular course I want to study doesn't tend to offer places any lower than that wherever city you go to.

I spoke to my history teacher again and she said "don't worry you can definitely do this by the internal Oxbridge deadline" and that she'd check her emails every 2/3 days in the holidays and that I could keep in touch with any questions/essays etc.

My politics teacher... not as easy.

I told him I was confused as to how I got the B in the mock and even a low B would become a low A, which is still the A I need for UCAS. He said that I'd been bouncing around B/C all year but we've never done any official assessments and the majority of essay questions we have written were done in December time. This to me strikes as almost lazy on their front because most other subjects are doing regular in-class exam-condition assessments all through the year not homework essays before we really know the structure of them. If that B in the mock came with a maths exam, not much time and less revision than I'd like, then logically I will get an A in Politics next summer but I appreciate that my teacher isn't looking at that.

But anyway, I have the B and I asked how I could help bring that up. He didn't tell me to do anything. I asked if I could write essays "I don't want you to bombard me with essays". It's not bombarding him if it's one student in a class of seven and he only teaches three classes across Y9 - Y13. One GCSE Business class, our Politics and an A Level Economics so it's not really going to overwhelming like it might if I asked my English teacher who teaches everyone from Y7+.

He also said to me (with my friend in the room) this direct quote "I wouldn't put my mortgage, and I highly doubt your parents would put their mortgage, on you getting As in those exams. I don't think anyone would. I'm not going to say you can't but I think you need to find a university thats asking for BBB." This is the complete opposite of what I've planned for or what teachers and the head have told me in the past. I got home and started crying because he'd completely destroyed my confidence.

This feels wrong that my future lies in the hands of a man that couldn't care less about me. I am willing to start writing an essay everyday if I need to to build these grades up but I can't do that unless he's willing to mark them or even skim read them. Is he allowed to say that he's not going to help me? I'm not asking him to move me from a D to an A -- it's one grade and without that I'm not going to have the motivation to even work hard in my A Levels because what's the point in getting AAA and sitting there on results day and thinking "I could've gone to Oxford but I couldn't apply because I had a crap teacher".

I'm having a meeting with the exams officer/head where I will be calling out him and how he's treating this but is he actually allowed to say that he won't help? Especially if as the exams officer said, they've all been instructed to help us raise our grades.

Yes i cant see why he cant say no. He is not saying he wont help, more that he isnt going to do additional work specifically for your benefit above what he would do normally. If every person did additional essays the teacher would be 6 feet under in no time.

It does sound tough for you though, but as other posters have said you can take a gap year etc. I know its a tough lesson but sometimes our own expectations, wants and desires dont always match reality. No shame in reevaluating your plan, take advice on and change tack (unis accepting all BBBs can be great also, remember its demand/popularity also that pushes grade requirements up also, not always equivalent to quality....example being taylor swift). Success isnt made with achievements but instead how well you cope with difficulties like this.

Greg

Hi,

I'm in Y12 and heading into Y13 in September. I have always been aiming for Oxford and failing that a Russell Group/highly ranked university. This is something that I have been working on for years and my head teacher, exams officer and head of year are all convinced that I could get the three As I need at Oxford.

We had our mocks at Easter and at the time I was studying for AS Level Maths to help support my uni application so essentially speaking between revising for that when I don't understand Maths well and three subjects to do mocks in in a very short amount of time, my revision wasn't as sufficient as it could have been. The school also did not tell us until after we sat them that this was where the majority of our UCAS information came from.

After the mocks I came out with BBC (English, Politics and History in that order) and I spoke to the exams officer asking if I could resit them now that my maths was out the way and he said (and I quote) "You're already where we'd want to see you at this point in the course, and your UCAS grades will be one maybe two depending on classwork higher than your mock results. So that's looking at AAB and all your teachers will be instructed to give any student that asks for it extra work to help build up their UCAS grade".

My parents and I spoke to the history department and they gave me lots of work to get on with and I left the other two subjects because I was under the impression that the UCAS front was fine and after the intense focus on history before the Oxbridge UCAS deadline, I would be able to start revising all three of them in depth before the exams.

Yesterday, we got our UCAS predictions and I got ABB (English, Politics and History) and I was gutted. This would mean I couldn't apply to my top 4 unis which all required a minimum of AAB (which is what the school had given me the impression I would be best applying to) and the particular course I want to study doesn't tend to offer places any lower than that wherever city you go to.

I spoke to my history teacher again and she said "don't worry you can definitely do this by the internal Oxbridge deadline" and that she'd check her emails every 2/3 days in the holidays and that I could keep in touch with any questions/essays etc.

My politics teacher... not as easy.

I told him I was confused as to how I got the B in the mock and even a low B would become a low A, which is still the A I need for UCAS. He said that I'd been bouncing around B/C all year but we've never done any official assessments and the majority of essay questions we have written were done in December time. This to me strikes as almost lazy on their front because most other subjects are doing regular in-class exam-condition assessments all through the year not homework essays before we really know the structure of them. If that B in the mock came with a maths exam, not much time and less revision than I'd like, then logically I will get an A in Politics next summer but I appreciate that my teacher isn't looking at that.

But anyway, I have the B and I asked how I could help bring that up. He didn't tell me to do anything. I asked if I could write essays "I don't want you to bombard me with essays". It's not bombarding him if it's one student in a class of seven and he only teaches three classes across Y9 - Y13. One GCSE Business class, our Politics and an A Level Economics so it's not really going to overwhelming like it might if I asked my English teacher who teaches everyone from Y7+.

He also said to me (with my friend in the room) this direct quote "I wouldn't put my mortgage, and I highly doubt your parents would put their mortgage, on you getting As in those exams. I don't think anyone would. I'm not going to say you can't but I think you need to find a university thats asking for BBB." This is the complete opposite of what I've planned for or what teachers and the head have told me in the past. I got home and started crying because he'd completely destroyed my confidence.

This feels wrong that my future lies in the hands of a man that couldn't care less about me. I am willing to start writing an essay everyday if I need to to build these grades up but I can't do that unless he's willing to mark them or even skim read them. Is he allowed to say that he's not going to help me? I'm not asking him to move me from a D to an A -- it's one grade and without that I'm not going to have the motivation to even work hard in my A Levels because what's the point in getting AAA and sitting there on results day and thinking "I could've gone to Oxford but I couldn't apply because I had a crap teacher".

I'm having a meeting with the exams officer/head where I will be calling out him and how he's treating this but is he actually allowed to say that he won't help? Especially if as the exams officer said, they've all been instructed to help us raise our grades.

"He's not saying he won't help, more that he isn't going to do additional work specifically for your benefit" - that is literally refusing to help this person. The teacher has determined the predicted grade, and when OP is presenting a solution he's getting in the way of it. Teacher clearly isn't doing his job properly if he isn't willing to mark a few extra essays - it also sounds here that he's too stretched across other subjects, which is also the schools fault.

"If everyone did additional essays..." - they aren't though?

"Uni's accepting BBB can be great also" - yeah, if you want a degree that makes you nowhere near as competitive as your peers in a competitive work environment, and OP is clearly better than that if they have aspirations for Oxford.

As for actual predicted grades - if your head is on your side, it sounds like you'll get what you want. If that doesn't work, I tend to find that kicking off in the worst case scenario usually works (but don't jump to this) - I wouldn't stress about UCAS predicted as they tend to give you what you want anyways..

Hi,

I'm in Y12 and heading into Y13 in September. I have always been aiming for Oxford and failing that a Russell Group/highly ranked university. This is something that I have been working on for years and my head teacher, exams officer and head of year are all convinced that I could get the three As I need at Oxford.

We had our mocks at Easter and at the time I was studying for AS Level Maths to help support my uni application so essentially speaking between revising for that when I don't understand Maths well and three subjects to do mocks in in a very short amount of time, my revision wasn't as sufficient as it could have been. The school also did not tell us until after we sat them that this was where the majority of our UCAS information came from.

After the mocks I came out with BBC (English, Politics and History in that order) and I spoke to the exams officer asking if I could resit them now that my maths was out the way and he said (and I quote) "You're already where we'd want to see you at this point in the course, and your UCAS grades will be one maybe two depending on classwork higher than your mock results. So that's looking at AAB and all your teachers will be instructed to give any student that asks for it extra work to help build up their UCAS grade".

My parents and I spoke to the history department and they gave me lots of work to get on with and I left the other two subjects because I was under the impression that the UCAS front was fine and after the intense focus on history before the Oxbridge UCAS deadline, I would be able to start revising all three of them in depth before the exams.

Yesterday, we got our UCAS predictions and I got ABB (English, Politics and History) and I was gutted. This would mean I couldn't apply to my top 4 unis which all required a minimum of AAB (which is what the school had given me the impression I would be best applying to) and the particular course I want to study doesn't tend to offer places any lower than that wherever city you go to.

I spoke to my history teacher again and she said "don't worry you can definitely do this by the internal Oxbridge deadline" and that she'd check her emails every 2/3 days in the holidays and that I could keep in touch with any questions/essays etc.

My politics teacher... not as easy.

I told him I was confused as to how I got the B in the mock and even a low B would become a low A, which is still the A I need for UCAS. He said that I'd been bouncing around B/C all year but we've never done any official assessments and the majority of essay questions we have written were done in December time. This to me strikes as almost lazy on their front because most other subjects are doing regular in-class exam-condition assessments all through the year not homework essays before we really know the structure of them. If that B in the mock came with a maths exam, not much time and less revision than I'd like, then logically I will get an A in Politics next summer but I appreciate that my teacher isn't looking at that.

But anyway, I have the B and I asked how I could help bring that up. He didn't tell me to do anything. I asked if I could write essays "I don't want you to bombard me with essays". It's not bombarding him if it's one student in a class of seven and he only teaches three classes across Y9 - Y13. One GCSE Business class, our Politics and an A Level Economics so it's not really going to overwhelming like it might if I asked my English teacher who teaches everyone from Y7+.

He also said to me (with my friend in the room) this direct quote "I wouldn't put my mortgage, and I highly doubt your parents would put their mortgage, on you getting As in those exams. I don't think anyone would. I'm not going to say you can't but I think you need to find a university thats asking for BBB." This is the complete opposite of what I've planned for or what teachers and the head have told me in the past. I got home and started crying because he'd completely destroyed my confidence.

This feels wrong that my future lies in the hands of a man that couldn't care less about me. I am willing to start writing an essay everyday if I need to to build these grades up but I can't do that unless he's willing to mark them or even skim read them. Is he allowed to say that he's not going to help me? I'm not asking him to move me from a D to an A -- it's one grade and without that I'm not going to have the motivation to even work hard in my A Levels because what's the point in getting AAA and sitting there on results day and thinking "I could've gone to Oxford but I couldn't apply because I had a crap teacher".

I'm having a meeting with the exams officer/head where I will be calling out him and how he's treating this but is he actually allowed to say that he won't help? Especially if as the exams officer said, they've all been instructed to help us raise our grades.

Hi,

I'm in Y12 and heading into Y13 in September. I have always been aiming for Oxford and failing that a Russell Group/highly ranked university. This is something that I have been working on for years and my head teacher, exams officer and head of year are all convinced that I could get the three As I need at Oxford.

We had our mocks at Easter and at the time I was studying for AS Level Maths to help support my uni application so essentially speaking between revising for that when I don't understand Maths well and three subjects to do mocks in in a very short amount of time, my revision wasn't as sufficient as it could have been. The school also did not tell us until after we sat them that this was where the majority of our UCAS information came from.

After the mocks I came out with BBC (English, Politics and History in that order) and I spoke to the exams officer asking if I could resit them now that my maths was out the way and he said (and I quote) "You're already where we'd want to see you at this point in the course, and your UCAS grades will be one maybe two depending on classwork higher than your mock results. So that's looking at AAB and all your teachers will be instructed to give any student that asks for it extra work to help build up their UCAS grade".

My parents and I spoke to the history department and they gave me lots of work to get on with and I left the other two subjects because I was under the impression that the UCAS front was fine and after the intense focus on history before the Oxbridge UCAS deadline, I would be able to start revising all three of them in depth before the exams.

Yesterday, we got our UCAS predictions and I got ABB (English, Politics and History) and I was gutted. This would mean I couldn't apply to my top 4 unis which all required a minimum of AAB (which is what the school had given me the impression I would be best applying to) and the particular course I want to study doesn't tend to offer places any lower than that wherever city you go to.

I spoke to my history teacher again and she said "don't worry you can definitely do this by the internal Oxbridge deadline" and that she'd check her emails every 2/3 days in the holidays and that I could keep in touch with any questions/essays etc.

My politics teacher... not as easy.

I told him I was confused as to how I got the B in the mock and even a low B would become a low A, which is still the A I need for UCAS. He said that I'd been bouncing around B/C all year but we've never done any official assessments and the majority of essay questions we have written were done in December time. This to me strikes as almost lazy on their front because most other subjects are doing regular in-class exam-condition assessments all through the year not homework essays before we really know the structure of them. If that B in the mock came with a maths exam, not much time and less revision than I'd like, then logically I will get an A in Politics next summer but I appreciate that my teacher isn't looking at that.

But anyway, I have the B and I asked how I could help bring that up. He didn't tell me to do anything. I asked if I could write essays "I don't want you to bombard me with essays". It's not bombarding him if it's one student in a class of seven and he only teaches three classes across Y9 - Y13. One GCSE Business class, our Politics and an A Level Economics so it's not really going to overwhelming like it might if I asked my English teacher who teaches everyone from Y7+.

He also said to me (with my friend in the room) this direct quote "I wouldn't put my mortgage, and I highly doubt your parents would put their mortgage, on you getting As in those exams. I don't think anyone would. I'm not going to say you can't but I think you need to find a university thats asking for BBB." This is the complete opposite of what I've planned for or what teachers and the head have told me in the past. I got home and started crying because he'd completely destroyed my confidence.

This feels wrong that my future lies in the hands of a man that couldn't care less about me. I am willing to start writing an essay everyday if I need to to build these grades up but I can't do that unless he's willing to mark them or even skim read them. Is he allowed to say that he's not going to help me? I'm not asking him to move me from a D to an A -- it's one grade and without that I'm not going to have the motivation to even work hard in my A Levels because what's the point in getting AAA and sitting there on results day and thinking "I could've gone to Oxford but I couldn't apply because I had a crap teacher".

I'm having a meeting with the exams officer/head where I will be calling out him and how he's treating this but is he actually allowed to say that he won't help? Especially if as the exams officer said, they've all been instructed to help us raise our grades.

If you have been bouncing around B/C all year in Politics, getting a UCAS grade B sounds correct, especially if your mock grade was not close to an A. Your best bet might be to try to convince your school to set you another mock in Sep/Oct with a view to revising your UCAS prediction if you do really well.

Although Oxford might have "AAA" as a minimum, most successful applicants will have much higher grades than that I'm afraid. From Oxfords applications statists - "91.2% of admitted students were awarded A*AA or better at A-level"

Even if the OP was around B/C a lot of student put a lot more effort over summer epically during year 13.

And many don't hence the B prediction.

True but the teacher isn’t even trying to help the student prove that they can get a higher grade. Since they can’t even be bothered to improve the grade. Which is just unfair. If the student is clearly trying to improve there grade. I don’t see why it’s hard to predict them a higher grade. As long as they continue to work hard.

They've had a whole year to improve their grade. They haven't. Teachers have to predict based on their performance and that performance definitely isn't the standard required for an A prediction

The teachers didn’t even tell the student that these mocks are important for UCAS. If they did I’m sure they would have gotten a higher grade. Also these UCAS grades are supposed to be what grades the teachers think the student will get by the end of the year. Clearly the student is trying to improve. A lot of student don’t try in year 12 since they don’t know how important it is for ucas. The student can easily improve over the summer. There is still a WHOLE year left for a student to improve there grade. But if the teacher can’t even be bothered to help them improve then there ucas prediction is just useless. And it pretty clear that there teacher is not a good one. Which can easily affect there grade.

Even if the OP was around B/C a lot of student put a lot more effort over summer epically during year 13.