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Incompetent ocr a-level religious studies teacher!!

I am in Y12 right now, in my school the best teachers have been instated as the heads of departments (HOD), but that changed when my Y11 RS teacher (right now my philosophy teacher, let's call them person x) stepped down from being a HOD to a normal teacher due to timing constraints. I was utterly shocked when my old RS teacher (right now my ethics teacher, let's call them person y) became the new HOD, he cannot teach at all. Person y was my Year 10 RS teacher. I got a grade 3 from him, but when I moved to person x’s class, they predicted me a 7. In the end, I achieved a 6. We can tell that person x was way more closer and accurate. So far, I have been acing most of person x's assessments, passing all of them, since both teachers made the grade boundaries extremely harsh to challenge us, I progressed to nearly an A for my latest philosophy assessment (this was the highest mark in the class, and showed my progress throughout the year), however for person y, you never have a guarantee if you will pass. For my first assessment with person y, I got a U, then in the future, I got a C, then a B overall on my mock, as I did more of ethics (truth be told, if I only did ethics, my philosophy teacher confirmed that I would have got an A), as I traditionally get the highest in the class for all assessments, I expected my recent ethics assessment to be no different, however I got a grade D for an essay of utilitarianism. I was in shock, person y always recommended us to ask AI to mark anything, as they believed it was accurate, even the AI said if my teacher gave me a grade D, there is something wrong with them, as my essay had many merits. I was honestly shocked that this happened, so I emailed person x to read through my assessment, one time when I first got a grade U on ethics, I asked person x to read my grade U essay, person x only agreed with person y while reading their blunt comments, they did not read my essay with a fresh pair of eyes; may I tell you that person y penalised me on one of my assessments for using the KJV translation of the Bible as it "alters the meaning of the Bible", he wanted me to use the NIV translation, I do understand the KJV translation is often seen as 'dramatic', however, it is seen as the main translation for the UK, many schools use it, even person x was confused that he penalised me on this, be then they concurred that person y was correct. I took person y's advice and utilised AI for RS help, and even AI said that the KJV translation is not problematic. One other time, I said to person x that person y likes it when I am straight to the point in my essay (person x wanted me to be more subtle, because that will get me to those higher marks), person x critiqued person y's pedagogy by saying it was quite "simplistic", and thus I incorporated their new advice into all of my future essays. When this happened, I got that grade D aforementioned, and also I used knowledge that person x gave me for utilitarianism as we were doing mini-revision. Person x warned me about taking examination advice from person y as person y is not even an examiner themself, but person x is an examiner (they never got banned from the OCR system for marking a paper incorrectly). I am scared as I believe that person y does not mark out of merit, but out of spontaneity, and 'what feels right'. What should I do? I use a word processor, and when I emailed it to person y, he sectioned off my work without my permission, so there were some added syntax errors as well, because they did it badly: I cannot stand for this unprofessionalism. Can someone please give me advice?

Update: he's now expecting us to cover two topics (Christian Moral Action and Christian Moral Principles) in the summer holidays! My philosophy teacher said we are also expected to cover one topic (Death and the Afterlife) ourselves, but she will go over through it in Y13. But my ethics teacher said he will not go over through the two topics in Y13. Another teacher understood my predicament and asked me to get it in writing (so I used emails) about both RS teachers' stance on us to cover topics ourselves. My philosophy teacher replied saying the aforementioned that we will cover the content in Y13, but my ethics teacher did not respond after a week! He was obviously in school and even saw my face in the corridors! I sent him reply requests and reminders to reply but to no avail. It is obvious that he does not want it to be in writing that he will not cover the specification fully (the other teacher bluntly said teachers are paid to teach the specification, and if they are not, then that is not good). My ethics teacher knows that he will be in turmoil if there is evidence that he will not fulfil his job and 'duty' (sorry Kant) fully. Any help would be appreciated! 🙏

Update (again): My ethics teacher did respond to the email, it was obviously passive aggressive but it was worded as such (after all of the complaining in his response): "I told you in class it would probably be Christian Moral Action and maybe Christian Moral Principles if we can’t fit it in before the summer." - the worst part is that he didn't even say in writing (email) if he would cover it in Y13 which I specifically asked in the email as well! He sugar-coated it with only 'if we can't fit it in', let's be honest, we probably will have to self-teach it to ourselves.

(edited 7 months ago)

Reply 1

Joe312

Yep they sound like a disaster. Having to learn christian moral action yourself is an especially bad idea. It's a very frustrating topic to link the topic content to the various question, so it needs guidance. Anyway, you could just try and take on responsibility for yourself even though you shouldn't have to. You could get a private tutor too.

Reply 2

Zodicac

Thank you, I always knew that I can't scream at person y on results day, but I would never allow him to take credit if our class gets good grades, as we would have to rely on I Think Therefore I Teach. Hopefully the self-learning goes well!

Reply 3

Joe312

Original post

by Zodicac

I would use this website too: https://alevelphilosophyandreligion.com/ocr-religious-studies/

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