More Results

So the great ring round produced two more  results.... This time B and an A, both with a story behind them.
 The B grade (Apparently 'nearly' an A) was from a student you I had seen for a year. She had been forecast  a D, taken off the modular version of the exam, and moved from the higher paper to the foundation - hence the mum called me. The school was of course playing 'grade poker'. They were simply trying to ensure she go at least a C (or their own purposes - pupils failing does not look good). The pupil was therefore when I  first saw her throughly demoralised, and already  justifying why she was such a failure....and yet, and yet  I soon discovered she was quite good at maths.
 My aim in teaching her was therefore not really one of instruction - to be honest she already knew and understood it all. The task was rather to allow her to feel she was good (again) at maths, and give her the space to recover the shock of the degrade. More in particular the immediate job was to ensure that her ability to read (which in lay life was formidable) was carried over into her maths ability- because that was what has slipped: Her apparent failure had meant that she somehow was now ashamed to be a 'reader' - and assumed reading was somehow shameful in a maths exam....The immediate target was a foundation exam in January, which she got a C in. That actually was easy once I got her up and reading (that took a few months), and really she did the rest, I was just the appreciative audience!
 The much more difficult task was to get that grade up in the full exam she was now taking in June. She wanted -I checked with her when her parents were away -  a B, and wanted it quite a lot, but not desperately, she was happy with the C..... which meant she was more relaxed at least. Trouble was by now in terms of her maths and reading, if I could get them union I knew she really ought to get an A. But here there was an added problem - namely the new exam with its emphasis of scary long real world questions, where there are no rights or wrongs. None of us had ever taught an exam that looked like this, and I had no idea how pupils would react to it. Again technically (if it was not maths) she would be good at that kind of idea -  but in maths? It felt tricky...
In the end She and I kept her going and kept her trying through successes and failures in mocks, and through a perplexing exam, and she did it (for herself - which is what matters).
The result was  probably very fair. She got a B and was delighted, all the more so because it was just off (like 3 marks) an A - and so much better than she thought she would do, and has convinced she really can do it - and so she was clever after all: she Could Do Maths! So a real result. Her motehr was likewise so grateful, and so chuffed.
And that is actually of course all that really matters. It is only us grown (nerds) who get obsessesed  with those grades and regret the missing 3 marks....