46 replies to this topic

[cj.ayres]

Hi

Just had a rather horrid shock when we got our AS results on Thursday - they were pretty dismal. Most of the students we expected to get A's got C's and those who we expected to get C's got E's or U's.
I'm not sure where we went wrong as I thought we had followed the exam boards advice on how to answer the questions but clearly something isn't right. We are going to ask for the papers to be remarked just incase but I have a feeling this isn't going to make for any dramatic improvements. We will also get papers back to see what they say.

Would anyone be willing to give me some advice on

• how to teach such a large content in such a short time (any schemes of work outlines etc would be very gratefully recieved)
• how to teach the skills element. What is the exam board looking for?

Obviously I want to start on the right foot with our new Yr 12's in a weeks time but I also need to give advice to our Y13's who will be doing resits in January.

Thank you a thousand time for any advice you can give me or for any resources you can pass my way. I really am very grateful .

Edited by cj.ayres, 23 August 2009 - 09:26 AM.

[Mark H.]

As I mention on another thread our F964 results were also poor and completely out of line with the predicted grades and the results for the other module. We had 4 A-D combinations and one B-U for the two papers. 19 out of 24 students did worse on this paper than F961, 13 by two grades or more.

Edited by Mark H., 23 August 2009 - 03:32 PM.

[cj.ayres]

As I mention on another thread our F964 results were also poor and completely out of line with the predicted grades and the results for the other module. We had 4 A-D combinations and one B-U for the two papers. 19 out of 24 students did worse on this paper than F961, 13 by two grades or more. Which option did you do?

Germany 1933-63. There is just so much content to fit in I don't think we concentrated on the skills enough, although we did do plenty of practice papers.

[johnwayne]

hi everyone - my colleague's paper f964 did very well but the contrast to my paper f961 was terrible; e.g. a grade B on F964 and an E/U on the F961? very erratic, and these are all very good students. Will be asking for remarks as well.
Am I right in stating you can't see the students papers first if you are going for a remark? thanks.

[cj.ayres]

hi everyone - my colleague's paper f964 did very well but the contrast to my paper f961 was terrible; e.g. a grade B on F964 and an E/U on the F961? very erratic, and these are all very good students. Will be asking for remarks as well.
Am I right in stating you can't see the students papers first if you are going for a remark? thanks.

Hi Johnwayne

Unfortunatley you can't view papers before a remark - that would be too easy!

Can I be cheeky and ask you for some advice on F964 as I really don't know where we went wrong.
Thanks

[CD McKie]

We also had disaapointing AS results in our first year with OCR. Though the F963 Documents marks were not great, the results on F962 were even worse. We do Gladstone and Disraeli & Russian Revolution. Any advice greatly appreciated because I may be regretting the decision to switch to OCR at this rate. I really thought we had prepared them well, particularly for the documents paper on Gladstone and Disraeli. The results were all over the place, with some students getting A/B on one paper and E/U on the other.

[johnwayne]

hi everyone - my colleague's paper f964 did very well but the contrast to my paper f961 was terrible; e.g. a grade B on F964 and an E/U on the F961? very erratic, and these are all very good students. Will be asking for remarks as well.
Am I right in stating you can't see the students papers first if you are going for a remark? thanks.

Hi Johnwayne

Unfortunatley you can't view papers before a remark - that would be too easy!

Can I be cheeky and ask you for some advice on F964 as I really don't know where we went wrong.
Thanks

hi - unfortunately I can't help you with F964 as it is my colleague who did this paper and he has now left. But I do know that he wasn't very happy with the paper and wasn't looking forwad to the results. But, he still did better than my paper.

[Jenjane]

Ours semed to be more similar than they have been in the past. documents seemed to score more highly than essays, but no massive gaps between the 2 grades. However there were the usual shockers where solid A/b students were given C and a C/D was given a high B. We have one every year that genuinely stuns a child and us.
JAne

[Jeremy H]

Hi
I taught the essay paper for the new OCR units and found the Teachers Guide on the OCR website really helpful - We got them writing paragraphs then whole essays as early as we could. There is also a thread on the Seminars under teaching A Level with some excellent hints on A Level essay writing which I found really useful. My colleague taught the Documents study so I cant help much on that but I know she used advice from the previous incarnation of this paper - document attached. If you'd like a past paper answer then PM me and I'll send it to you - I dont really want to put it on a public forum.
One of the other hints I'd give is to really focus on the key questions (or whatever their official term is) for your teaching and then ask the students to focus their revision on these questions. So, if a key question is "assess the origins of ..." then focus your teaching and their revision on all the different origins/causes of a certain event so that they can write about the relative importance of each cause with relevant supporting knowledge. This really helps with revision and helps you to not get bogged down in the content.
I would also google London Revision (Malcolm Chandler) they have lots of really helpful revision notes/activities for purchase - they will even visit the school if needs be. OCR have a email community which is generally pretty supportive - find out about joining that and see if there is anyone out there who can help you.
A final solution (which I used and found very helpful) is to get in touch with the person who checks your coursework proposal forms - I got some excellent advice from him - not just on the coursework but also on other general ocr related advice.
Good luck
Jeremy

Attached Files

•  Woodward_AS_History.doc   26K   858 downloads

Edited by Jeremy H, 23 August 2009 - 10:21 PM.

[MrsRH]

We did F961 Britain 1918 - 51 (essay) and F964 Germany 1933 - 63 (sources). 86% pass rate for 964 and 47% for 961 The students always found 961 the harder but this just seems weird.

Now our acting head of dept wants us to change wholesale (to 962 essay Germany 1919-63 and 963 sources Churchill). Can't really see that it will help based on what is being said - and the fact that it seems to be a problem with essays.

[Mark H.]

I know that this is one of my hobbyhorses but surely the exams are supposed to be testing Historical knowledge and analytical skill, not requiring initiation into an arcane 'Mystery Cult' where only the privileged few know the secret code of how to answer the questions in exactly the 'right', very prescriptive way in order to gain anything like decent marks? If that is indeed the case, it is an indictment of an assessment system that has completely lost sight of its purpose.

Edited by Mark H., 24 August 2009 - 08:13 AM.

[cj.ayres]

We did F961 Britain 1918 - 51 (essay) and F964 Germany 1933 - 63 (sources). 86% pass rate for 964 and 47% for 961 The students always found 961 the harder but this just seems weird.

Now our acting head of dept wants us to change wholesale (to 962 essay Germany 1919-63 and 963 sources Churchill). Can't really see that it will help based on what is being said - and the fact that it seems to be a problem with essays.

Congrats Mrs RH on your document paper marks. Could I ask whether students gained their target or expected grades in this paper?
Could I also pester you for any outline schemes of work that you have for Germany 33-63 so I can get a feeling for the best way to approach this topic.
Thanks

[jessie j]

Hi

Just had a rather horrid shock when we got our AS results on Thursday - they were pretty dismal. Most of the students we expected to get A's got C's and those who we expected to get C's got E's or U's.
I'm not sure where we went wrong as I thought we had followed the exam boards advice on how to answer the questions but clearly something isn't right. We are going to ask for the papers to be remarked just incase but I have a feeling this isn't going to make for any dramatic improvements. We will also get papers back to see what they say.

Would anyone be willing to give me some advice on

• how to teach such a large content in such a short time (any schemes of work outlines etc would be very gratefully recieved)
• how to teach the skills element. What is the exam board looking for?

Obviously I want to start on the right foot with our new Yr 12's in a weeks time but I also need to give advice to our Y13's who will be doing resits in January.

Thank you a thousand time for any advice you can give me or for any resources you can pass my way. I really am very grateful .

[Mark K]

I know that this is one of my hobbyhorses but surely the exams are supposed to be testing Historical knowledge and analytical skill, not requiring initiation into an arcane 'Mystery Cult' where only the privileged few know the secret code of how to answer the questions in exactly the 'right', very prescriptive way in order to gain anything like decent marks? If that is indeed the case, it is an indictment of an assessment system that has completely lost sight of its purpose.

I couldn't agree more, I always read the examiners reports for all our exam papers and yet our results are as random as ever, I find A grade students will usually get their A but C or D students will regularly drop to an E or U. The AS F963 OCR documents exam causes the most problems. This year we switched from Nazi Germany to New England but still found students dropping grades they shouldn't have. I think the exam board were a bit harsh with the topic this year and I'd love to hear anyone elses thoughts on the paper.

If anyone has any advice they can give me it would be massively appreciated. The head teacher rarely allows funding for insets and has even requested me to train staff on A level teaching strategies... Has she not seen my results!!??

[MrsRH]

CJ - thanks!! i didn't teach the documents but will see what i can do for you. I am teaching it this year so will have to have sow etc

Can't remember the % at target, but will have a look