The 4.6

AI-generated image

License Creative Commons

Dan Clarasó Sanz

By the time I finished marking the last mathematics exam for the second year of bachillerato (upper secondary education), the school was already half empty.

For days, we had been trapped in that absurd end-of-term rhythm. Finalising grades, reviewing resits, replying to parents’ emails, preparing assessment meetings and trying to make it through June in one piece. In the staff room, only the usual suspects remained, nursing cold coffees and arguing over decimal points.

I looked at the exam again.

4.6.

Not a 3. Not a disaster. Not a pupil who had drifted through the year without attending classes. One of those 4.6s that leaves you with a sinking feeling because you know exactly what is going to happen next.

I went through the paper once more, more slowly this time. There were solutions that had started well but ended in calculation errors, correct answers lacking sufficient justification, and a few questions left blank. The kind of paper any teacher recognises immediately. It is not a matter of arbitrariness; the pupil simply has not reached the required standard.

I closed the folder and entered the grade.

The first email arrived the following day.

The family requested “a review”. They did not point to any specific error. They did not challenge any assessment criterion. There was no dispute about the weighting, the calculations or the marking. Their argument was a different one altogether: the student had worked very hard, he had attended private tuition, this was the only subject he still had to pass, and without the qualification he would not be able to sit the PAU (June university entrance exams).

Years ago, these conversations were exceptional. Today they are as much a part of the school calendar as assessment meetings or residential trips.

Even so, I reviewed everything again.

The criteria had been the same for everyone. The examinations had been the same. The resit opportunities had been the same. The department agreed. Nobody was really questioning the academic validity of the grade.

Yet within two days, we were no longer talking about mathematics.

We were talking about appeals, inspectors, procedures, whether all the documentation had been published exactly as required, whether the criteria were sufficiently accessible, whether it was really worth “going all the way over four-tenths of a mark”.

And at some point, without anyone quite noticing when, the question ceased to be:

—Has this pupil acquired the necessary knowledge?

And became:

—Do you really want to keep this conflict going?

It is a question that arises far too often in schools.

Not always in those exact words, of course. Sometimes it appears in more elegant forms:

“Perhaps we should be flexible”.

“It is an exceptional case”.

“You know what the inspectors are like”.

“Let’s not ruin his future over four-tenths of a mark”.

And this is where the system begins to undermine itself.

Because appeals exist to correct mistakes, not to negotiate grades. They exist to protect the objectivity of assessment, not to replace it with a logic of pressure, attrition and conflict management.

Once a grade begins to depend on who insists the longest, who knows the procedures best, or which leadership team is least inclined to argue, assessment ceases to be an academic judgement and becomes a matter of pressure and influence.

And teachers notice.

They notice when they begin wondering whether it is worth failing certain pupils.

They notice when every academic decision risks becoming a defensive exercise in paperwork.

They notice when school leaders no longer ask, “Is the grade correct?”, but instead ask, “Can we resolve this quickly?”

The saddest part is that almost nobody ever explicitly says the teacher was wrong.

Instead, it is merely suggested that perhaps, in the interests of avoiding problems, it might be better to find another solution.

And so, little by little, teacher’s professional authority becomes provisional, conditional and negotiable.

All over four-tenths of a mark.

And then another pupil comes to mind.

Not the one who appeals. Not the one who files complaints. Not the one whose family is prepared to take the matter as far as necessary.

I think of the pupil who accepts the grade he has earned. Who understands that passing and failing are both part of learning. Who accepts his mistakes, sits the resit and tries again.

What message are we sending him?

What does he learn when he sees that persistence can ultimately count for more than results? What does he learn when he observes that some conflicts are resolved not because a mistake has been made, but because avoiding the conflict is simply more convenient?

Schools do not merely transmit knowledge; they also transmit values. Among those values should be respect for procedures, equality of treatment and acceptance of the consequences of one’s actions.

That is why it concerns me that, at times, we may end up teaching a very different lesson.

That rules are relative.

That there is always an exception.

That persistence can be more effective than reason.

That those with more resources, more time or a greater capacity to exert pressure usually obtain better outcomes.

And perhaps the problem is not that 4.6.

Perhaps the problem is everything our pupils learn when we stop assessing them according to the same criteria as everyone else.

And in doing so, we lose far more than a grade.

This is a true story told to me by a fellow teacher. It is also a story that is being repeated in secondary schools across the country as we speak.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons