I realised it was stupid to post this here sorry

[Dr. Nick]

I dont know how to delete topics

[brenden]

You wrote that at the start of Year 11?

[Aaron]

Just some general points from my perspective as a teacher. I don't teach English but I've found a few of your points interesting that i'd like to comment on:

she delibretly gives students bad marks at the start of the year, and slowly increases them so she can make it look like shes a great teacher and that we made progress because of her.

If you genuinely believe this is the case and not basing this completely off rumour, then speak to the Head of English. This is unacceptable and needs to be addressed ASAP.

I got 70s, for both my essay and creative piece for To Kill a Mockingbird over semseter one, and when I complained to her she kept telling me my writing was average.

1) 70s is still a fairly decent mark.
2) Get your essay cross marked by another teacher at the school who teaches English to confirm. You don't need feedback from the other teacher to get feedback from somebody else. I assume it was typed? We all live in denial at some point in our schooling, that we're much better than we'd like to admit It may be the case that 70s is actually where you were at, at that specific point in time.

I do understand your frustration though, not having feedback to identify why you received a mark in the 70s as opposed to an 80s or 90s mark is completely fair.

I even stopped reading for leisure which I used to do regullarly.

Sorry, but that's an absolute load of rubbish. If you wanted to read for leisure, you would. Don't blame the teacher for this.

She also didn't write me any feedback she just gave me the score.

Head of English or coordinator. Definitely. You are entitled to some feedback for improvement, and any good school would enforce a policy that makes sure this happens.

because I knew it was corrupt

Well, no, you don't really know that it is. The idea of a year of schooling is to see one year's worth of growth (well that's the mantra, anyway). It could genuinely be case that you are in fact growing and learning, and as a result, achieving these high scores.


tl;dr - if you genuinely believe something is going on, let somebody know about it because it's unacceptable and should be dealt with, regardless of what year level its at. I'm sorry you had to deal with this because majority of teachers are extremely ethical and will spend hours and days providing students with personalised/individualised feedback for improvement.

[clarke54321]

Hello Dr. Nick 

Firstly, I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Like Aaron has said, address it promptly if it is of genuine concern.


In terms of your writing, here are some of my general thoughts:

What is fantastic about your work

-Sophisticated development of ideas
-Maturity in your written expression
-Thorough delineation of prompt (ie. scrutinising its various angles)
-Wide vocabulary, which allows for conciseness.

What can be improved in your work

-A greater focus on authorial intent (ie. view/values, characterisation, literary devices). Try and link these more intimately to Lee.
-Less summarisation, and more analysis. Work from the language up (from analysis--->conclusions). You can stop yourself from doing this (retelling) by using more analytical verbs, such as intimates/implies/suggests/indicates.
-Integration of quotes. At times, you've transferred entire slabs from the text into your work, leading to a disruption in cohesion. You may find that the use of shorter, more frequent quotes, will enhance your analytical ability and overcome superfluous summary.


On the whole, these are both very strong writing pieces for a year 11 (especially at the start of the year). It's very difficult to give you a clear cut mark. All I can say is that there's admirable potential in your work. And if you can resolve these supposed biases, and continue working hard, you'll achieve some fantastic results.

All the very best 

[sarangiya]

Before taking it up with a coordinator I would speak to the teacher first.
It might be daunting or whatever, but I think it is a courtesy to take up the matter internally and then if the issue isn't resolved, to seek help externally.
For example, a teacher won't give you a detention without warning you beforehand. Something coming from out of the blue (like a coordinator discussing the matter with the teacher) is kind of unpleasant so I'd make an effort to resolve it yourself first if you haven't already done so. If you're not satisfied, then I would definitely follow Aaron's advice.

I skimmed through your essay (not the creative piece), and I wondered whether this was the start or end of the year. Like the one worth 70s or 90s? If one got 70s and one got 90s let me know and I'll compare.

Anyway, I think the best thing to do is to put this behind you and keep working on your English. There is no upper limit to improvement, and I think instead of blaming your teacher for your marks, you ought to have asked her what she thought you should have done to improve upon them, or asked her to compare your 70s vs 90s pieces to see what changed.
Of course, if she is unable to do so, then it may be cause for concern. But in most cases, teachers are reasonable too.

[sarangiya]

Thanks everyone for the feedback.
But this is probably more of a matter to stay at school.
Really sorry

Probably for the best

I dont know how to delete topics

You can by selecting the remove topic button.

[Aaron]

This is all fine and well, however our rules state that if a question has been answered it must not be removed. ATAR Notes serves as an archive for future use and your question may assist somebody else later on.

Given it has already occurred, I will leave it as is however a reminder to all users that deleting questions after they have received valuable responses is against our rules and you will be warned if it occurs.

I am going to keep this to serve as a reminder to all our users.

P.S - You can't delete your own threads as a user I believe. The screenshot above only works when it's a reply, not the thread starter.

Thread closed.