Word ‘fail’ in reports upsets teachers
A LEADING exam board has urged markers to refrain from using the words ‘fail’ for fear of hurting the feelings of teachers.
The guidance from the OCR (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations) board is for annual reports aimed at school staff reviewing how pupils performed in GCSEs and A-levels.
Critics have dubbed the reluctance to dispense frank advice to help improve exam technique for children in future years an example of ‘snowflake teachers’ being mollycoddled.
Rather than allow experienced chief examiners to choose their own words, the board has instructed them on ‘how to write a good report’.
The 2018 guidance says: ‘The reports are produced for teachers and should be written with this in mind... Set the right tone by beginning with positive statements that do not suggest criticism of teachers/teaching.’
Among a list of words and phrases to avoid are ‘weak’ and ‘poor’, which the report suggests could be replaced by ‘lower ability’, while conversely ‘strong’ should instead be ‘higher ability’.
It adds that ‘what may seem a normal, light-hearted comment can easily be interpreted as a sarcastic or patronising one’.
Examiners, it continues, should avoid ‘judgemental language’ such as ‘shocking’ or ‘disappointing’, while even words such as ‘but’ and ‘however’ are judged too harsh.
It also gives suggestions of how to rewrite sentences. For example, it offers that the line: ‘Some of the responses were excellent with detailed arguments on either side of the debate, however many were too brief and lacked detail and balance’, could instead be written as: ‘Many excellent responses contained detailed arguments on either side of the debate. Others needed to develop more detailed, balanced arguments in order to achieve high marks.’
The reports are directed at teachers in the first instance but are often shared with pupils who will be taking their tests in future years, to help prepare them and sharpen up their exam techniques.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said: ‘The OCR seems to assume that teachers are snowflakes but in fact they would welcome frank feedback to enable them to get the best out of their pupils. This mollycoddling approach underestimates the teachers and lets them down.’
But OCR’s Peter Canning said: ‘We are making significant changes to the way we support teachers delivering OCR qualifications, including improved examiner reports in many subjects, and a key part of this work is encouraging examiners to be as constructive as possible.’