Urgently looking for A Level Drama/Ts Tutoring !!!

[Coco]

Hi
My dd could really use a tutor to give her a couple of hours help, even on line would be better than nothing, who teaches or is an examiner for AQA Drama. Her exam's on monday !
She's sent several essay's into the teacher by email who has reluctanly agreed to mark them, but she's struggling to make any improvement. The book they are doing is Playhouse Creatures.
If anyone knows of anyone could you let me know asap !

[paulears]

Be careful with the examiner idea - the exam boards have taken conflict of interest VERY seriously this year.Examiners are not really even supposed to tell people what exam the examine! Crazy, of course, but an AQA examiner doing coaching could be considered cheating if they use their knowledge of what is important, critical or irrelevant to marks. A teacher is fine - unless they are one that signs off any coursework. In practice, I doubt it really matters, but many of my colleagues are almost paranoid about this - some have even given up doing teacher training sessions.

[Coco]

Thanks Paul. The only reason I thought of examiner as well, was that I saw a tutor advertising a while ago and she said she was a board examiner. I couldn't find the add when I looked today, so maybe given what you've said, she's since taken it off before she gets into trouble !

My poor dd's been freaking out today, as she sent yet another essay to her teacher who reluctantly marked it, but unfortunately with no improvement to her previous c grade. Non of her class mates are managing any higher than this either. When essays are being returned it is with the perfunctory response of ' look at the exemplar essay I gave you'. Clearly that doesn't seem to be helping my dd or the other students very much and given that dd got an a* in Drama and English for GCSE, I feel as though there must be some things which have not been successfully communicated to the students.

It's probably not helped that she's had to spend so much time on the practical (which I think was the most stressful time at school she's ever had ) with the group from hell, which included a really horrible boy who refused to turn for any rehearsals, permanently smoking stuff and was verbally abusive and physically threatening towards her. She refused to let us talk to the teacher for fear of making the situation worse.

Anyway, I eventually managed to find a guy on line who gave her a session over skype this evening. He's really good and teaches this subject and exam board in a school. He identified a couple of things almost straight away which they should have been taught and he's going to give her a lesson again tomorrow !
Don't suppose it will make a startling difference, but i suppose it's damage limitation in this case. DD's says shes going to email her notes to the others in her class, which I bet alot of people wouldn't do !

[sapphire]

Can you access the mark schemes from the exam board website? These can often provide really useful guidance for the sort of things the examiners will be looking for and how to boost your marks. It could be that your DD just needs to tweak what she is writing to make sure she is covering all the learning objectives in her answer. When she is revising, my DD uses the mark schemes to make mind maps of how she would answer past paper questions to cover all the learning objectives.

It sounds as though the tutor you have found knows his stuff so hopefully with some concentrated work over the weekend your DD should be able to boost her grade. I know what you mean about the stress of the practical exam. this year DD's group worked really well so it wasn't too bad, but the year before was a nightmare and I am sure the stress of that contributed to DD coming down with glandular fever! I will be so glad when DD's A levels are over in June... sadly DS is just starting out on his GCSEs

[paulears]

I suspect what you have at school is a teacher with little of the 'crafty' experience. I've noticed that some teachers will look at all the material from the board, and then use the mark scheme to work out what bits got marks and what didn't. They then feed this back the year after, with extras. The chief examiner's report is by far the best thing to look for and read - you see some really useful stuff in it - "A large number of candidates did not make the critical link with the requirement to detail the social and political aspects ......" - a clue that many of the kids gave great detail, but forgot to link it to the other area - which mean that the examiners would read their work, looking for this link, ready to put the mark in the margin - but not be able to. These kinds of things are really important to research. I used to feel really bad, reading an excellently written and phrased essay style answer that just missed the feature you were looking for. Two pages of good stuff and not one single mark!

Your on-line teacher spotted things - you need to work out if she has a hole in her skills, or if she is just a bit hazy on it's importance. If she doesn't have the mark scheme - download it pronto and try to use it to mark yourself what she produced.

Her teacher at school could well be an NQT - who may not be an expert at all, just a bit further ahead than your daughter. We all have to start somewhere. If there seems a ceiling of C grades you need to work out what is happening quickly, because there is a big difference between C and B - it's usually detail and understanding the kids start to add. Your new on-line tutor should be able to work this out and hep - he sounds as if he knows the subject, and that is the key!

Very best of luck.

[Coco]

Thanks sapphire, dd says she's been looking at Aqa site. Unfortunately though the tutor guy I've found cant really help them on their set book which is playhouse creatures. Can't believe how little resources her class have been given on this! Annoyingly I've found a whole revision pack for students from a teaching site, it looks really good for£ 35 but it's too late to get it now!

[sapphire]

Amazon do a next day delivery - expensive but might be worth it?

[Coco]

Thank you very much, paulears and saphire, I really appreciate your help.
I have found chief examiners report and the mark scheme as per your suggestions and now persuaded the company with the resources on the set book to email me it to me instead of posting it.
Pity dd's got Music As as well as Drama on Monday, but these things have helped quite a bit and she seems alot less like a hen on a hot griddle now !
Sooo grateful, Thank you !!!

[sapphire]

Good news re. the revision book! DD really struggled with boosting her essay grade at AS drama and I know from experience that sometimes just a few tweaks are all that are needed! She was only getting B's and C's in her practice essays with the teacher but actually got 90% in her written AS exam! All the best to your DD for Monday! Let us know how she gets on

[Welsh Mum]

I found these on youtube, dont know if they are any good.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... 6SygkGZV0Q

[Coco]

Thanks very much welshmum!

[sapphire]

Coco ... how did your daughter think the exam went? DD has her A2 exam next week ... she has been 'revising' in the garden apparently

[Coco]

Hi Saphire,
Thank you so much for asking and for your help which was really useful!

The Drama tutor was excellent and straight away helped her to improve her essay grade. He said she was doing what a lot of bright students do and writing really well but tending to imply the points rather than actually really spelling them out. The way the essays had been marked by her teachers gave very little clues about how to improve. He also helped her a lot with the Questions about reviewing the theatre performances, also something her teachers hadn't touched upon. She was certainly a bit more confident after having his help.

She had music in the afternoon and German yesterday and now she's off with her friends sunbathing in the park

How many more has your dd got to do? At least she's able to lie out in the sunshine, before it starts pouring again !

[sapphire]

Sounds like the tutor you found knew his stuff. Let's hope it bumped her grade accordingly

DD has her Drama and Dance written papers next week and then History and Eng Lit in June after the half-term.

After that we will be sitting and twiddling our thumbs waiting to see if there is any movement on the LIPA reserve list