Originally Posted by ColinsMum
... do consider, and encourage your son to consider, the possibility that this teacher knows exactly what she's doing. Did I understand correctly that the higher weighted Maps task is for work done in class? She might well feel that it should be highly weighted because, being done under her eye, it is a much better gauge of what children can really do, as opposed to what gets done in an uncontrolled environment where help may be available. She may be right.

I know people tend to think of a high grade as a reward for work done, but really it's "supposed" to be a measure of what's been learned. If someone does 200 hours of homework which attracts no grade credit at all, but helps them learn the material, and then is given a grade for what they show they can do in a 2 hour exam, that isn't intrinsically unfair - also, it's what much of the world does! - even though it may be unexpected.

Indeed, a move towards such a system may be what's needed to give schools the freedom to stop giving kids so much useless homework and to let them let kids have the freedom to do what will help them learn rather than what will garner immediate marks. It may be hard to do all at once, but downweighting homework is a possible step towards it. A clumsy one, admittedly - if this were the intention it would be better to introduce more freedom into the homework at the same time, also to explain the rationale. Still, it would be a pity to reinforce teachers' feelings that they can't do this.

I second this message. This teacher's policy and practice may be grading student work based on their ability to apply the learned information on demand in the classroom where the teacher can be certain that parents, paid tutors, or friends are not helping earn the grade.

I will add that (right or wrong) there is a common notion that parents who complain about student grades have too much skin in the game, possibly seeing the grade as reflective of themselves and depriving the student the sense of ownership of his/her grades.

The fact that the weighted grading is posted proactively and all have access to the information, then it is intrinsically fair, even though some may not agree with it.

Less fair and equal, but considered "equitable" by some, would be the practice of letting select students know the date of the heavily-weighted in-class activity possibly even providing a study sheet to select students, while withholding this information from other students.

Looking ahead a bit, be aware that college admittance and acceptance may also vary widely. It may be unduly influenced by a high school providing negative information about a parent (whether accurate or inaccurate).

You may want to think long-term and let this go. If your son decides to talk to the teacher about this, he may want to open by demonstrating an understanding of what the teacher may be trying to accomplish: "I've been doing my homework and learning the material, but I made a careless error on the in-class map assignment which I see is worth a much larger part of my grade. Is there some extra credit I can do to bring up my grade?"