Why are my child’s
Marks
Falling?
The mark tells us that something has changed.
Move across the four possibilities. Each route looks at the same result from a different place—how the fall developed, what tuition must solve, where the weak link sits or what can change at home.
DIAGNOSTIC PRINCIPLE
The mark is the signal. The diagnostic task is to find where the route first becomes unreliable.
A conversation, a school paper, the student’s working, a short probe and live observation can all provide evidence. They are not competing first steps, and every student does not need the same diagnostic test. We use the smallest amount of evidence needed to distinguish likely causes, then verify the diagnosis by repairing the suspected weak link and checking whether later performance changes.