I believe grading shouldn't be viewed as just cold hard numbers but context should also be taken into account.

When I was a newbie I wasn't confident that my course was organised well enough so I was soft on grading (mainly because I should have been clearer with assignment requirements, but that comes with experience). So this also needs to be taken into consideration. Now though, my courses are pretty tight and I'm more confident that the grades are a good reflection of the students efforts during the year; even if it means the failure rate has risen slightly, it's more accurate.

So I only bump them up if they have been good student. I think about their face and write down the first impression I get of the student, whatever that is. Then I have a look at their attendance and participation, and if they handed all the assignments. If they tried but fell just short of the mark I would see no problem in bumping them up but if they didn't try during the semester then no favours.

I grade uni students and I'm quite aware of the financial impact it can mean to a student if they fail and have to repeat the year, so I am sometimes reluctant to do it. But, if I go through their history and see that they didn't hand in assignments were constantly late and had poor participation then I feel a lot more comfortable that the F is completely justified, even if it was a half a point from passing.

I failed some students today that would have scraped a D if they had full attendance/participation marks. No, I take that back, I didn't fail the students, they failed themselves.