GCSE remark new certificate

[Eastyone]

Daughters school are really unhelpful / don't know what they are doing re exam results. We requested a remark and the result was upgraded. How do we get the new certificate - school saying we have to return the old one first but no idea where to? Also we asked for a copy of a marked paper and paid for this - school now saying probably lost in the post - is there anything we can do?

[Haggisfish]

Yes-speak to the exams officer. No way should script be lost in the post?! Or phone exam board and ask them yourself.

[Eastyone]

We are talking to the exams officer and this is what she is saying!

[noblegiraffe]

Which exam board? If you asked for a copy of the paper rather than the physical paper these are usually sent electronically so can't be lost in the post!

[Eastyone]

The board for the lost paper was WJEC

[Haggisfish]

I would phone wjec and speak to them directly-your exams officer sounds crap!

[Eastyone]

The problem is they won't speak to you it's all supposed to be done via the exams officer - tried JCQ /AQA (for new cert) and WJEC so getting nowhere

[MollyHuaCha]

I've had the same prob. Sch said today to return the certificate that is wrong. DC has left the school. We now live in a different country. So they said I have to send it by courier.

[Haggisfish]

Ye gads how frustrating.

[noblegiraffe]

Has the exams officer contacted WJEC to follow-up the lost script? They are supposed to be kept securely and you have paid for a service so simply shrugging it off is unacceptable. I'd be worried that the exams officer never requested it.

If they have contacted the exam board and no joy, I'd be asking for a refund from the school. At the same time I'd drop WJEC an email asking for the procedure in the event of a lost script given that it was supposed to be sent securely.

[catslife]

I don't think that WJEC do mark all GCSE papers electronically yet, so the script could have been sent by post, but all exam materials are usually sent via a tracked system so there should be a record somewhere of the exam board sending it out and this should be followed up.

[Eastyone]

Seems wrong somehow, parents pay (£30ish) for a remark. In my daughters case she gained 5 marks and was upgraded from a D to a C so there was a problem with the marking. I'd have thought the boards would just reissue the amended certificates to the schools and parents / students can arrange collection.
The request for the marked paper needs further investigation, but the last comment from the exams officer was "she'd see if the department (in school) had a copy" and get back to us. This paper (English) is important as my daughter has learning difficulties and her new college would like to see it so they can help her further.

[xyzandabc]

School should be the go between between you and the exam boards. Boards do not talk to students/parents.

You return the certificate you have to the school, they send it to the board. The board send a new one to the school who then pass it to you. That one is easy to fix.

Unfortunately no matter how carefully things are tracked etc, papers do occasionally go missing. However the school should be able to get out of the board exactly when they sent it and method of postage. That is assuming the school did actually apply for the paper in the 1st place, human error is always possible. Either way, you don't have the requested script so a refund is due to you from the school.

As said before it is the exams officer that should be sorting out both of these issues, or someone within their team if it's a big school.

[xyzandabc]

Cross posted with your last post. The school should have picked up on the wrong grade on the certificate before they issued it to you. Our school check all of the remarked grade changed certificates to check they have the correct grades. (Most do as they are not printed until after the majority of remarks are complete, so it's just a handful that will be wrong). The wrong ones are sent back to the board before being given out to the students.

However boards will not automatically print new certificates, they do not allow two certificates to be in circulation at the same time. So will not reprint a new one until they have the old one back. I don't know the reason for this but I would venture a guess that it's to prevent fraudulent use of certificates/selling them for fraudulent use etc.

[Eastyone]

Thank you xyzandabc that is very helpful

[xyzandabc]

Just another thought on this one. If a grade changes after a remark, the board do not charge the school for it. So unless your school has a strange policy of profiting from these remarks, you should get a refund of your remark fee too.

[MollyHuaCha]

Yes, we paid nearly £70 for the re-mark of just one IGCSE exam (school is not in the U.K. so I guess that's why the fee was high), but we got it refunded as the grade went up. But I'm going to end up spending some of the refund on the courier as apparently we can't have the new certificate until the old, wrong one has been returned... irritating!

[Ta1kinpeece]

How was a certificate issued for the pre re-mark grade ?
The deadline for re marking was back in September.
Certificates are not issued till October/November

[MollyHuaCha]

Don't know. But DC's IGCSE certificates arrived here (U.K.) from sch abroad a few days ago. One of the certificates did not reflect the revised grade. When I emailed the sch, they said I have to return it to them by courier at my expense. Then they will courier it back over to the U.K. based exam board. The exam board will courier it back to the sch abroad who in turn will courier it back to me in the U.K. Looks like a good deal for DHL...

[xyzandabc]

Ta1kinpeece - The deadline for requesting a remark is September. It can take a few weeks for the remark to be done depending on how busy the examiners are. So some of the latest requests may not be complete at the time the certificates start their print run.
The deadline for certificates to reach centres was 7th November and most arrived the week or two before that so printing would have started pretty soon after the remark deadline. Too soon for absolutely all of the remarks to be completed.