Why did my son get these results?

yearofthehorse
that is a fantastic result

Has anyone suggested getting them remarked? There's quite a short window of opportunity and you have to pay but get your money back if the grade changes. Last year I got my money back on 5 exams, ALL of which went up a grade.

sorry to hear that
I thought we were heading for no surprises (continual assessment and stats)
that is roughly speaking 15 points down for 11 subjects roughly a grade and half down on every subject
If I had achieved the mock results your son had I would be thinking my work rate and work ethic seem to be on track and if I was happy with those results keep on doing the same maybe ramp up a little
If you cant rely reasonably on the mock/predicted results then what is the point of them?
we all know that they are predicted and there will be some deviation but that is a huge difference (and unfortunately the wrong direction)
there seems to be something very wrong there
I am not a teacher just a parent of same school age kids
what I have noticed and heard is that some predicted results are inflated in order for students to get offers in 6th form
(if this is true it would only applies to non-6th form schools)
I would ask the school for an explanation how your son can drop 15 grades
the very best of luck for your son

There are two areas that you need to concentrate on and both need you and your son to get into school and have a very basic conversation over the future.

Firstly for me, looking at the results against the predication, you need to get an understanding of what the school understand has happened. I would be concerned that the school has vastly over-egged the likely exam outcomes, which they should not have been doing knowing that things were going to be tough this year for all sorts of reasons. The first question for me is what level of 5 A* to C were you predicting as a school and what did you get. If they are only marginally lower than expected I think that says something about the level of work your son has been doing and his understanding of the subjects. If however the prediction for the school is a lot higher than actual, then the finger is pointing very much at issues in the school.

If you are not getting an honest open appraisal of what went wrong from the school, then I would question whether the school is the correct place for them to be going to again this next year.

I wonder whether this is a combination of the school being to generous with the expected grades and a level of complacency by your son based on an assumption that the school's suggested grades meant he did not have to graft to much to get the grades. Only you and your son can have that conversation about just exactly what he thinks he did and did not do.

If at the end of that conversation you are 100% convinced that your son did put in the effort, then that suggests that the school have failed to ensure that he got the basics right in the exams. A drop from A expected to D reality is an enormous drop, as is B to D. The question is where else your son might be able to re-take his exams and get input that might allow him to achieve the kind of grades that were predicted.

When I sat my GCSEs in 94 I was in top sets and predicted to pass all of them. My grandmother died 2 months before the exams and I lost it. I also had a boyfriend and In all honesty I didn't put the work in: my results on the day were the biggest slap in the face ever. I had a B in art and C in design and all the rest were E's I was devastated and so was my mum. She was livid. The only one I could not understand was history as I had actually revised for that so I was upset over that one.
After a week of replanning I was accepted to 6th form to re sit my GCSEs and I was allowed to do my a level art as long as I passed the rest of my GCSEs to go onto the second year.
It was embarrassing not being the same level as my friends but needed to be done. I got my head down and ploughed on.
Thankfully after a year I passed them all with Bs and went on to do sociology and human biology a level. I then went on to do A Bachelor of Arts in Graphic design at uni. I passed.
there is light at the end of the tunnel provided you are willing to knuckle down and learn.
It's frustrating when you can see he has worked but only he knows how much more he can push himself.
Good luck to him.

Tralala That must be a college requirement, because it's not the government requirement.

You need to be taking a pragmatic approach. He is where he is. He could do a full range of resits or combine some resits with a Level 2 GCSE equivalent BTEC course.

Good luck, we were a similar position last year. A year later DS has passed his level 2 BTEC engineering at double merit but needs to resit his English (again) but is able to move on to level 3.

If he goes to college he will be required to resit the English Language and maths alongside his main programme. It's English language that 'counts'.

Most colleges will have already started enrolling, so if you get nowhere with the school, I would go and speak to your local college fairly quickly as some courses fill up quickly, especially resist GCSE programmes.

So sorry this has happened and it is upsetting and shocking and hard to bear when our children live through things like this.

You've had really good advice about remarks and exam debriefing. What came to mind, reading your post, was to relay the story of a friend who left school without ANY passes (or maybe just 1). He was a summer baby so took those exams before he was 16. Didn't get anywhere with applications for apprenticeships, did some GCSEs at college in a year and was then offered a place on five different schemes. After that, he kept at the studies while working and got a place to do his degree. Graduated in his late 20s and became chartered in his field at around age 30. Has a very successful and fulfilling career. None of this could have been predicted from his initial GCSE results. He has always said that he was a late starter - many, boys in particular, actually do benefit from another year (mentally and emotionally). Their brain is maturing still and they can really take off. It happened to DS with Maths and he's so glad now, to have started university at 19.

No matter how it looks and feels tonight, he will find his way and I just hope he keeps his confidence. He's interested in quite different subjects, it seems - so maybe it's important not to focus in on one thing yet (and maybe not later either, if that's a personality strength he should bring to his career).

Good luck in the next days and weeks OP

No, you don't need to resit if you get a C in English lit. However if you do have to resit, you have to resit English language, you can't resit English lit.

www.gov.uk/guidance/16-to-19-funding-maths-and-english-condition-of-funding

He will need to resit English as it's English Language that requires a C grade.

He won't have to resit English because he got a C in English Lit.

Our local sixth form college offer a re-sit programme. Is this an option?

From comments on other thread you need at least Bs to cope with A levels.

How close he is to a C in the maths and english? Are they close enough to warrant a remark

Try a different college to see if they will accept him on a level 3. He does have 5 A-C passes just not english or maths but they can be studied along side the level 3.

ihate Hope your DS enjoys the BTEC course. A levels were never an option for my DS but he loved his BTEC course.

Sorry if this is already clear, but pupils with a D in English or Maths will have to resit them to stay on in education at all. So start from there and then think about A-levels or a level 3 vocational course.

Did he not turn over the final page of the exam paper or something for english? Surprising to hear of such a big drop.

Doing retakes will give him a lot more options than taking a course he isn't sure about.

I'm not in England, so not sure if this is possible there, but can you appeal based on prelim results?

No we don't have that here. We can ask for remarks though.

Sorry OP, he must be feeling so disappointed.

This popped up on my Facebook; it's a good reminder that exam results are not what define you or your future career (in case you want to show him).

Craigavon Police

Now not know

I'm not in England, so not sure if this is possible there, but can you appeal based on prelim results?

Does the local fe college offer a resit year? One of ours does. Limited range of options but aim to get near misses through with 5 good passes.

Have you spoken to anyone at school? They should be able to advise? With those results I would resit at least science, maths & English as these can make a huge difference to a career choice/change in the future. Although it may not affect what he wants to do know they are worth banking. What about an art course or college course alongside the GCSE's? An extra year now, will mean nothing in a few years but those grades once got may mean everything in the future.

I'm picking up on just the couple I know about, to get a sense of what it was that caused him to get lower than expected.

For the music, what was his performance like? What grade is he working at and in what instrument and how sound is his theoretical knowledge? Schools often say you can do GCSE music as long as you're around Grade 3, but in reality it's hard to do well at this level.

Maths, was he in a stream that taught right up to the A* questions? Sometimes pupils in sets predicted B or C don't get taught the very hard stuff. They have good reason - they want pupils to get a solid grounding in the bits that will get them through and not get confused by the top end of the syllabus. BUT if those C grade bits slip in the exam for one reason or another it's then easy to end up below the C. If there were questions in the exam he couldn't even begin to attempt i wonder if this was the case.

I tutor both these subjects for GCSE so with this info I may be able to tell you a bit more, at least about those. You need to know if school over predicted him, or the exam went wrong on the day, or if he wasn't understanding it as well as he thought, or didn't revise effectively. If you find those things out the will help with a way forward - especially the maths which I assume will need to be retaken.

Condolences, by the way. I have a DD who managed a U in one of her AS level subjects (she'd had lots of extra lunchtime tuition). Being a parent is bloody difficult at times.

a predicted grade A to D? I had one of my GCSEs remarked because it was a B! and the remark showed up some kind of error and I got an A instead.

Could something have gone wrong, maybe not in the marking of all of them, but in some of them...?! sorry if grasping at straws.