GCSE 2022 Results - the moment of reckoning!

Weird results for English for dd too: 9 in one paper and 5 in the other, neither grade being representative of her ability/mock grades. School has requested her scripts. Several other students in the same situation.

Did any of yours do the WJEC hospitality and catering course? My Son did and I was just wondering about how to list it on his sixth form enrolment we have to do? It's on his print out but there are 2 entries with different grades so it looks like 2 separate exams. I am assuming I should just enter it once as I think it is the equivalent of 1 gcse? We are not in Wales and all the other exams are either AQA, Pearson and OCR. Thanks.

Thanks @Alsoplayspiccolo @MrsHamlet @EngHOD . @EngHOD it's English Lit that the English Teacher raised (also 8/9 border) . As she mentioned it to my son that she thought it was wrong, I wonder if the paper 1 mark breakdown doesn't add up to the total. The English Lang papers are the ones with the large grade/mark difference with the average being 1 off a 9. It's a very helpful suggestion, thanks, that my DS asks his teacher to get a copy of the scripts and checks them. I have mentioned to my son that only 1/5 reviews result in a grade change so as not to get his hopes up! I am not going to do anything at the moment as far more important are checks for those at the 3/4/5/6 borders who need certain grades for college or to do their preferred A levels.

Things are certainly very different to when I was at this stage. My full set of As at O level and then again at A level were local newsworthy in the early 1980s. Admittedly I didn't go to very good schools and I'm sure better places turned out a lot more similar results but it was very unusual in either of the non selective comprehensives I attended.
The standard offer for Medicine at the time was BBB from the vast majority of Universities though Oxbridge might ask As. BBC, BCC or even CCC weren't unheard of from some medical schools if they liked you at interview. The only course which I'm aware of routinely asking AAA in those days was Vetinary Medicine and that was at least in part because the popularity of the original tv series of All Creatures Great and Small had led to an explosion of interest and the numbers applying were huge. So they had to differentiate somehow.
I went to one of the biggest Universities in the country and those of us (across all faculties) who had gained 3 As or better at A level were invited to sit a scholarship exam. I don't know how many of us there were but we all fitted in one lecture theatre, fairly well spread out, so maybe 150 or so, perhaps more, but certainly nowhere near as many as there would be nowadays.
I got a real shock when my own children started looking at Universities and found how the requirements had gone up. I know it's a different world. Far more young people do A levels and go to University and of course there are far more Universities. I'm not convinced the changes are all for the better, though, but then maybe I'm just a miserable old fogey. Reading some of the comments about pupils believing they are a failure and won't get into good Universities if they have "only" achieved 7s and 8s for their GCSEs suggests something is going wrong somewhere though.
Well done and good luck to all this year's exam takers. I think they have done well to have got through these last few years whether they have a sheet full of 9s or not.

My centre has no marks for English on the sheets we gave out. We have them but the way we've set up SIMS meant that we gave out the overall grade and the Spoken Lang. There wasn't an additional column for the mark. That's on us though. We definitely have the marks.

@Alsoplayspiccolo you’re absolutely right.

@mushroom3 they do need your permission because the grade could go down, rather than up. Obviously an overall mark that’s one below a 9 makes that very unlikely but your permission is needed regardless.

Schools have access to the breakdown of marks per paper, which we use to decide if we need to a) see the script and b) request a remark. In your DC’s case, it sounds as if the paper 1 marks are vastly different to paper 2 and therefore, this could suggest examiner error.

You’re right, a grade 8 is wonderful and he should be very proud of himself but I’d say the school is right to query the disparity between papers. My first action would be to see the script itself and decide if the mark
scheme has been applied correctly. If it hasn’t, requesting a remark is the next step. The remark will check that the work has been marked correctly; it won’t be an error adding the marks up because the school has already seen the breakdown of marks per paper.

We haven’t seen a huge different between what we predicted students and what they achieved but every year, there is a wider margin of error in English than in a less ambiguous subject, such as Maths, for example. There is a certain amount of human error expected when you’re applying a mark scheme like the ones involved in English marking.

We are also AQA and no mark on the sheet either for English language and it is the only mark missing.

You can request access to aqa scripts for free. Someone experienced in the centre should then look at them and advise you about whether a review will likely lead to a grade change.
A review includes a clerical check as well as a full review of the whole paper.

mushroom, I think they do a clerical check as a matter of course as part of the review.
I am guessing that teachers have a breakdown of marks for each question for all results, not just those under review - my DS’s history teacher was able to tell him what he got for specific questions yesterday, before suggesting he requests a priority copy of scripts so they can check his answers.
I was surprised but maybe it’s so teachers can spot weak areas and use that info for teaching the next cohort?

Do teachers have access to AQA GCSE scripts? DS teacher said to him yesterday his English LIT paper 1 needs to be checked as she thinks the mark maybe wrong? Do they need permission from parents as she said she will in contact about it (not sure if to son or us)?

I think we will have paper 1 of his English language reassessed as it's odd that he scraped a 7 on paper 1 (which he thought went better than paper 2) and solid 9 on paper 2 (ended up 1 mark off a 9 overall). English is a really strong subject for him and he's doing it for A level. 8 is a brilliant grade but he isn't happy with it! There seems to be quite a few people in my son's school that don't have what was predicted specifically for AQA English Lit and Lang. Is this what other schools are seeing.? I know AQA English grades being lower or higher than expected has been mentioned a few times in his thread. With the review of marks do they actually look at what the student has written and check the mark scheme was adhered to, or actually just check the allocated marks add up? @EngHOD I'm wondering if you know?

A 7 is to be celebrated and certainly an A in old money! As others have commented, the fact that the numerical system doesn't match the old one is the problem. Grade 8 straddles A star/ top A and there are cumulatively more grade 9s and 8s given out than there were A stars.

I guess it will shake itself out when people eventually stop comparing this system to the old one.

@Alsoplayspiccolo The marking non payment hit all subjects but GCSE Lang was the hardest hit to my best knowledge. The team leaders telling markers to do certain things to avoid challenges is very worrying indeed. AQA seems chaotic. Worth getting schools to check it out if it looks odd!

That’s really concerning, tryingmybest.
Do you know whether it was an issue across all AQA subjects, or mainly English? And was it both lit and Lang, or just Lang?

We have just spoken to the exams officer at our school about another topic, but did ask whether this year’s cohort had had unusual English results. She was very careful in her answer, but suggested they had, as had another school in the area (both selective independents).

DS actually got a 9 for language and an 8 for lit, but given that requests for priority copies of scripts are free, it would be interesting to see whether there is a problem among the cohort’s marking.

It's not my reality, and hundreds of kids pass through my department. I think it depends very much on where you live and what schools your kids go to.

I am not entirely sure what was wrong with A-C etc, why haven't they concentrated on overhauling the whole system and made the exams fit for purpose. If too many were getting A*s that's the issue of the marking system or difficulty of the exams surely.

I must say even though I know a 7 is good I felt like DSs results were quite average esp compared to lasts years results but after going to college they were so happy with 7s for English and Maths it's reassuring. Even if he had 4s we wouldn't be worried of course but it's definitely a conditioning (and MN doesn't help with that lol).

Plus there was talk at the start of having to resit Maths & English if you didn't get a 'strong pass' (ie a 5). Until they realised that was pretty much unworkable.

@MrsAvocet I agree with you.

Once upon a time it was extraordinarily rare to find anyone who got all A grades, even amongst the most academic of young people in the highest achieving schools. For context I knew one such person but they were so bright they went up to Oxford at just turned 17 and became an academic there.

Even most of the Oxbridge-bound young people would have gained a handful of As but also Bs and even the occasional C. And they may indeed have got in with AAB or ABB (and those who passed the entrance exam could conceivably have gained their places with EE).

When the grading change happened, I thought it was predicted that only several hundred pupils across the whole country would get all 9s but the reality seems to suggest that it's many more?

Exactly - but people can't get their heads round 2 old grades = 1 new grade.
which leads to a 4 being devalued.

School have said no to providing marks. They gave the pupils their own grade sheet with them all listed on. They have said it will take too long to do as different exam boards. I have asked for PE now specifically as I need to take things further with the school.

A 5 is a high C low B. Anything a 4 or above is a L2 pass.

I don't like 9s because they are unnecessary and lead to high achieving kids thinking they have 'failed' if they 'only' gets 8s. They just add to stress.

Not that they are relevant in our household.

I thought four was equivalent to a low C and five a higher C?
Anyway it doesn't really matter what mumsnet believes a four is an accepted pass and that's good enough for me .

Aargh A* has been replaced with bold!

I'm pretty sure A was new when I did GCSEs in the 1990s. At my school only the really nerdy bright kids got them and none got a full set of A results.
I agree with @MrsAvocet about "top 3" but also that for a long time "A" was what everyone wanted and was aiming for. But a lot of DDs teachers made it seem that a 7 (and sometimes even 8) was somehow disappointing. And DD was disappointed with a 7 in mocks/coursework when she said she would have been happy with A (if that makes sense)

blooming bolding ... 9 is an A star star, 8 is an A star ...