GCSE Support - the results are in

@beansoup absolutely - this cohort have had challenges that no one’s had to deal with before - that shouldn’t be underestimated 👍🏻

@Monstermunchy
Completely agree - we've had parents face-to-face meetings in from September through March and no mention whatsoever of any potential issues with underperforming anywhere along the line this year. All positive and happy with how hard she was working, the time she was putting in, etc, etc, etc.

There are some complications as she was out of school a fair bit with mobility issues relating to a home school PE accident in lockdown. Fairly sure they will bring the absences up but Music was her favourite subject and she worked hard at it. Given she was out of school for over 50% of year 10 and 25% of year 11, the sheer fact that she has passed all her GCSEs with 5 and above just shows how much effort she has put in, I feel!

@takoneko
Thank you for that information and advice. I will speak to school but may have to approach Pearson myself. School seem to be just accepting what has come through - if it's correct in the end, that's fine. I just can't make it stack up!

Once autistic children get the rules they fly

Thank you anyway, and thank you to all the teachers on these threads who have been so helpful over the last few months.

I can't help with that, I'm afraid. I teach both but not the combined.

Pardon?

@MrsHamlet what are you the rules.

Evidence pointing thing?

Reading the thread I see that teachers on here are saying that Eng lan A- level is harder than Eng lit. DD is doing combined Eng A-level, should she be worried!?

@Takoneko

Thank you. It's Physics so I'll probably ask the School when the holidays are over.

I have the papers so was just wondering if there was anything I could look at before then! Don't really want to request a review if it's unlikely to change the Grade.

@MrsHamlet

OK thanks. I will ask the school in early September I think.

In my school, we’d look over them but it would usually be in early September when we are back from the holidays.
If the school won’t check them, then it may be worth asking around for someone who teaches that subject to give it a look over.

I teach edexcel history if that helps? Happy to look over some screenshots for anyone who is stuck.

I do it in my centre because I'm an examiner. But it's currently the holidays so not everyone will be working. If I get any from school, I'll look at them when I'm taking a break from paid ones.

You need someone who knows the spec, the markschemes and the standard for this series, ideally.

Speak to the school. Pearson BTEC have form for clerical errors. We had an absolute nightmare with UCAS one year because Pearson had just not counted a whole unit in the calculation of overall grades for one level 3 subject and it took several days to sort. We had to contact all the universities one by one and Pearson were really unhelpful with that part. Even though they accepted the error immediately, the day before results day, getting it updated formally was painfully slow. We had to put letters in all the exam envelopes explaining what had happened.

Everyone I spoke to at Pearson was lovely and really helpful but their systems were slow.

If anyone has asked for priority scripts for checking prior to requesting a review (to assess if a review is reasonable) who checks...will the school do this? If not, how can parents check a paper, other than ensuring the marks total is correct?

@beansoup at least you’d know why. It’s frustrating when teachers tell you things after the fact. Sounds like your daughter had done really well on her coursework.

Had similar last year with ds1s A level geography - he did amazingly well in the 2 written papers and pretty poorly in his NEA which pulled his mark down a grade - I know they’re meant to be motivated to work alone for A level but if his teacher had given me a hint that he wasn’t taking it seriously enough (I spoke to her afterwards 🙄)I could have got involved.

I'm thinking of asking for a review of marking for my DD's Music BTEC - she ended up with a Level 1 Merit but was predicted Level 2 Merit. Her original coursework (externally moderated) was assessed at Level 2 Distinction and her examined piece has come out as Level 1 Distinction - I can't see how the two together would come out as Level 1 Merit.

We were given no indication of any issues but her teacher now claims she struggled with the examined piece! I know she did on her first attempt at working with it but also know she worked very hard and was very happy with the finished piece.

Guess I just want to understand how the grade has been worked out because it's not obvious!

@megletthesecond is his heart set on env science? Geog bsc has a lot of crossover (my eldest is doing geog and his best friend at uni is doing env science and they do a lot of the same modules) Not all unis require a science for geog bsc

Some of them seem like a possibility @sumbusaking . But the env science degrees mostly ask for a science, not just geography.

megletthesecond · Yesterday 16:41
Me and DS have realised he hasn't got the grades he needs for maths or science a-levels. He got 6 and 5's. When he needed a 7 and 6's.
All I can do is hope the college are flexible. The university courses he wants all need a science. Refusing to revise has led him into a bit of a mess.

Might the Uni courses except Psychology at A-Level?

My dd got a much lower Dance grade than predicted as well, we were shocked. She got the school dance award for year 11 and did really well in her coursework, she must have TANKED the exam. Anyway, they're not doing the A-Level due to numbers so that's that anyway.

We also looked at the grade boundaries in 2019 for a couple of other subjects and AQA Dance in particular has dropped 2 grades this year versus same scores in 2019. She was gutted about that as got a G6 instead of the 8 she was predicted.

The key one is AQA biology and she had a bit of a revolving door of teachers in year11 so the last science teacher only covered for last 4-wks of term they didn’t finish the curriculum either! We have asked if school can help review but I’m not banking on it. We’ve going to go through it together to see if anything obvious is not added up and check the big mark questions against her revision notes as that one mark has potentially lost her a place at college she met all other entry requirements.

I got the impression it was a generic email, to be honest. Maybe they do it for all borderline grades? No idea. Anyway, I don't think we'll bother, seems little point at this stage.

People will tell me I'm wrong, but one mark off is pretty unlikely to move unless there is an obvious marking error.