GCSE Coursework Grade 8 to Grade 3!!

Well done OP, let's see what happens next.

You say you are going into school. But Send an email to Head aswell, so that there a paper trail of evidence.

Quite a lot of this seems odd to me. I teach 2 subjects, one of which is 60% NEA, the other 100%. For both, we have to give the students the raw marks in advance of submission dates to the exam board, so that the student has the time to appeal the process before final marks are entered online. Note that I used the term "raw marks" because that's what they are. For the 100% NEA, I can show them the grade boundaries from prior years but always say that they can and do move, so don't count on anything. Moderation by the exam board can also change the marks, so this is only the start of the process.

I book an appointment with the exams officer where we sit together and she enters the raw marks onto the exam board's secure portal. Once she hits "enter", a sample is generated. The number in the sample depends on the size of the group: for cohorts of 10 or fewer, all NEA work is submitted, then between 11-20, it's something like 11 - sorry I can't remember the exact numbers. However, this always includes the highest and lowest marks. For the 100% NEA one, we have 4 assessors so enter their initials onto the portal so that the sample includes roughly equal numbers from each of us. I did this in the first week of May and have not heard anything since, which I'm taking to be a good sign because if I had screwed up, the board would want to see further work.

In the case of the OP's DD, whilst I can accept that mistakes happen and specifications change, the subject teacher and exams officer should have been aware of this. In my subjects I am a member of specific groups on Facebook for teachers of each specification and level, so as soon as something like set works in Music changes, this is plastered all over, discussed ad nauseam and posted in large letters all over the exam board's website.

My advice to the OP is to ask the school calmly if the wrong advice was given, what processes will be put in place to ensure this never happens again? Has the teacher received training on the current specification, or on the previous one? Does the teacher have external support if they are the only teacher of the subject? In Music, although there are 2 of us teaching it, we also know lots of colleagues in local schools teaching the same spec, so we can and do help one another out with moderating or checking process if necessary. Again, the Facebook groups are brilliant for advice and support. Finally, your DD should never have been given any grades, only marks. It would be worth following this up with the member of SLT responsible for exams as the correct process appears not to have been followed.

In 30 years of teaching I've never been given the results of exam board moderation until results day - which is Thursday, 24 August this year for GCSEs.

I do not understand how your school claims to have been told what your DDs grade is for the coursework. They cannot have been informed yet.

This is a quote from the AQA website Schools/colleges will only find out the outcome of moderation on results day. Where marking is deemed to be too lenient/severe at moderation, an adjustment to all student marks will be made by AQA. It could be malpractice by the Centre giving your dd this information now and it could also be breaching confidentiality rules for you to be sharing this information on a public forum before results day.

My understanding of the NEA guidelines is that you can appeal the marks that your teacher has given before the work is submitted and moderated by the "exam board" but not after the moderation process has occurred.

Also OP I'm wondering if you're aware of the euphemism of your MN name

As a pp says, I'm also very surprised that there's been any discussion of grades or levels.

When I was a moderator, I often used to contact schools for bigger samples or more information, and there was never anything about grades discussed. They don't even exist at this stage!

The exam boards can only deal with what they see.

If, for example, I submit some work for my class and they discover plagiarism, they will investigate what processes I had in place to prevent that.

They can only do that by following it up with the centre.

Bibliographies are pretty much an essential in NEA these days, to try to prevent plagiarism. So your daughter, as she should have, acknowledged her sources. That sounds like it's not in question. I don't think the exam boards are trying to apportion blame at this point - they're trying to find out what happened.

What board is it @FrenchPolisher ? I looked up the AQA spec.

This is raising red flags for me. My subject no longer has coursework but I would never know how moderation its coursework had gone until results day. I am aware of extra samples of work being called for by exam board. Personally, I would insist on a meeting with the headteacher as soon as possible to find out what has happened and why your daughter was put in this situation on a day that was supposed to be celebratory not a big upset. It sounds like the headteacher may not be aware of it.

This is meant with kindness - you need to focus on what the exam board has said, and not the dyslexia or anything else.

It seems to me (and I don't know the spec) that the exam board have identified a problem in the work and referred that to the centre.

She cannot appeal against that because, as you say, the image she used was not an original image, and the specification identifies that as a limiting factor. She knew that at the time, because she acknowledged that it was not an original image.

Ask for the information sent by the exam board. You need to know what the problem is, from their point of view.

@RookieMa hard agree with that. I posted as much at the start of this exam season after I had seen a number of candidates who clearly had not checked the spec. Especially for an NEA such as this kind of coursework or a speaking exam in MFL.

Both my DC checked the specifications themselves for their exams

My DS was obsessed actually with checking and making sure he covered all the specifications which all DC should be checking themselves and have full access to

Lesson learnt at least for her A Levels

Sadly even though the teacher allowed her to submit it it is ultimately down to the DC to check the specifications

It is annoying though and I'd be just as upset as you because the teacher gave advice that caused this

It's a real shame and I feel for your DD

It’s unlikely that the school was teaching to a spec altered in 2023 - that’s only last Sept. The spec must have been in place for two years.

@MrsHamlet it's GCSE. And I agree, the sample for moderation is called in by the exam board. If there was only one class I might expect all to be moderated tbh (unless it was a class of 30). But either way the teacher doesn’t decide.

Normal process is that the exam board select the sample based on marks. It's not selected by the centre.

I'm not sure what qualification we're talking about here but generally, grades should not be shared. Raw marks only until August, subject to adjustment by the exam board at moderation.

The exams office will have it.

That's unlikely to help though. It'll tell you the process for internal verification and how to ask for a review of marking before the marks go off, but that doesn't seem to be the issue.

You need to see the communication from the exam board about this issue. But be aware that they (the school) might not communicate with you about it because it's not your work: they might only communicate with your daughter.