Y11 2023/24 thread 5 - results!

@Newlease she has good GCSEs. Now she needs to focus on getting good A levels and then she will get into a good uni.

You'll always see more about huge entry subjects though, because almost everyone does them.

Eng Lang and Literature seems like an issue in so many schools/boards/ for kids. I remember reading a thread last year this time and panicking about it, asking for tutor for my daughter doing one of the least popular exam board.
Luckily she got a good 9 in both Eng and thought that the tutor did well in guiding her through the marking scheme. She is confident now finally!
She is worried about her 6 in Drama going to affect uni applications ( 2 8s and other 9s from Grammar school, so worried she wouldn’t get into good universities). Is this something to be worried about? One of the 8 is one mark off 9 that’s in German. Should I ask for review on Drama and German, please?
And now worried about not doing any Super curricular activities, are we going to continue with the thread until they join uni? 😁 I would really appreciate some help regarding outside school activities, does Lamda/public speaking works? Only thing she does is CCF now

DS finally decided to go with city 6th form then got a call from school 2nd in under a week asking him if he was going to register I was working so missed the call but left a lovely message praising DS. Now he is back to debating where to go.

Thank you so much that's really kind of you.

See if she will have a look, but if you get stuck, feel free to pm me and I'll cast my eye over it.

There's no rush - I think the deadline for review requests is September 22nd. Might need to check that.

I am surprised she hasn't offered that, she does seem like she would from what she has said previously but I am not going to push it. Yes its AQA.

I might be an outlier here, but if one of my students was getting papers back, I'd want to help. I might well tell you it would have to wait until term time, but I'd have a look.

Is it AQA?

Thats what I thought but then thought maybe she had worded it badly! I would have preferred for them to review the paper but perhaps they aren't willing to do that.

The teacher spoke to Head of English re getting a review, I asked if I needed to complete the form sent to me by school and this was her response 'Yes please.
I think as it's only a mark, it would be worth trying for a remark (although they don't often change them, it does happen sometimes!)'

It sounds like they don't understand how reviews work, frankly. I'd not be spending parents' money unless I was fairly certain it was going to get refunded.

I was in two minds over DSs Eng lit, he was a mark off a 4, he was predicted a, the teacher said a 5 was likely but as he does have learning difficulties she felt it was safer in his circumstances to say a 4, she was absolutely certain he would get a 4. He has never got as low as a 3 in all mocks, mostly 5s.

The teacher spoke to Head of English re getting a review, I asked if I needed to complete the form sent to me by school and this was her response 'Yes please.
I think as it's only a mark, it would be worth trying for a remark (although they don't often change them, it does happen sometimes!)'

He is really unlikely to be marked down as the next grade down is a significant number of marks so nothing to lose (except the money I guess).

Other people give different advice but since reviews don't look for marks, I would say one mark off is a waste of money UNLESS you're certain there's been a marking error.

This question (and MrsHamlet's helpful response) is of interest, because as far as I can tell from the communication I have received, our school does not get involved in advising whether students should put in for a review. We've received a very detailed email setting out the processes, deadlines and fees (examination board fees plus £5 admin for each paper) for the three options - obtaining the scripts, clerical check, review of marking - but there is no mention of the school/teachers being involved in advising.

DS was 1 mark below an 8 in English Lang so we have ordered the two scripts just to see if a question was not scanned/marked etc, but obviously we would not be able to evaluate the marking. And since 7 is an excellent grade, is what DS was predicted, and does not affect his A level choices (he's a mathematician), I would feel a bit over-zealous asking his teacher to advise whether a review is warranted, given how time-consuming MrsHamlet has confirmed it is. So the other option is to just go for a review of marking without a recommendation, but given the weird English Language grading reported on this thread, I'd be worried that he might even go down a grade! Probably better to let sleeping dogs lie...

Summer half-term was at the end of May.

But I think it's school specific not board specific. Ah DD's school run a 3 year GCSE pathway so they've pretty much finished all the courses for most subjects and Y11 is mainly revision.

My DD did hers right at the end of y9 if memory serves me right.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow when is summer half term?

ours do all of their English lit in year 10 and English language in year 11

DD did hers last term (Y10).

They had to spend summer half-term writing a 5 minute speech on a topic of their choice after discussion and prep with teacher in the weeks before.

Then after half term a few did their speech each lesson to the rest of the class and did a mini Q&A.

They were given their mark at the end of term and feedback.

@GlomOfNit in my school, the papers will be divided out to those of us who mark. Between us, we cover all 4 papers, which helps. Of the three of us, two are away until the start of term - I'll be looking at my papers as and when they come in, and reporting to the HOD whether I think a review is likely to get anywhere.

My colleagues will have a look when term starts - and the three of us usually chat about some of them.

In other places it might be the class teacher or HOD who looks. Someone does need to though, because a lot goes in for review which is a complete waste of money - often because someone assumed that a question which was given zero hadn't been marked, when it actually hadn't been attempted.

I'm broadly happy to do it, as are my colleagues, but I'd prefer to be asked nicely and "let off" other start of term tasks. If they want me to review scripts, I'm simply not available to count exercise books or fiddle about with displays. (Insert range of pointless tasks here)

It's not really "a quick scan" - I'm looking at the mark, the answer, the annotation, and the mark scheme. And doing that for every question is much more time consuming than marking dozens of the same question one after the others.

MrsHamlet I know you're giving very good advice about getting the papers back to look over BEFORE actually requesting a review, and that you've said the schools have the copies of the papers.

But if we do request the papers (I'm thinking English Lit Edexcel) what then? I'm an intelligent woman with a PhD (not in literature!) and DH is an academic with obvious experience in exams and marking at university level, but both of us feel we wouldn't have a clue about how marking works in a GCSE English Lit paper. So in the event that papers are requested from the school, does someone from the relevant department have a quick scan to see if they think there's a case for review? It seems a big ask of them, especially in the summer holidays.

Actually reflecting back now on last year, GCSEs seem like such a high pressured game of chance. With so many subjects to study for it's difficult to know revision wise where to put your focus.

Our strategy was to go all in on Maths which was his weakest subject. Not getting a minimum 5 would have prevented him from getting into sixth form college. It worked, he got the 5 which was always touch and go.

The amount of time spent on maths definitely was to the detriment of some other subjects looking back.

Agree last year was strange too. We'll never quite understand how DS came out with a 5 in Eng Lit when he was a consistent 7/8 (predicted 8) through yr 10 and 11 (was remarked too with no change). Conversely he was never as strong on Eng Lang but did get a 6 there.

One possibility is he had a bad exam, didn't read the questions properly etc. Which he insisted wasn't the case (thought he'd done well). Another possibility is his class teacher spent 2 years not marking them as clearly/harshly against the mark scheme as she should. So what he thought were strong answers in reality were actually mid.

His whole class (top set) did poorly against predictions whereas a lower set (different teacher) did much better than expected with a not insignificant number outperforming the top set which does led some credence to the idea the top set were allowed to coast too much.

At the end of the day though it is what it is and he could have done more independent study than he did which might have improved his grade.

Interesting comments about Eng Lang. My son was predicted a 6/7 but just got a 5 with the exact mark in one paper and 1 above in the other.

Lots of kids in his year got 1-2 grades below their predictions but the issue only occurred in Lang.

Assumed it was the board Eduqas as English is the only subject they did with that board

Regarding mocks, Lang is the only subject he did worse than in his mocks. He got 1-3 grades higher in all the other subjects he did.

Luckily the sixth form he is going to accepts a 6 in Lit but he's potentially restricted for Uni.

Hopefully the issue will be sorted out if it happened last year as well as there are too many subjects that require language at a 6 to do them at A level for the subject to seem a lottery for some

@Spacecowboys @PugInTheHouse apparently it's the school who emailed her to alert her?

This is where I'm confused. I can't find any info anywhere so don't know which result to count as one is much better than the other.

Is it a double award? From my distant memory it's worth 4 gcses altogether so one single award (2 gcses) is a pass and the other a distinction. That's quite a difference!