AQA GCSE English reviews

DS2 got mostly 8/9’s a couple of 7’s and a 5 in language. Predicted an 8!
we have asked for the paper back..

has anyone heard of this being a problem outside of mums net ?

Almost every one of DS friends and DC of people I know seemed to get 1 or 2 grades lower in English than their other exams.

DS got all 6/7 but in English 4/5. Others I know of who got say 8/9s across the board got 6/7 in English.

All just seems a bit bizarre!

DS got 6 in both lit and lang mocks and was predicted the same. Said he felt both exams went ok.

Ended up with a 5 in lit and 4 in lang!

His slip doesn't have a mark on for lang though - does anyone know how we find out his mark?

It also says lang was a WJEC/OCS paper yet lit was AQA - does that seem right?

Interesting that a school has raised a whole school concern.

I really hope that nothing has gone awry, and it’s stopped the young people being accepted onto further learning.

we are lucky as dd has been accepted onto a l3 course on the understanding she resits in November.

also the cost involved, I can’t see many already stretched schools being keen to delve deeper into looking at the papers if the students have already moved on / been accepted to the next course.

has anyone heard of this being a problem outside of mums net ?

This is so interesting, dd was consistently getting 8s and 9s in English language and literature mocks and assessments and she ended up with a 5 for literature and 6 for language. Unfortunately she now hasn’t been allowed onto the courses she wanted to do. We’ve been calling around schools and because she did well in other subjects shes been offered a maths A level, a business btec, physics A level, computing a level but she doesn’t want to do these subjects and one college admitted she was being offered the subjects no one else wants to do. She’s devastated because she wanted to do English literature at uni so feels she can’t do this without an a level (I have no idea if this is true). She’s done so bloody well and it now feels like she won’t study what she wants at uni so her hard work was pointless. She has adhd too and is obsessed with learning about history and literature so it would be extra hard for her to do a subject she’s not that interested in.

@MrsHamlet Agree re centre assessment and investment in own students. However, you don't need to know the candidate to build a bias - which is why the process is as is
My original point was regarding making it clear that assessors do not mark the whole script/paper

I posted on the other thread. My DD got a 7 in Lit and a 9 in Lang. This was a flip of what was expected. She'd been consistently getting 8/9 in Lit and knew the texts really well. She came out of the exams really positive. She had never scored above a 7 in Language and had a wobble saying she'd done badly in the exam.

Her entire cohort scored really low on Lit compared to their predictions. There were a couple of 9's, no 8's, some 7's but mostly 5/6. There were lots of tears.

It doesn't make any sense to me. It all seems weirdly out of sync.

@MrsHamlet Aware of fact it's anonymised! Could be me but some previous posts implied marking whole paper - ie reference to not 'doing the maths' which would be impossible, given process.
Thanks for clarification (for other posters) that assessors only mark one question per script, as this is a very important point when parents are enquiring and speculating regarding the process

Thank you @SummerSwim this is exactly my thinking. Especially as DS is a grade 8/9 humanities student (will be taking A level History, Politics and Philosophy).

DS doesn’t want to request a review as he is simply relieved that his 6th form have admitted him (due to his 8&9s). He doesn’t understand that the grade 5s could/will impact his uni choices. But then he is 16 and can’t see the bigger picture.

@MrsHamlet are you saying you mark the whole script, all 5 questions? It has always been my understanding assessors only mark, say Q4 on one batch of scripts, Q3 on another, to avoid any building bias, on the paper as a whole. Has this now changed?
*referring to AQA 8700

My DD has asked about a review of mark as she was 2 marks away from a 6. We have decided to leave it as she won't ever be applying to Uni anyway so she doesn't need a higher grade.

The odd thing with her though is that she was predicted a 5 by the school even though she never scored any higher than a 3 in any mock. We had hoped for a 4 but were prepared for a 3.

We couldn't believe it when she got a 5 and only checked the grade boundaries out of curiosity and were amazed to see how close she was to the 6.

@Ohcrap082024 i would request the papers for the Lang as some university course ask for a G6 in English. We went through this last year but unfortunately for DD missing by 1mark it was reviewed and didn’t change overall. I’m glad we checked though and now unfortunately some of the university’s she was interested in won’t accept her with a grade5 Eng Lang

Thank you for this thread. My ds was predicted 7/8s for both English Lit and Lang but has got 5s in both. Lang is one mark off the 6. It didn’t impact on his A level choices but it doesn’t sit right.

Since yesterday, I have been mulling over whether to discuss with school. FWIW, ds had the same teacher for both lit and Lang for the whole two years. The most experienced teacher in the school with nearly 30 years under her belt. Well regarded amongst the boys and parents because she gets bloody good results. She predicted at least 7s. DS was well prepared for the exams and came out feeling quite positive. Things just don’t quite add up.

I think Eng Lang marking is all over the place. DC was on track for a 7, the school sent everyone's March mock paper for a remark to check things and DC was marked down for a 4, cue months of anxiety. They got a 7 in the end.

The whole exam needs rethinking - it's a bizarre way of assessing English capability ('answer questions to this extremely specific formula') and the style of writing it asks for is so artificial and not at all good writing.

GrammarTeacher thanks for your response, that's very interesting. We've asked for the school to take a look at the scripts first and we'll take their advice on whether to get them reviewed formally. In the grand scheme of things, her grades are fine but we just want to make sure there haven't been any errors in marking.

DS was predicted an 8, got a 6 , he really worked hard, felt the exams went well, it just doesn’t make sense . Got his grade back and he was 4 marks from a 7 so not a million miles away. He goes to a pretty crap comp and they really do not encourage remarks or asking for reviews of papers to teachers but I may persevere anyway and see where we get to

With no disrespect to parents (I know how much you want the best outcomes for your DC), please just be aware that a 'review' means your child's teacher looks over and re-marks the script unpaid, before suggesting that you ask the exam board for an official remark. I've seen a remark at A-Level this week come back several marks lower, but still keeping the original grade. Unless it's one or two marks off the upper grade or a few marks off and affects your child's future choices, I would honestly advise that if the class teachers don't disagree with the board's marking, it isn't worth pursuing a remark.
I know what you are saying, and I taught A Level years ago, and a wholesale remark would have been hellish, but if things are happening like questions missing, whole school queries of grades and grades going up by 2 or 3 grades then the exam boards need to be made aware and made to account for it if this goes over the bounds of himan error. It's not good enough really to cause so much stress to already stressed children and parents and teachers. . They aren't doing this for free. They get paid for it and have a responsibility to mark correctly. I know there is always a shortage of markers, because they pay terribly, but even so.

I’m just adding on here to say that any papers submitted for a review will be reviewed, not remarked. It’s to check it was marked within the mark scheme.

@pinkflamingo83 Thank you for your response. She was 2 marks off a 5 and the college have a refused to allow her to do a levels on this basis

I know someone who marks for OCR (don't do it at GCSE myself). He is on the review team and has seen some shockers. May well be worth a review.

A small % of overall entries are changed. When you work out the % of reviews that change it seems to be around 20-25%. The QCA review of marking last year made Literature the least accurate, followed by Art, followed by English Language.
This matches our experience with Literature being more harshly marked.