GCSE English Lit and Language review of marking

School have been in touch with all children who were within 3 marks of a grade 5 (English Language) for permission to download and review scripts. I guess they are trying to boost school stats, but impressive none the less.

Sort of. It needs to be their 'normal way of working.' In some schools, all students are typing their exams. Some exam baords are actually offering fully online exams already as an option. My school is not ready for this - we don't have the ICT infrastructure.

Congrats 🎉

Oh wow, congratulations! What was it originally?

English Language (Edexcel) upgraded to an 8!

DD's hypermobility and dyslexia were picked up by her Primary's Ed Psych who suggested moving to laptop asap in Y3.

Primary not keen on laptop, so I did the move in lockdown and got her touch typing in Y6.

Sent her to secondary with laptop as normal way of working.

It was in the Ed Psych report but nothing else. They did try a mild whinge about her having her own, so I asked who I needed to send the tech spec and list of adaptive software requirements to for school to provide, and strangely never heard back...

But lots of schools use laptops for everything now and so they just fall under normal way of working. I can't see anything that says you need a medical reason.

We are in a similar position re: hyper mobility and my daughter (currently in y9 started using laptop following a report off a specialist occupational therapist and a doctor and the school accepting that a laptop was required as "normal way of working". As far as I know, all DD's classmates using a laptop during the lessons, and hence allowed to do it during exams, are children with medical / learning circumstances backed up by medical and / occupational health practitioners.

AFAIK it just has to be normal way of working.

DD says it's a bit of a faff for some subjects as you have to keep flicking back and forth so she opts to handwrite those but would have preferred a digital exam paper if it existed. She has hypermobile fingers so it's very painful to write rather than being a preference.

My guess is that this is not widely advertised as schools need to provide fully charged, working laptops with spell check etc disabled and that would be expensive and time-consuming if 450 kids decided they wanted that.

My eldest typed his exams but that was because of dyslexia. Are you saying anyone can opt to type now? That's amazing.

Yeh, so 40 in a year... If there's no coursework involved I presume that's 4 exams per child in total for Lit and Lang. If every child wanted all their exams looking at by their teacher, that's 160 papers! For me, I think lots of parents thought they were the only ones asking so thought it wasn't a bit deal, but the problem is I had endless requests - parents don't realise this.

Yeh, students can already type exams. Lots of mine do.

That is already an option - DD types all her exams.

You don't need the support/approval of the teacher or school to request a review, you simply pay for it. Our school only has the capacity to check papers of those who are staying on - and that is only as a favour, not as part of their remit - so any who are leaving are just paying for a review without a teacher seeing the papers.

@NorthenAdventure that really interesting about handwriting. It does make me wonder when will exams embrace typing.

We’ve got Eng Lang papers back. Ds’ tutor thinks it’s worth going for a review as she feels he was harshly marked on a couple of questions. His teacher passed on the papers without comment, but after his previous emails I don’t think he would be supportive of a review. I’m going to speak to the exams office tomorrow to see if I can request a review directly from them (obviously I’ll pay for it).

I've never heard of English lit being stipulated as a requirement to stay on, only English Language and Maths. Even in those our school is only a 4 and 5 either way round. Surely they must lose some capable students with 8s and 9s in Science and Maths who would perform perfectly well at A level despite a 5 in lit. It seems really unfair they have to move. 🤞 for the review.

I think it’s a disgrace, at her own school. Can you escalate a complaint on wellbeing grounds? Although she may well start to enjoy the new school

Yay congrats

That is so, so horrible. I really feel for her.

It's just seems so unfair for the sake of 3 marks. That's a rounding error, not whether they are capable or not.

I'm so sorry for your DD.

Aqa English Lit review back today which was 1 mark off the boundary. Gone up 4 marks to a 7. It was submitted the day after results day.

Nope. No discretion—no 6+ in both English Lit + Lang = no entry. DC is currently at a new school, miserable because they don’t have any friends, says everyone else is in firmly established friendship groups, and we’re on tenderhooks WAITING. I’m trying to encourage making the most of it and making new friends (because chances of moving back are slim), but it’s falling on deaf ears.

She gained 3 marks in paper 2 - poetry) , paper 1 was also re marked but she got identical marks to the first time.
Fingers crossed for your DC

@Bufftailed
Thank you😊

@ThatsCute
Thats absolutely brutal, surely school could exercise discretion?! Fingers crossed for your DC.

@ThatsCute - Aqa, only had paper 1 reviewed at suggestion of teacher

Excellent news! Bio seems less likely but not sure tbh…

How many marks did she go up?

Edexcel here as well... need 3 marks for a grade rise.