GCSE English Lit and Language review of marking

@NorthenAdventure our school charges £10 for a copy of the script and £10 for a teacher to review it. I was annoyed at this until I saw the queue for the exams officer, I can only imagine how many emails the teachers get asking for papers to be reviewed by kids who are on the cusp of a 7/8 or 9

I can’t see it going less than a 7 as she is on the grade boundary for an 8, but it’s something to think about thankyou. When we got her predictions she started tutoring for English and that’s why she’s jumped up. She got straight 7’s apart from the science and she really wanted to do biology. Unfortunately physics lets her down. She was quite a few marks away from 7-7 I think so I don’t think anything can be done. She just got her autism diagnosis after her exams.. I tried to get her to fill in the extenuating circumstances each day but she wouldn’t approach the teacher and I couldn’t do it for her. Such a shame as if they had taken that into account she would have been able to do biology I reckon 😟

Oh yh I meant I wouldn't for a grade 8 or 9. We're sitting with a 3 in lit, lang and a 3 in maths so a 4 in lit or lang would make a huge difference to my DD.

"Oh mrsHamlet, they only need one more mark so we'll get it priority remarked".

ARGH!

Oh God I TOTALLY agree with you! That would drive me mad too. So many teaching staff - even senior ones - give such poor advice. My exams officer is terrifying, but he REALLY knows his stuff... and makes sure we do too.

Ah, you say that... but you give it a go for real... and wait until you're asked to review more than 100 or even 200 of them. Every single year. As an extra, out of goodwill. Do this for five years on the trot. Then see what you'd REALLY do, or how you'd feel about this👌 I know it's easy to say you'd do it, but walk the walk first.

Thankfully my school now has a blanket policy that we don't do this at GCSE anymore - we want to protect our staff... and we want to keep our staff in the teaching profession! We know that the best thing for our students is having excellent staff and subject specialists, so we look after them. Other schools are still offering this service, but are choosing to charge for it. I can't say I blame them.

(You must surely be aware that secondary teachers are leaving in their droves and there is a huge recruitment and retention crisis right now. This is exactly the sort of thing that has contributed towards that, and still is contributing towards that... ).

This is golden. Thanks so much!

My point was simply I don’t think it’s fair to charge families for the teacher to look over the work. Many teachers (like my sons) are working for free to do this because they care and want to support their students. I would do exactly the same if I was in a position to do so and I taught secondary (I’m a primary school teacher). But that shouldn’t be a given- I imagine many schools may wait until term starts in September?

My HoD and Head of Sixth form do. It drives me mad. I think poor advice is worse than no advice.

Yeh that is really unhelpful. My exams officer would eat me alive if he heard me talking about remarks!

Just seen someone else posted the same above 😁

Ah I see - I think you meant you wouldn't bother if you were already on an 8, going for a 9? That makes sense now.

Good luck to her! We have a pupil on a Grade 5 who's getting a review (even though he's a fair way off the 6) as otherwise he's going to do a complete retake... he REALLY wants the 6 so I hope it comes through for him! And your daughter too.

@NorthenAdventure I was going through it last year but I think I got it from the government statistics. Maybe, try the link below.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reviews-of-marking-and-moderation-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2024-exam-series/reviews-of-marking-and-moderation-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2024-exam-series

Someone asked for data on reviews. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reviews-of-marking-and-moderation-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2024-exam-series/reviews-of-marking-and-moderation-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2024-exam-series#number-of-reviews-requested-grades-challenged-and-grades-changed-by-service-type

Schools who have failed to update themselves on the "new" regs.

Schools which talk about "remarks" because they think it's easier to explain - and which, in turn, misleads parents.

It's really unhelpful.

But if you think it's cheeky to be charged... but also don't think teachers should be working for free in the holidays... I'm not quite sure what you think should be happening here? 🙈

Exactly. It's a review of marking. Where on earth did that come from?! 🤦🏼‍♀️

I mean, I've submitted all 4 English papers! So I definitely think it's worth a try, even if the chance is low esp when like for us, it's the difference between DD going on her dream course and not.

Entirely up to her! As long as she is aware of risk of decrease too. At my school, parents pay for reviews, but it is a private school.

Correct. Remarks don't happen anymore. It's a review of marking instead. And then an appeal if you want to take it to next level, but this is a big process.

Yeh, that's fair enough, and totally your choice. We do bother though; last year we had more than 20 grades go up in my cohort, so for us it's worth it! It's a personal choice though, as I say.

Interesting - we had lots of pupils go up by just 1 or 2 marks last year, but possibly a different exam board to you (for an essay based subject with, imo, highly subjective mark schemes!). I'm an examiner myself but haven't done reviewing. So for your exam board, you are using the tolerance level? Is that per ach separate question?

This interests me, as another teacher-friend who examines or reviews tells me her exam board looks at the band for each question (which is how I suspect we've had some go up by as little as 1 mark). Another one, and ex-colleague (a different exam board) is told to essentially remark each essay, but only change the mark if the entire paper is out of tolerance for the paper in total.

Frustrating, though not unexpected, that different exam boards look for different things in review!

I completely get that, obv the chances of a grade going up are better if they are only a few marks off the grade. I completely agree with the grade 8s and 9s. I just wouldn't bother unless it was stem and script clearly shows missed marks.

If your daughter was predicted a 6 but for 7s, I would be very wary of asking for a mark review. She may have been the lucky few who get overly generous marking and the marks may be lowered at review.

AQA - ensure teacher (with marking experience) checks the script before paying for a review of marking. If they believe the level awarded to the question/s to be incorrect, be prepared to escalate the ‘remark’ to the next level if the initial review of marking is rejected.
Every year we have several students whose first review of marking is stated to be accurate, but our English department KNOW it isn’t. At this stage, the script is then escalated with a detailed explanation/annotations of where we disagree with the marking. We’ve also had this back as ‘correct’ a couple of times, and had to raise the the most senior level (at a cost of £400 ish) before the child finally got awarded the correct mark.