GCSE English Lit and Language review of marking

If you dig around online you can get the stats on how many marks are changed for each subject and exam board. Most don’t move but quite a few do. So many get a remark in English language (hoping to avoid having to retake) that there is quite good data on it. Anecdotally, my DS went from 6 to 7. One of his friends went from 6 to 8. Good luck!

I agree completely. Ultimately if something is not allowed in the GCSE available to all, it should not be allowed in the GCSE available to the privileged.

I agree that a 9, even with coursework shows a lot of talent. But, I know plenty of people who got 5/6s with coursework, who would never pass without. Seems very unfair to state school pupils.

My son goes to a very selective boys school and so many of his buddies got all 9's except for English language (& to lesser extent Lit) where they seem to have got 7's & 6's.
Very bizarre, but probably because they just play on their phones and the last time they read a book it was "The Hungry Caterpillar". Anyway school not pleased with them, but they should have seen it coming.

In their defence- a lot don't choose the IGCSE with coursework, it's a certain module you need to choose as a department. I have no issue with schools using what's available to them, it should just be open to everyone. I also don't want to piss on anyone's results if they did use coursework, I don't think you can manage a 9 in English off the back of some fraudulent coursework, you still have 60% of your grade to prove in the exam. I think partial coursework is a far better representation of someone's ability than purely exams but unfortunately many schools do cheat. I'm just pissed off at the unfairness of it. For what it's worth i pulled my DD out of a private school that did the coursework IGCSE as the teaching was so bad, so I don't think it would've helped her. Her state school teachers have been the Stephen hawkin of English in comparison, so if those kids are getting a slight leg up to compensate the abysmal teaching, good for them I guess.

IMO (as someone who has also exam marked this year although not English and not GCSE)- the problem is the training is poor and turnarounds are so tight that it is inevitable people rush the marking. For my exam board in my subject, 1 in 20 essay questions are standardised, which is an awful lot that someone could band wrongly before being picked up. If you have 5 new examiners who have just scraped through pre-standardisation and are unsure about their marking but feel under pressure WRT quotas, that's 100 students potentially impacted.

There's also the issue that a lot of people drop out of marking part way through so you have examiners rushing at the end to get through (generally) the most complex questions so results aren't delayed. Last year, we were still marking essays up to the end of July- this year was managed better for my paper but still overran.

The problem is for training and speeds required to improve, the cost of exams would probably have to increase significantly- this cost is passed on to schools and colleges who are already strapped for cash, and in English (where students have to resit up to 18) there is probably a lot of pressure to keep costs low. I also think that given the exam season spread out post covid, the turnaround times for the last papers are perhaps just a bit too tight anyway- there does perhaps need to be some consideration given here when dates are set etc.

Anyway, I agree it's really poor but unfortunately some major changes would be needed to improve things. I work in FE, and I agree, there are students where their GCSEs don't really reflect their ability, and also where students miss out because they didn't get the 5/6 needed, but probably would have scraped it on another day. Potentially the whole system needs looking at rather than sole reliance on high stakes exams!

DD1 did GCSEs last year. Her private school did Edexcel English and the results were pretty awful across the board. They switched to iGCSE this year and are gloating on their website about how good their English results are this year!! Not surprising when it includes coursework which pupils got loads of help on.

From?

Ds put in for a review of English lit last year and it went up to a 9.

I agree.

If that's the case than IGCSE English shouldn't have the coursework option, that's very unfair.

They got rid of coursework because of wholesale cheating! I was a coursework moderator for years and it was blatant in some centres.

Haha yes! I think it's a common thing for dyslexics, their processing speed is often just not there for timed exam conditions, even with access arrangements it's hard. Equally though I think coursework is really hard for some kids- it was for me, and including it in core subjects again would test everyone on a more level playing field. I don't know why they got rid of it, I feel coursework is the best representation of workplace and uni work anyway!

Because ofqual decided that remarks with grade protection unfairly benefitted schools and candidates with the money to essentially pay for the best grades. There was nothing to lose but money.

Review levelled the playing field because you could no longer pay for a couple of extra marks. And removing grade protection - I assume - meant that centres would be less gung ho about putting everyone in and hoping some went up.

That's crazy, what a waste of PP funds.

At least 5 years ago I think

Are our children twins? 😂

Exactly the same, and having seen just how different the grades are between the fully examined and partially examined, it does feel very unfair if a significant proportion of students are taking core subject exams with 40% coursework that others are forbidden to take. It means no level playing field.

Why did they scrap grade protection if they had it in the past?

Is there any kind of review of mark reviews published that shows which boards and subjects have the biggest issues?

I do feel that a lot of us have a lack of trust in grades these days in a way that wasn't the case in the past.

Would also be interesting to see if there was a difference in grades between papers submitted 'because it's within 2 marks of next boundary', and papers submitted after a teacher has had a good look and thought hmmm.

If some schools are just submitting anything within x marks, that could explain why only 22% change upwards.

Same here. DD has got a distinction, grade 9 and grade 6 in the subjects she took with coursework elements. Low grade 4s or grade 3 in fully examined ones. I just don't feel it should be viewed as the same qualification, it's not like for like at all.

Absolutely agree with this.

DD had several subjects with NEAs this year. Out of 6 modules, she scored 100% on 5 and 99% on the 6th... the 99% was for an essay.

Had coursework modules been available for English Lit/Lang, where she could have used spell check and had time to edit for SPaG, I suspect she would have got a very similar score and her overall grades very different from what she has.

When did that change? From remark to review? It explains why so many schools still have this policy. One of DDs friends schools pay for any review if the student is FSM and are 1-2 marks off.

The boundary thing used to be a good benchmark in the days of remarks and grade protection.

But the papers I've asked for are where I have looked at the question level marks and I want to check they're as they should be.

Last year my centre -stupidly- paid for more than 50 borderline papers to be reviewed without anyone looking at them. Not one moved.

I would have looked at them all first.

Ah ok yh that's what I've been told. DD is actually 13 marks off a pass in language and I wasn't going to send those papers off originally but after everything I read I realised for English it just doesn't matter how close to the boundary she is. If she goes up a level in both papers it may well be 13 marks in total so worth a try. If the worst thing that happens is she ends up with 2s, were no worse off than we are now!

No idea re STEM. Sounds likely as they have right/wrong answers.

@LividReviewer from what I've read, the 1 or 2 marks away seems to apply for STEM subjects though, would you agree with that?