GCSE English Lit and Language review of marking

Thank you - that's interesting, we're also AQA and Spanish teacher feels the speaking was overall harshly marked versus previous years. We're pondering a remark here too....

AQA - teacher got speaking reviewed. DC needed one mark - not sure how much it went to but crossed the grade boundary

May I ask which exam board your Spanish was?

I know others who are still waiting, it's been nearly 2 weeks so far I think.

AQA paper 1 English Lit sent off for review today. I was hoping someone from the English dept would have a look and get back to us but they never did so we have just put it in anyway. DD came home saying she thought the paper had gone well but scored worse than paper 2 so there is a bit of a disconnect there and she is only one mark below the grade above. Fingers crossed.

We've had paper 2 back from Edexcel for Lit - with no change (the one I was least interested in submitting).

Waiting for paper 1s for Lit and Lang still.

Anyone still waiting for AQA English Language? Still have 3 to come.

My DC was not overly excited about his Spanish upgrade ‘oh wow, ok - what’s for dinner again?’. Which confirmed for me he has moved on and internalized what we told him about these grades not being everything 🤣🤣

No because it doesn't work like that. Grade boundaries are set after the bulk of the exams are marked. We just apply the mark schemes.

Sorry I should have specified it was AQA for Eng Lang @NorthenAdventure

So would you expect to see some L4s to get a 9? @MrsHamlet

Depends on the exam board. The exam board we use goes up to Level 5 of the mark scheme in some questions.

AQA lang mark schemes got to level 4

DD mentioned she was pleased to see L6s in her Eng Lit papers which were 9 overall. I noticed her Eng Lang papers had L3s as a maximum number. Just out of interest, are higher than L3s possible in Lang? She got an 8 in Eng Lang overall.

Has anyone put in a review of marking for OCR English Language & Literature? What was the outcome? My son is 1 mark off a 5 in lang and 4 off a 5 in lit. We’re still waiting for school to look at the papers but not sure at this point whether to just put all 4 papers in for review as we’re are not far off the deadline.

Has anyone's STEM grade has gone down, or had 9+ marks deducted?

@mojobrojo I hope you don't mind but I've sent you a DM as I like your approach to the stats!

Thank you for invaluable insight into this very flawed system. I found this thread very helpful and if it helps anyone this is DD's experience:
DD had 3 subjects 1-2 marks off next grade and also lower than mocks and predicted grades. These had no impact on her 6th form but could impact uni choices later down the line. We looked at all the statistics and we felt strongly that if the grade was wrong it should be corrected (DD was adamant they were wrong). We got the scripts in the first few days and submitted English Lit and Lang straight away, waited a few more days for geography teacher to advise on which papers to review. All AQA, and reviews took 7-9 days each.
English Lit - submitted one paper at the time; paper 1 returned with no change, +4 marks in paper 2 and grade changed.
English Language - only submitted paper 2, +3 marks and grade changed.
Geography - submitted papers 2&3 on teacher's advice, +6 marks and grade changed.
Combined Science - submitted biology, returned with 1 mark deducted, no grade change, we left it at that (grade was below predicted and mocks but a few marks off the boundary).

One of the scripts also had a marker's note about DD's handwriting being difficult to read, which made me worried this impacted her results but also about future exams. I didn't know the laptop was an option without medical diagnosis but thanks to this thread we are now looking at having one for Alevels.

So overall this ended positively for my DD despite tears on results day, but I have very little trust in the system now and I feel really crossed for everyone affected.
Good luck to everyone still waiting for their reviews!

Fantastic news! So pleased for you both - and agree, hard to have faith in the system.

different exam board but two of my students have gone up two grades in Eng Lsmg. In both cases while questions were unmarked

Some of you may remember that I posted a week or two ago about one of my son's English Lit papers (paper 1) having been scanned in in reverse order (he uses a laptop), and I (and his school) felt this had put him at a significant disadvantage in a subject where cohesive answers are hugely important. He was originally one mark off a 7 (all other grades were 8s and 9s so this 6 really stood out).

I just wanted to update as we have now had the review back. His mark on that paper increased by 8 marks (a 21% increase!) and he is now a very comfortable grade 7. We are absolutely delighted!

This whole experience has left me with so little faith in the marking system in English exams and I have to say that I am very relieved that he's doing STEM subjects at A Level!

Thank you.

I sat with a student at 10am today whilst he requested his and they were in my inbox within half an hour.

The centre can get them very quickly even now. The deadline for review requests is tge 25th sept

Thanks for your helpful input throughout this thread @MrsHamlet
We've been waiting for teacher input before we decide on a marking review -however, I've just been onto the AQA site to look at their deadlines and I'm concerned to see it states that marked scripts needed to be requested by schools by 4th Sept. My DC was only asked to give permission to access their scripts this week - does that mean we've missed the boat...?

Yes - the deadlines for all post results services are on the relevant exam board website. Next summer will be far too late.

You need clear grounds to appeal which need to be related to the process not having been followed correctly.

A teacher thinking it's been a bit harshly marked is unlikely to meet the threshold.

Finally. One back. Spanish AQA moved from 6-7. He was one mark off. Absolutely delighted as he was on an 8 in mocks and is doing A level. So happy!!

I believe the re-mark deadline is 24 Sept.

DC’s re-mark result came with these details re: appeals. Looks like you have to do it within 30 days after the re-mark. https://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/after-results/post-results/appeals