Y11 2025-26 Results Day and Next Steps

You cannot appeal on that basis, but can ask the school to apply for retrospective special consideration,

Thank you. I just feel so sad that my teen just missed out and now they will need to resit as well as do their coursework (and also has the worry of me having cancer). Annoyingly I can't find any paper proof that I had a hospital appointment due to them phoning me urgently.

@propertymug No, we haven’t requested any other papers be reviewed for French. He scored 46/50 in Listening, 47/50 in Reading, 48/50 in Writing and 35/50 in Speaking. It didn’t seem likely he would pick up the missing mark in the other papers so we’ve just sent the Speaking component back for review. This is AQA. We are fortunate that our school was keen to have all this processed straight away. I do feel for students who have to wait until the start of term.

@clary The Speaking support was from a native speaker who had access to the requirements for the AQA board and experience in preparing for GCSE. I am also a French speaker (not a teacher but I did MFL at university many moons ago) so was able to practice with him and felt he was strong and well-prepared going into the test. 🤷‍♀️ I didn’t know about a reading aloud component and we hadn’t practiced that, just the picture card discussion and all the topics they could be asked about.

So sorry to read this @TheFunSponge- hope you and your teen get positive news

Thank you so much for your reply @clary- I just wrote a long post but lost it 😩. Can I ask in your experience are the following results for French normal - 42/29/40/50 for listening/speaking/reading/writing respectively? DDs teacher was in the room for the speaking exam so will reach out to her when term starts to see if she recalls anything going catastrophically wrong on the day - maybe DD misunderstood one of the requirements or something? DD thought it had gone well and had scored 48/50 for speaking in her mock so this result was very much a disappointing surprise! Thanks so much for your insight on these threads - it really is appreciated to hear from teachers 🙏🏻

@propertymug @ShowDownTime that's frustrating that the speaking mark pulled down the overall grade. Tho look at it another way – after the speaking was not successful, your DC were able to use their ability in the other skills to pull up what must have been a 5/6 or lower to a 7 and an 8. So that's a big well done to them.

Did they think the speaking went well? What does their teacher say (presuming it was carried out by their class teacher)? The MFL exams were changed this year to make them more accessible, but maybe that had more effect in the written papers? tho the read aloud was a nice way in IMHO and definitely a way to pick up some good marks.

I would say btw that AI (ahem! not always right) is wrong to suggest that speaking and writing test the same skills. Yes they are active skills rather than receptive, but very different. I have had candidates whose final written exam would have been heavily edited to achieve a good result – impossible in the speaking. I examine the speaking assessment as a freelance (in exam centres and sometimes in schools) and a candidate can collapse in the speaking, sadly. Doesn't happen that often. But looking at my notes for this year, I had a mixed bag but would not expect the weaker ones to do very much better in the written papers so these grades are a bit of an anomaly and worth looking at. I suppose you can have the speaking paper reviewed?

Btw @ShowDownTime was the speaking support from a GCSE examiner or teacher, or a native speaker? The former would be better as they would know what was needed. Tho tbh if he was looking at a grade 9 he would hardly need the level of "make sure you develop xx number of answers here".

It’s great that some schools are reviewing scripts already. It’s also hard to wait, I know (I am too, for my dd). But please remember teachers are on holiday right now. They (we) might be away from home, or looking after their own kids etc, and teachers don’t actually get paid for the holidays. If they review scripts next week when back at school, they won’t miss any deadline. I’ve got up early before my kids wake up today to review some scripts, as it happens, as I know I won’t be able to give it proper attention later and I feel guilty about students having to wait. But that’s not really what I want to be doing with my holiday, and I don’t think it should be expected of me tbh. Just standing up for teachers!

Our school have been brilliant. They had a list of children to find and speak to immediately at results day regarding reviews of marking so dd had meetings with two teachers. She also met with the head of sixth form about a change of alevel option. All of this was pre 9.30am. Her teachers both then emailed us the same afternoon with advice on which papers to send off having checked them for us. The exams officer then sent one the next day (Friday) and one on Monday.

Schools should have to follow the same protocol for this in the same way that exams have to be conducted in the same way. I think it’s appalling some schools don’t support you.

Thanks for your reply Littletreefrog. No we didn't apply at the time as it all happened so suddenly, being recalled and being told. I doubt we would have had time. The hospital phoned me and told me to come in but I can't remember how many days' notice I got. Maybe 2 days.

It’s so interesting reading all of the Eng Lang comments. DD heard back from the teachers on the two other subjects she was considering getting remarked by the end of last Friday. Nothing from English and we’re not sure whether to keep waiting or just request the remark. It’s really tricky as it’s a state school and the teacher only came back from mat leave at Christmas and has two older kids, one of whom is at primary school, so it’s completely understandable that she’s not looking at scripts but it’s slightly frustrating that we don’t know if she will or not and, if she will, when that might be.
I have to say that, before last week, I didn’t realise that any teachers would look at scripts so what we have had is a bonus. Quite a few of the schools near us don’t offer any post-exam support.

I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis (sorry I don't know how to do the MN flowers).

In terms of special consideration was this applied for at the time? As I understand it it can only be applied after results day if there was an exceptional reason that meant it couldn't have been applied for sooner.

My teen missed a grade by one mark and the school kindly paid for a review which came back yesterday with no change to grade. Would I be unreasonable to appeal based on the fact that on the day of the second exam I had been recalled to hospital urgently following tests and was then told it was likely cancer?. My appointment was at the same time as the exam start time.

Same here - school said we should receive our papers by Sept 9th. But apparently teachers will not look at the papers with us so up to us to try and spot any marking errors. The different approach amongst schools and levels of support feels very unfair :(

Can I ask how quickly your schools got the scripts to you/teachers looked over them. I am worried we are not leaving enough time to put in reviews. Aqa papers here if that makes a difference. Feels like we are pulling teeth.

We have exactly the same! Four papers only 1 mark off a 9 and one paper 2 marks off an 8. The last paper (the grade 7) is also in French - scored well on the papers including getting full marks in writing but flunked the speaking which dragged it down to a 7. DD thought this was one of her guaranteed 9s - had never got less in a mock/previous test and didn’t think it had gone badly on the day). According to AI, such a large difference between speaking and writing doesn’t make sense as they’re mostly testing the same concepts.

Did you review your papers before sending off? And have you sent off all the papers in a subject or just the ones with lowest marks? Annoyingly DDs school are being very slow to action - not promising any papers back until Sept 9th for us to look at before submitting for a review so we’re in limbo until then. This then doesn’t give us time to submit one paper at a time if we do go for a review, as advised on here. Would love to hear how your DS gets on with the review of marking - have everything crossed for him 🤞🏻

Anxiously waiting here too. One went on Friday and one on Monday. Should be back by 10th September latest but hopefully before.

Waiting nervously for reviews to come back here. We asked for English lang, History and French to be reviewed as, can you believe it, DS was ONE mark off a 9 in all 3 exams. In English and History he aced one paper and got something like a 5 or 6 in the other, which he can’t understand. I suspect he hasn’t answered the question properly. In French his speaking paper was very low and that dragged his grade down. I wouldn’t mind but I paid someone hundreds of pounds to practice French speaking with him in the weeks leading up to it! 🤦‍♀️ So we shall see if anything changes. School were very supportive thankfully and encouraged the reviews for all three.

Are people getting updated results back quickly?

Sounds like we’ve been lucky with DD’s English - she got 6 for both which is what she expected - she’d hoped she might get a 7 but I think it was always unlikely and she sat one of the literature exams while really ill. We put in for a concession but don’t know how much difference it made.

The downgrading of the art marks is awful - DD’s came back the same as what we were told when given the provisional mark, We knew it was on the borderline between 7 and 8 and luckily she got an 8 by one mark. If she’d been downgraded 2 grades she’d have been devastated since it was her highest grade and the thing she’s going on to study. Until she was given the provisional mark though, she had been led to believe by her teacher that she had a chance of a 9 which clearly wasn’t the case. I do think art is an odd subject marks-wise, I really couldn’t get anything concrete out of the teacher at parents evening when I said as far as DD was concerned it was her most important subject and asked what she could do to get into the higher grades. And DD got very inconsistent feedback - when she was starting a piece she was told it was good, then when it was finished (hours of work) she’d get told the idea was wrong and she should have done something different!

I’m an English teacher and unfortunately it’s not uncommon. It seems that hard work does not always pay off in English unfortunately. I currently teach IGCSE which is much easier to get high grades on than AQA, which I have previously taught in the state sector. Mr Salles (the YouTuber) is really interesting on this- when this was investigated by Ofqual, roughly 50% of scripts for AQA English were found to be graded incorrectly. It’s frankly a disgrace. I would advise a review if at all in doubt. My own very capable DD (who also loves English) will be in this position next year, so I feel for you all.

Did she run out of time/steam on the final questions I wonder? It is worth getting English teacher to have a look, but if she’s 1 mark over the boundary of a 6, there is a risk she could go down on a re-mark. Same for my dd with a 7 - she’s one mark above boundary. We’ll only contact the exam board if there’s been an actual mistake with the marking eg numbers entered incorrectly/a page missed out.

I will say that a) I know from experience that the marking process is less subjective than it may seem - it is closely monitored and quality assured (though anomalies and mistakes do happen of course - but it seems unlikely that all of our kids were victims of these!) and b) Only 2 of my top set class got 9s in Lit and they are total crème de la crème, blow-your-mind amazing English brains. The others who got 9s in mocks got 7s and 8s in real thing. It makes me think that the papers were tough for some texts, and/or that the standard at the top end was perhaps extremely high, meaning many high ability students have been left with lower grades and feeling disappointed. Who knows?

We also had a strange result in English. DD was consistently getting 8/9 in all mocks since year 10 but got a 6. Just on the boundary as well so 1 mark less would have been a 5. She has her papers back, and she has scored really low for the last question on each paper, but isn't sure why.

I am going to email her English teacher to see if he will look at it, but not sure if he will as school has never mentioned anything about reviewing papers for them

As with many here, DS also got 2 grades lower than expected in both English Language and Literature AQA GCSEs. He's got the scripts back, is adamant they are both up to his normal standards and is perplexed. He has forwarded them to his English teacher (who did ask to see them!) so we'll see what he says.

It seems terribly unfair that English is so subjective that you can have such a discrepancy in marking based on the markers opinion. It makes the GCSE pointless in my opinion as how can it reflect the actual ability of the student?

I am feeling quite bitter about it! Not least because of how much it has upset DS.

The vocational colleges accept a 4
but the colleges offering A levels needs 5 in Lang - all of them with one exception. We are in a city so there are lots of colleges. Some need 6 or 7

School has confirmed DD can fit her new A level choices in the timetable but need to email to request to be accepted for chemistry with a 6. I've provided her with lots of material to use and now we wait.

@ifonlytheydlisten sorry to hear about her having to do a resit.

@makemineadecaf for dd school they need a min of 5 for english and maths just to stay on.

DD has started bridging work now she is signed up to 6th form.