Y11 2025-26 Results Day and Next Steps

For context her school had also suggested she considered Eng Lang A level..

@makemineadecaf it’s Lang. Her lowest mark of all. Got 5 in lit. It’s totally out of the blue and almost all colleges here need 5+ to do A levels

Yeah, DD’s school is saying the same. They will look if they have time but they are prioritising the English / Maths papers where the kids need the grades for next steps.

i get it but it’s also a bit frustrating as although she doesn’t ‘need’ 7s for next steps, it would look better on her UCAS if they could find those extra couple of marks.

Has anyone’s school told them they are busy with Alevels and those who need the GCSEs grades for next steps? School are engaging and say will get teachers to look at inset at scripts but made a big point of saying have more pending priorities - we are a little worried as everyone else on here in similar situations to us seems to have schools that have not made them feel guilty for asking! For context school messed up on one exam can’t say which one as outing as didn’t give extra time so already had SC in place but SC in all honesty wouldn’t have helped with the context of the type of exam. Some schools seem to order in scripts for maths and English as part of the course, surprised by difference in school approaches. We’re not expecting special treatment but it matters to our daughter. Anyway DC full well knows scripts or reviews may not change her marks but wants closure if that makes sense as so off her mocks in some.

Is this language or literature?

@makemineadecaf she’s gone all through school as high performer. Didn’t get stellar grades as didn’t work anywhere near hard enough. But always always predicted 6+ in English and never dropped in any mocks. A English grade 4 closes a lot of doors. 6th forms and unis
Yes we’ll get reviewed / remarked too.
I’ll pay for resit if school or new college won’t

My DD will be doing OCR English Lit - gothic theme iirc

Wow that’s a brave decision. Will she be able to do the resit at her current school? Is it worth a remark first?

@ifonlytheydlisten So sorry to hear that! Hopefully the resit goes much better for her! DD also took AQA......

They obviously don't need to be preparing for EPQ now- as PP said, most kids won't even be signed up yet. DS is staying at his school, so it's a bit different.

DS did HPQ so he's got the gist of how it goes and the school sent quite a lot of instructions for the preliminary work. We hope to have it done by Easter as DS is doing 2 boards that have AS exams so we don't want EPQ in the way of revising for those. He's looking at a topic that will run into a lot of genetics, so I just hope he's not biting off more than he can chew.

Sorry to read the problems with art @Stowickthevast that sounds really stressful. I’ve heard so many negative stories (both on here and IRL) about nightmares with art GCSE - the fact it’s a total time thief and seems quite unpredictable in terms of assessment. DS is at a v academic/selective SW London indie and their results are high (around a third of year groups generally get 9 or more grade 9s, over 95% of all grades at 9-7 etc etc) - but when you dig a little deeper the art grades are far more of a mixed bag….i guess it’s just far more subjective maybe. I’m already working on DS3 to convince him that art GCSE will not be a good idea!

Yes a definite theme emerging too re English @Kindflowe26 (either language or literature). DS and friends all dropped at least one English grade from what they’d been predicted. Different exam boards but similar outcomes!

i hope everyone submitting for mark reviews gets a piositive outcome… I’m keeping fingers crossed for all.

Meanwhile there is not a whiff of any bridging work being done here and far too much gaming, quelle surprise. No bridging work set tbf, but I’ve sent him the maths link posted on noblegiraffe’s thread and he has made all the right noises but done nothing. I think it would really benefit him to at least do a little bit but we’ll see.

AQA. Dropped 2-3 grades from no where.
massively impacted future options so DD is going to resit even though strictly she doesn’t need to

Morning all,
I’m quite surprised that so many our YPs weren’t happy with their Eng Lang results!! DD was also disappointed with her Eng Lang result as she'd been doing well throughout... but as she’s planning to do STEM, we didn’t really look into it too much, as we thought her grade would be sufficient for her future subjects. I’m not sure if there’s something wrong with the exam board…...?!

@MoggetsCollar DD is also planning to do an EPQ, but she hasn’t got any idea yet about what topic to choose. Do they need to start preparing for it now??

Wow, that is near us! That's terrible and they should definitely address this. Even in our (very crappy) indie Art wasn't downgraded.

@XelaM I think it probably is not too far from you.. Super-selective North London grammar which makes it even more surprising as 85% of its grades are 7 or above!

Luckily DD had already decided not to do art A level but it was in the mix 6 months ago.

Wow that's shocking about the Art marks. I don't know of any school near us where Art marks were downgraded.

Nope! They haven’t even officially signed up to it yet!

That’s really annoying re Art! The school needs to provide some training as a matter of urgency there.

@Drivingselfmad @UncomfortableSilence sounds similar to my DD. her results are amazing but we've no idea how she got a 6 in Lan as was always top of her class, winning English prizes etc. I'm not a teacher so had no idea what I was looking for in the scripts so have just sent the lowest paper back and hope they can find the 1 mark she needs to lift it to a 7. She's doing Lit A level and only dropped 4 marks over the whole of that so this feels like an anomaly.

I'm also a bit annoyed with the school about Art. The whole class was downgraded by at least 2 grades from the teacher assessed grades so no-one in DD's class got higher than a 6 and no-one in the year got higher than a 7. Just bad teaching as they all thought they were getting 8s and 9s. It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things but just a little frustrating.

@makemineadecaf mines doing English Lit & History but the boards AQA.

Not sure if DD will do an EPQ as she still needs to decide what school to go to! But it seems quite a lot to get started already @MoggetsCollar . Then again she really needs to do the transition work!

Has anybody's DC already started their EPQ? DS has been told to turn up with quite a bit of preliminary work already done and ready to do a presentation on it.

Yeah you’re right. Also, as I said to her on results day, a 7 is amazing. I don’t want to get too involved as I don’t want to somehow give the impression I’m disappointed with a 7 from her - I’m not!

Honestly I think this is a good time to be 'mum mum' and not 'teacher mum' as hard as that must be for you.

Yes I teach and have marked the same board! Dd adamant she doesn’t want me to look at it - she’s often very clear she wants ‘mum mum’ and not ‘teacher mum’ 🤷🏻‍♀️ Ah well, will leave it to her teachers. Good luck to you too!

Sorry she feels that way when she’s clearly a very able English student. How far into the boundary was she? We’ve gone for a remark as Dd is hugely frustrated that it’s always been a subject she excelled in and she’s missed out on a 9 by one point. It’s immensely subjective. I wish they had a more objective mark scheme but I suppose it’s impossible.

Is anyone’s dc doing English literature and/or History alevel? Specifically with OCR?