Y11 2025-26 Results Day and Next Steps

That sounds remarkably like DD's sixth form welcome evening (although ours was Wednesday and it's a girl's school). But they said the same things.

Quick question- have got DD's Engineering paper back, she is one mark away from the next grade. I asked her teacher if it was worth a review/remark, including the two questions which could possibly yield the extra mark. He said it was worth doing it. But DH says NO. He says it doesn't matter, she doesn't want to pursue it.

Did he think all universities were formal rather than hoodies and casual?!

Mine decided to drop Maths yesterday leaving her with German, English and History. It was a toss up between History and Maths but she said she's finding the Maths lessons quite boring and enjoys writing essays so hopefully the right decision.

We had a welcome evening at their new 6th form today where they told us they expect them to do 20 hours independent study a week going up to 30 before exams. They also said they'll be identifying the "early UCAS applicants" for Oxbridge, Medicine, Dentistry and Vet by October half term. It all feels very quick. DD doesn't really have a clear idea of what she wants to do at uni but possibly interested in Oxbridge.

DS has gone to Oxford with friends today too. Hopefully they all come back excited and he won't be so focused on the lack of formal attire.

DD is of with friends to look at Oxford all a bit last minute on her part so hoping she gets something useful out of it.

We've had a swap here. Apparently econ was too boring to bear so it's been swapped for chemistry, leaving us with biology, chemistry, geography and EPQ.

First chemistry lessons will be today so I hope he doesn't drown. I've told him to beg a text book so we can do a bit of a catch up at the weekend.

She can’t and won’t do four alevels. She’ll be doing three and an epq. Just have a week left to decide what to drop!

Yikes! I genuinely think this may have to happen!

I had a similar situation with my ds a couple of years ago @makemineadecaf - we ended up tossing a coin!

Does she have to drop one or can she keep both?

Sorry to hear that @TheGodWorm. Hope he’s not disappointed it didn’t go up.

Dd is going round in circles trying to decide out of two subjects which to drop. We’ve literally written pros and cons on big paper. We’ve researched uni admissions to see if that would shed any light. But nope - genuine loggerheads! She’s enjoying both equally.

@applecrumblespider I think the deadline for reviews is next week. Dd's old school have said 23rd Sep is the last day to request a review but not sure if the official deadline is a couple of days later. Just so you don't miss it if you decide to go ahead.

We still haven't had teacher comments on whether to send bio and chem papers for review, have poked DD to chase again today. Will report back when we finally know though.

@ShesRunningOutTheDoorHis English Language result was a 5 and it was lower than had been predicted. But it's enough for his probable engineering future and it's enough for his stem A levels.

DD seems to be enjoying 6th form (or, at least, the social side of it). She’s supposedly dropping Chemistry and replacing it with Sociology as she ‘doesn’t want to be a Science girl’ after all. But she’s still going to Chemistry lessons and showing no urgency about getting the subject swap sorted so who actually knows

Thanks @TheGodWorm. I didn’t send my son’s off in the end. I imagine you are right that social media always going to give a biased opinion.
sorry your child’s were unchanged - have the grades affected their next steps?

Just to add to the remarking stuff. Both of my son's requested remarks came back unchanged. For some reason I wasn't going to bother posting that, but it feels important to do so given the amount of posts in the other direction. I felt a bit down about it, so didn't post. Perhaps there's a bias in the posts in that people don't come on here to post similar news.

I’ve been really surprised by the sheer amount of successful remarks here this year ( sure it was not so extreme on last years thread ) . I remarked 2 English papers last year and neither moved the 1/2 marks needed although the teacher had said it was undermarked ( she was fair and said only one paper was off ) . Not remarked anything this year as none of DS2s marks seemed that far off .

The huge marking discrepancies and errors have been mostly on the English papers this year from what I can see on this thread

Would we really want AI marking English, humanities etc. it’s not reliable on so many matters.

DS enjoying sixth form although so far at least most of the work is what he does for fun. I guess that means he’s chosen the right subjects!

The level of human error in marking is so high that I almost feel we should get AI to mark exams and then get humans to review any AI errors rather than just let humans mark the papers.

I think it totally depends on the DC and what they are aiming for. GCSE grades can absolutely count - even post A levels. And if there. have been mistakes or marks missed then of course a review of marking is appropriate.

Sadly the playing field will never ever be level, no matter what the exam boards do. My eldest has SEN, really struggled with A levels, we paid to support college work with tutors. This really helped, and he ended up with decent grades. Another student with SEN really struggling with A levels might have parents who can't afford to supplement with tutoring, and therefore not manage decent grades. That feels unfair. But I don't see how you avoid parents doing their best to support their DC in whatever way they can.

At the upper end of the grading, though, I am not sure whether even Oxbridge or the super competitive courses like medicine, vetmed, dentistry etc do really distinguish between grades 8 and 9. As a friend once pointed out to me, in Wales they have no 9 equivalent (still have the A star, A, B grading there) so technically a university has to consider 8/9 as comparable - otherwise they'd be discriminating against a Welsh student for whom it is literally impossible to get the equivalent of a 9.

How are the various DC getting on at sixth form? DS has a maths test this week. Seems to be enjoying all subjects, although I'd say he is very much doing maths because it will support his physics and chemistry, rather than for pure enjoyment of the maths. Science is definitely his 'thing' and he's currently thinking of natural science for uni. Early days though!

I agree if there was a mistake or missed marks, and the system stinks that mistakes happen. My point was sometimes that isn’t “deserved”. Personally I think it better when exam boards spent more time getting things right the first time. Checking those at boundary, comparing with predictions etc, obvious mismatches on papers. I absolutely support those asking for review in the system we have, but still hold with the view for some (ourselves included) a review would be vanity. I know how hard my DS worked, but sometimes despite potentially being capable of a higher grade he did not necessarily deserve it for what he wrote on the paper in the day.

But the reason my child’s grades have upgraded is because there is mistakes / missed marks!