Y11 2025-26 Results Day and Next Steps

Does anyone know if AQA English Lit is taking the full 20 days to come back? Trying to work out if we will receive P2 back before deciding whether to submit P1. Thanks

Ours was back within a week. Actually that included the bank holiday so even less. Just paper 1.

Thank you!

My DD bought a large Ralph Lauren handbag at TKMaxx to use as a school bag (my own bag is from Temu 🥶). I'm sure it's not practical at all and she will need a proper backpack

DD alternates between her fake Goyard, her real longchamp and her Eastpak rucksack, same as when she was in year 11. She did put forward an argument that she could do with a new sixth form bag but thus far, I have ignored her.

10 calendar days. I was actively chasing the school

Has anyone else not bothered with remarks if it didn’t effect next steps? I’ve checked my DD’s Lit Paper 1 (I’m an examiner and an english teacher) and it was definitely under marked. But she’s said she’s not bothered and is happy with a 7 - which as I’ve said all along, is a great achievement. She’s into college and not doing Lit anyway, so I feel like it’d just be throwing money after what is essentially a vanity remark. But then I see so many other parents chasing remarks, and I wonder if I’m doing her a disservice?

DC has a Longchamps but with the laptop and her English Literature books, it’s bloody heavy! I did suggest taking her backpack instead as the weight is more equally distributed across her back but she has refused so far. What with a 20 minute walk to and from the train station to school, I’m hoping she’ll soon change her mind.

It’s all personal choice. We’ve had three sent off all were upgraded and one we’re still awaiting the result. Different reasons behind doing so for each: one was her only grade 5 and Dd was bereft at the idea of having any 5s (that went to a 6), the other two were “vanity marks”. I hate that phrase. But yes they resulted in two more 9s (one of which is an alevel subject). We’re hoping this remaining remark will go to an 8 (one mark off).

Ultimately these grades go on their ucas form so I can’t fathom “vanity marks” - they are a stepping stone to our kids futures, regardless of whether they’re continuing at alevel. So dd now has a couple of 6s and the rest 8/9 which we see as a big benefit to her future as a result of 3-4 remarks.

The actual problem is twofold: 1) cost - not everyone can afford it and if grades are downgraded, it’s obviously a costly risk. 2) level of school support with reviewing papers and giving timely advice.

We didn’t bother with the only one we thought about. It would have been vanity to get DS the extra 9 m, which I think it might have done. But he has 7 9s already. He wasn’t bothered and we wanted him to know how proud we were regardless. We can’t see it will affect anything as academic DH knows he treats 8s and 9s as the same grade when he admits to his University

I thought Unis weren’t interested in gcse results only A levels, T levels and Btechs results?

All unis will require a certain grade in english lang and maths. This may well be a 4, but for some unis it may be a 6. It may be higher for specific courses (eg 7 in maths for economics if not taking maths A level).

Then certain unis (Oxford, somewhere like LSE for econ IIRC) will look for a certain number of GCSE grades of 7+. Also for subjects like medicine and vet med GCSE grades need to be x number above y grade (so often eight grades above a 7). Some unis look at overall GCSE profile for all courses – Uni of Bath is one.

So yes they are relevant. But for most YP tbh if they tick the Eng/maths box then not really a factor for unis. Certs not as important as A level results or even PGs.

I guess the reason some say ‘vanity’ remarks is for situations where a kid has got a 7+ and can get into college etc - but it’s sent for a remark simply because it is close to the next grade up (I’m not talking about cases of clearly unfair marking btw). To me that’s unfair, when many kids (majority of the kids I teach) can’t afford to do that. Several of my high ability students were 1 mark off a 9. They can’t afford to get a remark and neither can the school - and they feel less than. Which is unfortunate when an 8 is superb and a 9 will make no material difference to anything. Unless as some say, if unis really do care if you get 8/9s, in which case I think it’s even more unfair that some can afford to pay in the hopes that the mark will be tweaked upwards slightly and get a higher grade. The playing field is never level.

The term “vanity” is awful. These children worked so hard for their grades. They deserve that 9 if they were 2 marks off, or that 6 that they were 1 mark off. Yes the system is wrong and it’s no level playing field but the language being used here is inflammatory.

If they were one mark off they were one mark off though. So no they don’t “deserve” the next grade if that is where the boundary is. They do if there was a mistake, a missed mark etc. but the boundary has to be somewhere for each grade. I do hate that it depends on your ability to pay but that’s a different point.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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 .

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.

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?

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