To be really concerned about the marking of the new style GCSE English this year?

[CheeseAndQuackers]

There seem to be lots of instances where teens have got unexpected results - many getting two or more grades higher than expected, and others getting two or more grades lower, in both English Lit and Lang.

Many who have got lower than expected are putting their exams in for remarks, and some are coming back with grades being moved from 5s to 7s, or 6s to 8s. This seems to be especially prevalent with AQA.

So AIBU in thinking this is shocking?! How unfair that only those who are clued-up and have enough money to risk putting in for a remark are getting the correct grade for all their hard work?

AIBU for wondering why the press haven't picked up on this? Or does this sort of variation happen every year and it just feels worse because my DS is one who has been affected this year?

[SandyDenny]

All papers are double marked through a computer system so I can never understand how it could be out by a lot

How can that be true if they can't get enough people to mark them even once?

What do you mean marked through a computer system? I thought for English people actually read all the papers to give the marks.

[OneOfTheGrundys]

Ex colleague was a team leader this year. 3 of his group gave up on it and handed scripts back into the 'pool' iirc.

[twinone]

My dd was 2 marks below the 6 grade boundary for Eng Lit, so we have taken a punt and gone for a remark.
One of her peers went up 19 marks and 2 grades. This is AQA.

[user1498240695]

Parent here. Worried sick. Kid in yr11. Do I need to pay for a remark if we are not happy with result? Does someone offer that to us? Who contacts us?

[MaisyPops]

English teacher here.
I have a handful of students who got 4s who I was confident would get 5s.
I'd put money on a review finding an issue but it's for parents and students to decide if they are reviewing at ours as the grades arent peotected.

I nearly marked for AQA and didn't when I worked out pay per script vs time oer script.

[Waffles80]

Examiners - real life humans - mark answers on screen. You mark job lots of questions, and you don't mark the whole paper in one go. So you might do 40 question 1s, 40 question 2s and so on.

For the time it took me this year I'm not keen to mark again at all. Four weekends and was paid around £800. Bar work would've been more lucrative!

But it's been brilliant for teaching.

[Waffles80]

If worried, contact your child's school.

[FenceSitter01]

If the marks go up then the fee is refunded.

Any school worth it's salt automatically (with student permission of course) re submits the papers for marking.

[Waffles80]

You say that, Fence but we're having to be very cautious with remarks. Only those one or two off, and those for whom we suspect a clerical error (e.g. Students we know who answered all questions whose exam summary indicates they missed out questions).

If our results go down we will be massively in the shit.

[MaisyPops]

Any school worth it's salt automatically (with student permission of course) re submits the papers for marking.
With what money?
Sorry, but i think suggesting that any school worth its salt would do a review of marking oversteps it a bit.

With the cost of reviews what would get cut from department budgets? Maths and English are the big 2, more students.

It would be great if we could do that, but the fact we can't doesn't mean we are crap.

[errorofjudgement]

Parent here. DDs AQA Eng Lit paper 2 went up by 16 marks, 2 grade increase from 7 to 9.

[Mrskeats]

Despite what rosie would have you believe there are problems with aqa
Mostly because they pay so poorly that they are using unqualified people who were recruited at the last minute
There is no way that grades should be going up two levels-that's completely ridiculous. English seems to be a particular issue.

[Mrskeats]

I marked Lang paper 2 for the record.
They were offering us cash to recommend people to mark just before the exam. Their pay and conditions seem the worst of all the boards.

[sarahC40]

Marks are going up in big jumps and we've had some very odd results and missing marks. Not very happy with the lack of organised response either...

[BlessYourCottonSocks]

The trouble with exam marking (and particularly these new GCSEs) is that many people like myself, with lots of years' experience of both teaching and marking, who used to mark for exam boards, are now too knackered and fed up to want to do it anymore.

NQTs, PGCE students etc are told 'it's great for professional development'. So unfortunately (some) exam markers don't really know what they are doing. It is scary. Particularly in subjects like History and English where it is subjective.

[NoNameMentioned]

I've heard tell of remarks with jumps up of 2 grades / 20 marks different in English Lit at DD's school. Not 100% sure but think it's AQA.

[HarrassedMumof3]

We just received 50 remarks - all have gone up massively, most from 3 to 5.
I used to mark for AQA but i would not do it now for the pay, while it's online and without the face to face standardisation meeting. Colleagues that did it this year just wanted experience of the new spec and won't do it again. Evidently their markers aren't properly trained and there's no consistency.

[PumbletonWakeshaft]

Bear in mind it's a new exam so everyone was a new examiner this year, regardless of experience, so there will be teething troubles, especially in judgement based, subjective marking like English. I honestly think this was bound to happen in the first year.

The exam board I mark for had 2 face to face training days for each paper, but I know that more than one board relied on virtual training which I thought was very risky in terms of rigour and quality. Our training was also inspected by ofqual.

[Mrskeats]

True it was new but spot checks should have picked up markers who were two whole grades out- that's just unacceptable.
No face to face training on paper 2- aqa try to get away with spending nothing.

[errorofjudgement]

It's interesting to hear that AQA pay less than other boards and provide less training. Is that the general perception of exam markers/teachers?

[GrasswillbeGreener]

I have read some of these threads with a certain horror; my eldest has just started year 10 so I've not really paid attention to GCSE stuff previously. I will say though, at least there IS a remark system, don't know if any such existed where I went to school (not UK). We had a system where half our mark came from school assessment, but those marks were scaled to match the range of exam marks achieved by the class. So it was very odd that several of my friends and I who were consistently good at English had 20% lower exam marks than we received from the adjusted school assessment. A friend of my mother's who had marked gave her the information that essays were sorted into mark bands before marking, ie these are 50-60, these are 60-70; though they were supposed to be able to flag up one that seemed out of range. How were they sorted? By length ...

We tested that out when my younger sister sat her exams. She focussed on spreading her writing out and writing for length. It worked in that she got much better exam results for English than I had.

I too hope that there will be some sort of investigation into exam marking this year.

[noblegiraffe]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_staffroom/3034468-AQA-exploiting-teachers
Thread on the staffroom complaining about AQA not paying for various aspects of exam marking.

[Mrskeats]

Thanks giraffe wasn't sure how to link the other thread.

[CheeseAndQuackers]

Thanks everyone. It sounds like my concerns do have some validity then. Kids across all abilities getting random grades, and AQA not being up to the job, which unfortunately has an impact on these kids futures.

So what to do? Are schools too occupied to formally complain - who would they complain to? Any value in trying to get a journalist interested?

Do AQA have to tell anyone/report on request for remark numbers and how many grades changed and by how much? Or does this just quietly go away until next year when another load of kids don't get what they deserve from all their hard work? It just seems so sh*t.

[Mrskeats]

I am in the process of contracting a journalist at the tes. I also writing to the chief exec of aqa to voice my concerns
Aqa should not be getting away with this. Ofqual is another organisation worth contacting. I'm a teacher, marker and parent and don't think it's ok for exam boards to act in this way.