Is this normal?

[SamVJ888]

Apologies posted here for traffic.
DD is currently taking her mock GCSEs. She’s been approached today by someone in her year who said “you put xxx answer for the first question of xxx exam didn’t you and it was wrong”. When my daughter has asked how this person knew this she’s been told the teacher told her. She’s additionally been told by a friend in the year that other kids in the year actually marked the exam paper itself (so other 15/16 years old and were given the classes mock gcse papers to mark with the answer sheet provided by the teacher). Is this normal? I’ve held off calling school hoping for some advice?!

For a mock I'd say quite normal

Yup, peer to peer review. Normal. Lazy but normal.

Also a good way for students to learn how to answer the exam if they are having to use the mark scheme in lessons to mark someone Elsie's paper

I don't think her peers should be marking her papers if they're the kind of students who will hold it over her head like that - it's one thing for students to anonymously mark each other's papers from an answer sheet and another thing entirely if they know whose answers they have and are being unpleasant about it. It might be worth speaking to the school from that angle.

We used to swap papers in class and mark. For mock gcses i cant remember. Formal mock. No. Informal in the class room yes.

Normal discussion and very helpful as it's often speaking with peers about mistake that then can better understand why they got it wrong in the first place.

What you say that kid told your DD doesn't imply it was done in a malicious way. It might have been a case of 'I heard you made the same mistake I did so the teacher told me to speak to you about revising this topic together'. Or 'the teacher said that you made a mistake I used to make all the time so suggested I speak to you about how I overcame this problem'.

This is the kind of discussion that would take place at my kids' school as they do encourage peer support a lot.