To think re-marking GCSE shouldn't be a 'no win, no fee' style gamble?

[MarvellousMonsters]

Eldest has just got GCSE results, all 7, 8, 9 so we are very happy with them. However today we got emails saying some are within 2 marks of the next grade, and we can have them re-marked. The catch is, if the grade stays the same we will have to pay £50 per paper, (if the grade goes up there's no charge) and each GCSE has 2 or 3 papers, meaning asking for re-marking is effectively gambling £200-£300 per GCSE.

A friend is a teacher at a different school and they don't charge anything for re-marking.

Is our school BU?

Our school have requested that dc’s math paper is remarked. This has surprised me as I would have thought math straight forward and unlikely to change? But they are prepared to request it and pay, and are adamant he can’t drop a grade because of the banding.

Papers aren't re-marked; they are reviewed to check that the original examiner applied the mark scheme correctly.

The reviewer doesn't give a shit whether the paper is 1 mark off a 9 or 15 marks away - they're not looking for that extra mark to bump the script up.

At my school, parents have to pay for any marking reviews that they/their child want done to try to stop this specious "oh, he was one mark off a 9 so we'll go for it" punting. If the school has concerns about how a whole cohort was marked in a particular subject they will pursue that in conjunction with the parents and students, and would foot the bill.

This year my ds1 had a letter in with his results with details and prices of any remarks.
Is it common to get papers remarked? I've never heard of it.
He was only a couple of marks off passing English so I'm debating asking them to remark but then the other half of me thinks what's the point?
Just for interest has anyone got any data on GCSE remarks?

If it affects uni admission or 1-2 marks off a gcse pass/higher grade for A level entry then I think remarking is sensible. If you’re 1 mark away from a 9 then it’s not worth it. I should imagine schools’ budgets are a factor.

There's a GCSE thread in Secondary Education. There seems to be a problem with AQA Eng/Eng Lit this year. Someone posted a link to an article in the Telegraph written before the exams were sat. A whistleblower was complaining about inadequate training for markers, significantly less than previous years.

To Pp whose dc got a 3 and is only a few marks below a 4 in English. I'd definitely ask for a review. It might save them having to sit the exam again, compulsory for English and Maths.

In our college we will pay for borderline (and, thus, more likely to be changed) reviews but not where the student is more than a mark or so away. They are now reviews of marking not remarks and, as a result, fewer are changed. It's just such an expense on a tight budget. Students can, of course, pay for their own review if they feel they have a case.

We have to pay. It didn't occur to me that the school would. It's not as if they have loads of money. It's not fair on the pupils that can't pay but that is the fault of the exam boards who employ underqualified markers who don't get it right in the first place.

@Thymeout Could you post a link to the thread you mention? Thanks.

I mean the thread about AQA English.

No paper is remarked. There is a review of the way the paper was marked in the first place.
Many independent schools encourage remarking when the current mark is close to the boundary; it’s worth the punt for them as parents often pay. State school children are slightly disadvantaged by this.

Most marks are unaltered. There is something like a 0.6% chance of an upgrade. Most grades are reaffirmed.
Papers are not marked by one examiner. The questions are split between several markers to encourage fairness. A large number have an internal review of marking for benchmarking purposes.

The Telegraph journalist had a son who performed badly in one exam. There is no evidence this was an exam board problem but the lads mother is still spewing vitriol two years later - despite OfQual not upholding her complaints. There is also one person claiming to be a WB but making anonymous claims outside the boards WB policy. There is no proof they actually are an examiner and no problem was raised by any senior examiner internally. They have been invited to contact the board but refused all attempts at resolution.

The biggest issue facing exam boards is security of questions with a few behaving in a criminal way and circulating pictures of exam questions on social media. This jeopardises fairness for all and risks whole cohorts having to retake the entire exam. Where individuals are identified, prosecution follows. Ive never understood why someone would risk their career and reputation for a slightly higher GCSE grade. ,

Most marks are unaltered. There is something like a 0.6% chance of an upgrade. Most grades are reaffirmed

Is that true? There was something on More or Less about this yesterday.
It's true that as a percentage of ALL papers, then the chances of being given an upgrade are low.
But if you look at the percentage of papers that have been sent to be remarked, about 21.5% of those were upgraded.

There was a discussion about giving people marks with a confidence limit - tighter for maths and science but wider for subjects like English and History as there is a lot of subjectivity between markers.

I made pretty sure it’s accurate across all boards and all subjects. I’ll double check the figure. I probably am using the all papers number. I don’t think it’s as high as 21% of reviews upgraded though. OfQual would be having a field day if that was correct.
It’s likely to be slightly higher in more subjective subjects and boards do try their best to give highest possible grade; they want children to do well. Lots of reviews are in Maths, as it’s so vital but most of those remain the same for obvious reasons.
French has a fe changes last year because the questions required a representative letter to be put in a space rather than the actual word from a list of four. That caused hiccups and whilst technically students hadn’t followed the correct instructions if they put the word in, there was a decision to upgrade all who had written the correct word rather than the correct letter.

Just checked. Last year 0.01% of papers overall had a grade increase. The rates for this year are not yet available.

Of papers submitted it was 21% approximately were increased meaning nearly 80% remained the same or were reduced. Definitely only worth doing if you are very close to the boundary.

Of papers submitted it was 21% approximately were increased meaning nearly 80% remained the same or were reduced. Definitely only worth doing if you are very close to the boundary

More or Less from this week is very interesting on this.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0007rtv

@HoneyDragon There is a certain amount of explanation in maths now which means they may go up (or down). Dd1 was 1 mark off statistics A* at GCSE and I thought it probably wasn't worth worrying about. She was keen to try, and it went up 2 marks.

She missed an A* in further maths by 2 marks and her teacher has contacted her and said that she's looked through the papers (teachers get the papers at A-level) and there is an explanation that she thinks is correct and has been marked wrong, so would give her one more mark, and there is another place where she has used an unusual method and seems to have lost the accuracy mark although it's correct is recommending she tries a remark.

My understanding for both is that it is subjective to the marker agreeing with the teacher, so probably each roughly has a 50% chance of going up, so a 25% chance of moving up a grade.

I'd say if he's within a couple of marks it's worth a shot, however more than that, unless they've seen the paper and have realised that they forgot to count a question or more it's unlikely.

At our school if the school recommends / requests permission for a re-mark the school covers the cost.

If the parents ask for a re-mark, the parents party.

The school looks at all the marks and assesses then against what they would have expected of the pupil and recommends re-marks where they think there is a chance of success.

But then parents request other re-marks.

We paid for an A level re mark. As it was only a couple of marks off we picked the paper that she felt she had done better on than the mark iyswim.
Went up 7 marks on that one paper out of three and bumped her well into the next grade.
I was a bit shocked- if one paper was 7 marks out how inaccurate is the marking?! Also annoyed- the inaccuracy could cost kids their Uni places.

But if you look at the percentage of papers that have been sent to be remarked, about 21.5% of those were upgraded.
You would expect it to be a relatively high number that are submitted that are altered. There will be plenty of ones that there is no point in having remarked, so they won't be put in. As a standard thing you would only put the paper in for remark is:

1. It is close to the upper boundary
2. You had a reasonable expectation that you might be the grade above.

For example if I looked at my dd's English grades. She was expecting a 7 in lang, and a 6 in lit. She got a 6 in lang and a 8 (2 marks off a 9) in lit.

If she'd been 2 marks off the 7, then we'd have had that remarked. But she was only 6 marks the 5 boundary. Even though the teacher thought it probably should have been marked higher, the risk of it going down was too great.

With the lit, she was astounded to get so high. She didn't see the point in getting it remarked as she was afraid it might have been a mistake and find she dropped 2 grades.

Of papers submitted it was 21% approximately were increased meaning nearly 80% remained the same or were reduced. Definitely only worth doing if you are very close to the boundary.

I think 21% is actually very high especially when you consider that they are only reviewing the papers and not doing a remark. There are also probably big differences in the subjects. I bet the mark people get in English is extremely dependent on the marker. Experienced markers or teachers are probably quite consistent but the less qualified markers are no doubt inaccurate a lot of the time.

You would expect it to be a relatively high number that are submitted that are altered. There will be plenty of ones that there is no point in having remarked, so they won't be put in. As a standard thing you would only put the paper in for remark is

I know. But if you listen to the More or Less show, you will hear that there are differences between the marks awarded by an ordinary examiner and marks awarded by a senior examiner - which is what's to be expected especially in subjective subjects where there is significant differences.

Obviously, this difference is only important at grade boundaries.

It's correct to say that only a small proportion of all papers saw a grade increase. It's also correct to say that 21% of papers submitted saw a grade increase because they were close to the grade boundary. Apparently a Government minister was suggesting that there was no point asking for a remark because only a small proportion got an increase. That's not exactly true.

Which is why I love More or Less

This just seems another way in which poorer children are disadvantaged by the education system. We already hear that they perform badly against their better-off peers, and now the cost of re-marking papers is going to be out of reach for many.

f the people marking it were doing their jobs properly there shouldn’t be any need for a re Mark

Marking subjective subjects like English and History must be a lot harder than marking subjects like maths and science,

This just seems another way in which poorer children are disadvantaged by the education system. We already hear that they perform badly against their better-off peers, and now the cost of re-marking papers is going to be out of reach for many.

Yes but the way to resolve this is not for exams boards to make upgrading harder which is what seems to be happening now that they are just reviewing rather than remarking. It is to employ more skilled markers in the first place. Otherwise it is just a race to the bottom.

There are millions of exam questions marked each year - about 80 million, I think. There is always going to be scope for human factors. 0.01% overall doesn’t seem excessive.