to tell you reviewing your GCSE paper isn't "free"

[BorrowedThyme]

I've never begrudged putting aside a few hours for genuine disappointing shock grades, or when a student has so nearly made the grade they need for their next stage.

But this year it has gone totally over the top.

And recalling GCSE papers for the school to review is NOT "free" - it just doesn't cost the parent anything, that is all. It relies either on teachers volunteering their spare time, or the school employing an additional, qualified person to do it.

I spent 25-30 hours in the last week of the holiday doing this, and now have a whole new list to somehow try and cram in to a single weekend

My head of department has already contacted some parents to say no, we are not doing it for such and such a student, and honestly, you would think we were chopping their kids hands off, or something, the abuse, and threats and accusations we get!

Some of the students we have said no to have already got their sixth form places, and don't need to check their grades, some are so far from the next grade up that they are many times more likely to go down than up, and some have got exactly what was predicted, anyway.

Occasionally a grade goes up, but it is very rare, and in genuine cases, I am happy to spend the time checking. Most of the cases we are getting requested now though, are not genuine! None of the papers I have checked this year are going up, although several might actual go down if the parents take it further.

So please, before expecting this service for the school, keep in mind

a) Is it necessary? Not if your child has got their sixth form place or apprenticeship, or whatever they wanted.

b) Is it likely? Parents often over estimate their children's likely GCSE grades, particularly if they have helped them revise, and marked a few mock papers, etc- children perform best in a one to one situation with a lot of encouragement, such as they might get at home with a parent, but this is not how they are assessed.

c) Somebody has to be just below the next grade boundary! That is how grade boundaries work!

d) Some grade bands are very narrow - being 3 marks off a 6 could actually be 2 marks from a 4.

e) It isn't a case of " just finding one more mark" - the marking has to be withing a tolerance. 2 examiners might mark the same paper differently, but that does not mean one is right and one is wrong. Yes, I find marks in the papers that I would have given that the examiner has not, but I also find marks the examiner has given that I would not, and overall, the mark comes out the same, or virtually the same. The grade is not going to be changed over a disagreement about fractions of marks. It needs to be a substantial difference for the grade to be changed, and not a case of strict or lenient marking.

Yes, it is sometimes worth having a look at the papers, no it is not worth this wholesale demand that has developed this year.

If this school review system continues to be abused, I expect it will be withdrawn very soon!

It's free to get the paper from the main boards. Schools can charge an admin fee.

No, not really. A grade 9 is a grade 9. But a paper may be easier or harder, and that means the number of marks you need to achieve a grade 9 is higher or lower. The ease of the paper varies, the standard of the grade varies much less. AS little as is humanly possible

@noblegiraffe yes, I paid the school

Sounds like printing and admin costs then, because the school got an electronic copy for free.

We have moved away from a criterion referenced system to a norm referenced system, as others have said.

When I started teaching, you knew if a student could do X, Y and Z or had hit a certain mark on their coursework, that would equate to a certain grade.

This led to grade inflation as teaching the specifications improved but was considered unacceptable so norm referenced now happens when a certain percentage gains a certain grade each year. There are advantages to this too.

The concept of being "on target" is problematic since noone can say "that's a grade whatever" until after the papers are marked.

You see a lot about "my son has never got less than level x so this grade is wrong" at this time of year. Which is meaningless because "x" doesn't exist in a concrete way until after the papers are all marked.

This would be a bit of a better system. Departments could ask for volunteers or rotate staff on a yearly basis to give time they are paid for on top of their salary. The staff that are doing that year would also have plenty of advance warning to arrange child care or otherwise plan their summer rather than it being a last minute thing.

In terms of the bigger picture it would be better if we could find a way of changing the system so that colleges/universities were applied for after the grades were known.

I know there are all kinds of arguments, and probably valid ones, as to why this would be difficult. However, it would mean teachers could stop giving official predicted grades that become the source of much angst and then disappointment.

Particularly at A level where the system forces them give the most optimistic grades possible so all students have a fighting chance to get offers for courses that their very best exam selves might achieve on a day where everything aligns.

Why doesn’t the school just charge an admin fee. My sons school does it to fund paying the staff processing the review

They can. Some do. They probably don't pay overtime to the person looking at the papers though.

Departments could ask for volunteers or rotate staff on a yearly basis to give time they are paid for on top of their salary

Or....and hear me out with this....parents could pay exam boards for remarks and this would put them off chancing the 'Jonny was 5 marks off a 9 but if you could look at it for me please?' Like it used to be.

PP students could have the school pay for ones on the boundary.

Rotating staff only works if it's the same staff. It's not - in lots of schools and colleges because so many are leaving

DH and I are both teachers and have talked about how the free recall of papers this year really needed to be supported by some kind of system at a school level. We also have a Y13 DC so have our own experience of being parents to someone whose grades weren't in line with their expectations (although it hasn't affected uni places etc).

In my mind, it would be better if students themselves were able to directly access their scripts post results. If they didn't have to go through the school to get sight of the scripts, perhaps it would be easier to understand that it's an exam board process rather than a school one. It would also probably help if each teacher and member of staff who might be contacted by disappointed students after results day set an out of office along the lines of, 'As school is closed for the summer holiday, your email may not be read until 4th September. If you are emailing because you would like to see your exam scripts, please login to magicscriptrecall.com and request access. This is a remote service, is free of charge and is not run by the school. If after looking at your papers you identify an error with the adding up and wish to pay £50 for the exam board to conduct a clerical check, please complete the form on the exams page of the school website. Staff at Ordinary School are unable to offer impartial or informal reviews of exam scripts during the summer holiday. Anyone who has missed out on a sixth form, college, university or apprenticeship place because of an unexpectedly low grade should email [email protected] and arrange an appointment to discuss options.'

DH's school manages the process via the exams office so he hasn't been asked to get involved. Our DC's school is more erratic and the Y13s had no idea who to contact to request scripts or re-marks but it was quite proactive about suggesting re-marks for those who missed their uni offers. DC has now decided they'd like to see their scripts, not with a view to applying for a marking review but for the peace of mind of knowing the allocated marks were all included in the final score and that all questions were marked. They had one paper in one subject with a very low score so is secretly hoping a question may have been missed but accepts it's unlikely and ultimately doesn't matter. They won't be asking teachers to review the papers but by requesting them, permission has been given to the teachers to use answers anonymously in future teaching.

Okay. So they could have a policy that makes it clear what scenarios fall under their review process and what doesn't. That would cut down the amount of work but some years there might be enough students that meet the terms of their policy to still need a planned process in place and teachers being paid for their time.

It's not but it's likely SLT will have looked at grades and marks, and considered any students who might benefit as unfortunately schools are judged on results.

Does this happen at the moment if the school thinks a grade is far off even without the script?

So rather than an accurate reflection of students studying to do well and achieve a concrete score it's more of if % etc.

There are two main types of exam grading - norm referenced, which this is, where a determined percentage of candidates fit within grade parameters, and criterion referenced, where if candidates reach a predetermined standard, they automatically achieve the associated grade.
The disadvantage with the first is that it can mean that the same candidate might achieve different grades in different cohorts/years, or if in a small population rather than a large one; an individual's grade is determined not only by his/her achievements, but also by the achievements of others.
The disadvantage with the second, making it toxic as far as our education system is concerned (though arguably it’s fairer as far as the individual is concerned), is that it leads to grade inflation as it’s easier for teachers to teach to the test and for students to know exactly what to do to achieve the grade.

Oops, I see I’m a bit late to that party.

I know of one child who is having an exam remarked, and his parents have had to pay (and do so willingly).

OP, I think your school should outline to parents a dose of realism early next term for those whose children are sitting exams next summer.

You are talking about a 'review of marking' done by the exam board.

The problem is that now scripts are obtainable for free, many parents are asking teachers to undertake a free check of scripts before deciding whether to pay for the formal review. This reduces cost and risk to the parents, but moves that reduction onto the teacher's unpaid time. This is causing more parents to as for this free service just in case rather than when they really believe their child has been hard done by.

I think we will be withdrawing this service altogether. It simply isn't possible to do this. I have so many other things I am supposed to be doing.

My daughter's Geography teacher approached her on results day to advise they were remarking her paper. She was 1 mark off the higher grade. We have since had an email to say English will also be remarked. We haven't asked, or had any intention of, asking her papers to be remarked. So in our case the school is taking on the work under their own steam. I had no idea the work was voluntary therefore presumably unpaid too.

Fine the school should have a policy in place. If people are really close to a higher grade then it's in their interest to get better results.

The school can't remark the paper, the exam board do it for a fee.

To give a slightly different perspective, as a Hod of a core subject, one that is subjective (Ok, English!), I have looked at multiple scripts this year, some on request of parents, but many because I was surprised at the results. I wouldn't dream of asking other members of my department to do this - I'm on SLT as well and even I'm not directed to do it, it's my own decision. Parents at my school are generally not pushy, quite the opposite. If they were, I'm sure I would feel differently about this in some respects.

I'm also an examiner and I'm not happy with the quality of the marking I've seen. So many scripts are missing annotations, have annotations that don't match the marks awarded or have marks/annotations that don't match the standard that we were supposed to be marking to. I'm not trying to set the cat among the pigeons and encourage even more parents to be requesting this 'service' because, despite what I've said, because examiners mark by question rather than whole papers, it's rarely made the difference between one grade and another and I know if we requested a review most of the grades would come back unchanged, though I have requested reviews in a small number of cases. There are some I certainly won't be reviewing as the marking was too generous!

It's galling to see students' efforts and achievements not being rewarded though. I marked over 600 scripts this year and was stopped just once on a writing question when I was just outside tolerance. I have not yet been fully paid (should have had everything by results day at the latest) and am now looking at scripts unpaid and seeing a lot of poor quality marking. I don't know what can be done about it, but something should be done because I am losing faith in the exam board and it's not good enough, for teachers and students alike. I do understand that if missing out on a couple of marks on one or two questions meant the difference between one grade and another for a particular student then they obviously weren't secure at the higher grade, but others will have been rewarded for very similar answers, and that's not fair.

Yes, it's the nature of the exams to an extent, but it doesn't seem fair to me. I don't think I'll look at so many scripts next year because it's just making me angry!