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!

Aw, bless

That has always been possible, and paid
for reviews are not the subject of this thread. It is asking the teacher to review the full paper in detail (not just look at the overall marks) to see if a review should be paid for, that is the issue.

The teacher just did it automatically. We must just be lucky

I just looked back at the email we were sent by school for A Level results last month. Luckily we didn’t need any remarking.

It said this:
The relevant Head of Department (not your individual teacher) should be your first port of call if you need advice about your examination marks and how these correspond to grades; they will also be able to offer you advice about whether submitting a paper for examination board review is a sensible idea.
If you are very close to the next grade threshold or if we suspect that your paper might have been poorly marked, we will very likely support a review of marking. If you receive a grade under what we predicted, it would certainly make sense to seek the Head of Department’s guidance’

It is quite vague but implies the school
will be actively involved from the start and supports reviews? It doesn’t talk about teachers doing this in their own time. I still don’t think parents are immediately the enemy here unless they are abusive.

The teacher may automatically suggest a review for all marks within a certain distance of the borderline - may well not gave looked at the paper at all. I have had 2 papers for my dc reviewed over the years - both supported by staff - but in neither case did the teacher review the paper, just the marks.

That is almost word for word what my dc’s school sent out - from the years before seeing the paper before asking for a review was possible. So it may well be that schools are just recycling a process - and wording - from previous years without realising the excessive impact it now has on staff workload.

My DD missed out on a place at Med School because of a surprise A Level grade. We sent it back for a remark and they found 15 marks! 15!!! I’m still furious. We did sort it out but it took 12 months to regain a place. For some, the request really is valid.

Arguably they deserve the grade they get on the day. Some kids may not perform on the day and get an 8 instead of a 9, based on previous work they deserved a 9 but may have been nervous and made a mistake, this has no real issue for most people for any career choice, even if when remarked they may have got the 9.

Those who don't perform on the day and get a 3 instead of a 4 means they don't get onto their college course. Whilst that is the correct thing for some, it may be that small margins of error mean that its worth getting remarked as they can then do their course.

My DS did not get all the grades he deserved due to a school error but that one subject won't matter ever to him so he wanted to leave it, several of his results were 1 off the next grade but that was how he performed that day, maybe another examiner would have marked him up or even down, who knows. I also think it's important to not allow children to believe that nothing but 9s across the board matter because in most cases they really don't.

That is awful, 15 marks is a huge amount. To be fair this isn't what OP is talking about, she is talking about those wanting to shift up a grade when 1 mark off. Of course hers needed to be remarked. How stressful for her.

Dds school marked on the results which papers were close to a boundary and recommended a review. Each paper cost us £5 and it was the teacher of that subject who told us to do it. So the English teacher came to talk to us and told us she would look at the paper if we got it.

I’m an exams officer in a school, I have no idea why teachers are getting involved in this…
There is no need, it is all done through the exams boards, if your grade goes up you get your money back.
Why involve the teachers, my daughter has just sat her GCSEs at another school and their process is the same. We have requested a remark of her maths as she is grade off a 9, you pay the fee online fill in the form and the EO sends it off to the exam board.

Is it expensive? If you aren’t well off would it be a lot to take a risk on? I tried Google but it brought different figures for a clerical or other re-mark.

The reason why teachers in some cases need to be involved is that marks can go up and down - there is always a risk. If a paper goes straight to remark there is a risk the grade could be lower, also I believe as I have been told that you pay per paper so at A level so you would choose which paper out of the 3 or 2 papers in a subject which to go for first. This is why teachers need to be involved in some cases.

For me it’s a different matter this year though and that is that for Maths, my subject, the grades for GCSE are higher for grades 9-4 than at any other time for the current format (since 2017). This has had a major effect on many trying to get into college or sixth form and has no bearing on the fact that this cohort lost basically two years of solid education and are still bearing a huge brunt from covid. Yet colleges are not taking the rise in grade boundaries into account and devastating many young people. When you bear in mind the difference in the grade boundary for a six this year was 27 points higher than in November 2017, and a grade 5 was 20 points higher it is a ridiculous uplift that many students (and teachers) weren’t expecting.

I believe as I have been told that you pay per paper so at A level so you would choose which paper out of the 3 or 2 papers in a subject which to go for first. This is why teachers need to be involved in some cases.

Our GCSE board for English is pay per paper. The teacher also pointed out that sequential reviews reduces the risk of one paper falling and offsetting the other if it rises. Plus the cost. She's advised which paper to go for first.

Whereas the History doesn't let you have a review if you view the papers first. Plus it has to be both papers reviewed so a slightly eye watering £150.

Each exam board has different prices, AQA GCSE for example is £40, but you will get refunded if the mark goes up. For Maths I wouldn’t do it if more than one grade, English I would say max of 2-3 grades.

If the mark goes down they don’t give you the lower grade.

I refused to do this in holidays. I got sent quite a list whilst abroad and got told I had days to do the A level ones. I asked would I be paid overtime and pointed out I have no way to access on holiday. I basically Got called lazy. Very seldom do these new teacher reviewed papers get upped as tolerance on 6 markers for example is +- 1 so can vary a lot on a whole paper.

In science the teacher DOES the remark? Where do you work? England?

I don’t understand how people know they were two marks off a higher grade. When I got my exams (admittedly back in the 90s) we got a small piece of paper that just listed the subjects with a grade next to them. I’ve no idea if I was one mark off a higher grade.

The fact a perfectionist teen is unhappy with their grade doesnt mean their paper needs a remark. It means the teen needs to learn that you dont always manage to get what you hoped for.

@Jac1970stone you should be comparing with the 2019 boundaries not 2017 (2023 grade 4 and 5 boundaries are slightly lower).

In 2017 - the first run of the exam - Edexcel realised that they'd ballsed up and made the paper too inaccessible at the lower end (Q3 on P1 was "solve y/4=10.5" ffs) so they introduced a bunch of easy one markers at the beginning of each paper. That's why the grade boundaries went up between 2017 and 2018, because the paper had deliberately been made easier.

As it was, in 2019 the percentage getting 4+ was 70.1%. In 2023 the percentage getting 4+ was 72.3%, so a greater proportion of kids got the level 2 pass than in 2019 - it's not about where the grade boundaries are, it's about the proportion that get the grade. So the covid impact has been taken into account as this cohort should have done worse than 2019 per the National Reference Tests but actually did better. They haven't been cheated out of results at all.

Well if you are correct that is great - my understanding was that if the mark went down and into the lower grade then the lower grade would be awarded

Yes, grades can go down as well as up.

DS is at private school. School facilitates paper requests, asks parents to review over the holidays and then strongly advises that we get teachers to review / advise once they return for the new term before requesting a marking review. Parents don’t have access to the mark scheme or question paper if separate to answer sheets (to prevent cheating in mocks next year), but I think the teachers do. I have reviewed my son’s English lit paper as two grades below prediction (and all other results), and his essays all look pretty good and pretty similar in quality. I am not an expert but marks across essays seemed hugely inconsistent - they may as well have pulled scores out of a hat. Waiting to see what teacher thinks when she’s back next week. Not a disaster if the grade doesn’t change but he worked hard and I don’t think the grade reflects his ability or what he produced on the day. Very glad he’s not doing essay subjects for A level as I don’t believe the current system works where there’s subjectivity.