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!

My dc was one mark off the next grade in two AS subjects and we had a notification from his school offering a check or review of marking. There was a charge that would be waived/refunded if the grade was increased. We agreed thankfully as dc achieved the upper grade in both subjects.

I’m extremely grateful that the teachers in that school actually give a shit about the kids. If you don’t want the best for every one of them you may well be in the wrong role.

I’m extremely grateful that the teachers in that school actually give a shit about the kids. If you don’t want the best for every one of them you may well be in the wrong role.

The teachers at your school didn't do what the OP is doing which is looking over them for free. They are actually doing less work.

That seems reasonable to me.

I don’t recall we got offered a free teacher check. We paid, which was then re-examined by the exam board

I think this is an issue with your school tbh.
I am a teacher of A-levels and I have a dd who just failed her English Lang spectacularly and totally out of nowhere- predicted a 6.

We have requested her scripts not to be re marked but to see what went wrong. Her school sent us the script but no teacher has reviewed it. It was all done through the exams team. School said that they wouldn’t recommend a remark as she is too far off the grade. Teachers are only reviewing scripts if it is close and there is a chance.

We have the same process at work- I have reviewed 3 papers and sent one for remarking from a cohort of 103. If anyone else asked for one we would send it to them without reviewing but tbf no parents have doubted our judgement so far.

Two teachers have contacted me via email to request that this is done as DS 1 mark of an English grade and 1 off a 7 for a humanities subject. One teacher in particular is very much persuading is to go ahead with it, it is not coming from is at all. He 'highly recommends' we give the consent to access the papers or DS does.

Is that the case though, it is completely the opposite way round at my DS's state school, I was receiving an email every day last week about pursuing this but I didn't have time to respond as working. No harassment on my part what so ever, in fact, he kept reminding me of the cut off date and I kept reminding him that I was at work and needed to speak to DS about it.

My friend’s daughter has been contacted twice by both her History and Music teachers asking her to request her papers and a review. Her mum is staying completely out of it. The girl has the As she needs but her teachers think she should get A stars.

@pinotnow @OvaHere one of my DS’s (twins) had unusual AQA English Lit results. On one paper he scored 71 and in the other 38! He usually scores really highly and was predicted a 9 so seems unusual.

Yr school need to charge an admin fee and then u won’t get as many.

Same here, it wasn’t cheap either - I can’t remember exactly but I’m sure it was £50 ish each. But I don’t think his teachers reviewed it, it was an examiner? We appealed two even though three were only 1 mark off the higher grade. Both were remarked and an error found so he got the higher grade so we were refunded for that one. We only appealed as his grades were lower than expected and he found the papers relatively easy so it didn’t make sense. Harsh marking apparently that year I heard since 🙄.

Okay, I think there is a lot of confusion on this thread.

1. Remarks don't exist anymore.
2. A review of marking is a paid service by the exam board. People sometimes say 'remark' but they mean 'review'.
3. What the OP is talking about (OP correct me if I'm wrong) is the constant barrage of requests for teachers to look at the marking of an exam paper before deciding whether or not to send it for formal review by the exam board. Teachers don't get paid for this work, but it can take hours (and is during their holiday). It is free to recall exam papers from the main exam boards this year (previously some have charged), so there has been an increase in recalled papers and subsequent requests to teachers.

*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!*

@pinotnow I'm an English HoD and examiner as well, and I absolutely agree with you. It's such a mess - something has to change.

I'm personally not confused, it is not confusing. I have been pursued (son has) by two teachers requesting the consent form to be completed to access the papers so they can look over it first. It is the process the OP is describing that Teacher's are being hassled to do but in our case, all the hassle has been from the teachers. They want to do it before a paid review and then will advise accordingly. Like I explained previously, I have been contacted by one of the teachers 3 times and they wanted a response but I was at work and couldn't outline the hesitation at the point. I've said about the risk of going down but he said as it would be down 17 points to the lower grade this is highly unlikely as it is up by one point this is more likely but obviously not guaranteed. He is very much the one requesting he takes a look at the paper.

Teachers no '

Yes, this is very similar but it is for 7s not 8s and 9s. Is it about performance of your department cohort, maybe there is more pressure in some schools in that respect. This is a state school but pretty much gets the best results in the city obviously not compared to private schools. I really don't know the reasons for the pursuance. I think one teacher was surprised as they had said DS was 8/9 in English lit at parents' evening and thought he was going to carry on studying the subject to university level as he has original/ insightful thoughts. He actually got awarded a 6 but is one point off a 7. On results day she told him that he was bright but he doesn't try hard enough. I was a bit shocked by this as I actually don't want him to think he's not achieved. He got a 7 in Maths without revising but doesn't want to pursue it at 'A' level as finds it 'boring'. It is ashame in a way as he is totally abandoning the idea of English Literature now.

All the certainties went out the window after results day and he has now changed two A level subjects to study. He was in top group for science but got told he wasn't trying hard enough and that he would probably get a 4 in Chemistry but in the end he was awarded a 7 so I feel predictions are pretty unreliable.

OP I don't feel you should be doing 25 hours for nothing. I've been on the GcSE thread this year and there has been alot of ,ask for a remark as we are not happy talk. I think due to the return to marking at 2019 standards because of course this cohort were not effected by Covid ( they just.missed huge parts of year 8/9). We had a letter in with results slip and any requests had to go through the deputy head for approval. All the kids were asked to give permission for scripts to be accessed by school on results day. For learing purposes of the school. Dd did drop 2 grades in English lit no idea why but the hole cohort was low. I have checked her marks and she's mid band 5 not 7 so leaving alone unless school contact us. I feel they may well be looking at alot of the lit papers. She has what she needs for college and is doing maths ,chem and bio so as she has a 7 in language I'm not pushing. Unfortunately many parents don't feel the same way. Parents Unfortunately need to realise that teachers do have lives and like any other professional need to be paid for their work. No I'm not a teacher.

Actually here in wales they are charging for reviews of results.....

I definitely think it's worth having an exam paper checked. As someone who marks GCSE exams for an exam board myself, I am very well aware of the issues that can happen. Especially this year, there was such a shortage of markers in some subjects that people with very little experience/subject knowledge etc. ended up being hired and rushed through training, so it's definitely not surprising that mistakes would happen, despite the exam boards efforts at quality assurance. I know very well that the same question can be given a very different mark depending on who marks it.

That said, as a teacher and Head of Faculty, I don't respond to emails asking for me to look at papers. When I am back at work on Monday, I will reply with a blanket email to all requests to simply tell them the procedure for paying for a review of marking from the exam board themselves. . If they choose to go ahead and do that, good luck to them, but I (or my team) won't be spending our time looking through papers to try and help them decide if it's worth it or not.

Even if I were willing to spend ages going through papers, it would be a waste of time anyway as ultimately it's what the exam board decide that counts and their opinion of what counts as a certain mark can be completely vary depending on who marks it.

But ultimately, I have enough work of my own and especially since the poor outcome of the strikes etc. I am doing absolutely no extra 'goodwill' work - if it' isn't important enough for the government to pay for, then it isn't important enough for me to do.

We were given a price list with ours for remarks. Some were close but it is what it is and it's gutting to be so close but that's what you got... close. Surely it would need to be marked by a third party and not the teachers.

Thank you for this thread! My daughter told me yesterday that she wants to have one of her GCSEs rechecked. She is one mark off the higher grade and it was the one subject she really cares about, loves and will now take to A level.
I will discourage her to address with her HoY tomorrow having read this. X

Our school will only remark if you are two marks below the next grade level. Each paper remarked is charged £50

That's not the school remarking, that's the exam board. It's their paid job. Unlike the OP.

Oh , OP, how I wish you'd made your title clearer!!