AIBU to feel uneasy that GCSE remarks depend on ability to pay

[CassandraWebb]

My DC is only doing one GCSE this year, a year early, but as I was looking through the information to check timings etc I noticed an email about the "remark" service and the costs

We could afford to pay if needed, but I do a lot of work with people who are in financially difficult situations.

I do fully understand there's a cost to remarking. But it just makes me feel really uncomfortable that clearly the costs might mean some people just don't have that option.

Is there help for people who can't afford to pay? There's no mention of it in the email.

My son's GCSE RE had a whole question that hadn't been marked on in a few years ago. I suspect it's way more common than people think. It makes you loose faith in the exams and grades. And yes, we only know because we could afford to get the paper back and get it remarked.

Schools can see pupils’ exam papers for free so would certainly be able to spot an unmarked page without anyone having to fork out.

If your child gets an extremely surprising result, ask the school if they will look at the paper for you.

The full maximum maintenance loan for a student living at home is more than £8k a year. More and more students are choosing this option. People don’t need to study away from home.

I'm with you, OP. It's not a fair system and in my experience (working in education), the marking is sometimes quite poor or the system doesn't really work, especially when students know a lot about their subject as they move off the marking scheme. In some university subjects, it is well known that quite a few of the students who get first class degrees are the ones who got a D at A level.

Wow!

Yes, this is how it works at my DD's school as well. Agree that otherwise it would be v unfair

They do if they are nowhere near a university, or nowhere near a university who does the courses they want to do.

Living at home is a very different experience to leaving for uni too.

Best not to think. Far more important things in life than the costs of a review of a GCSE exam for other people.

The process is this:
First - ask to see the marked paper. You get a scanned copy to look at.
Second - request a review of marking. A senior examiner checks that the mark scheme has been applied correctly, that there are no clerical errors on the paper, and that there has been no ‘unreasonable’ exercise of academic judgement. This last does not mean ‘hmm, that’s a bit mean’, it means ‘no way could this piece of work be credited with this mark’.
Third - appeal to the exam board for an even more senior examiner, usually the chief, to review both the original marking and the review of marking.
Fourth - appeal to the exam board for a whole centre review of marking.
Fifth - put in a formal appeal, where the marks are considered by a panel of senior examiners.

At no stage is a paper ‘re-marked’.

No, thats a clerical recheck, that post is correct about reviews of marking.

This is very area and subject dependent though. I happen to live near a good mid tier uni that offers a good range of subjects but not history or art or optemetry off the top off my head. There and a few other commutable ones a bit further afield that offer a good range too, butvtrain fair is about 4k. I live in a very connected area.

But you dont get offers just because its commutable - some courses are oversubscribed, some have higher entry than you might be predicted.

the maximum loan also starts reducing from 25k earnings. Plenty of working class people will earn enough to mean the student gets closer to 5k. Two full time minimum wage swould just about tip toe that

Its a great choice but not for everyone.

DD’s state school are paying for English literature paper remark - she got an 8 but was one mark off a 9. Hoping that as an essay subject, there might be scope to boost it!

All sorts of things can be important simultaneously

And it is relevant when we consider things like the fuss about contextual offers for university. It's things like this that show why they are appropriate

This system shouldn't be just a mean of somehow hoping to get to the next grade.

It should be used when something feels very wrong. Ie. A student who always had 8 or 9 getting a 5 or 6. Or them feeling they did really well on a maths paper but for a 4.

Or a uni place being dependent on certain grades and missing by one or two points.

Unless the school specifically advises it, going for a re-mark is usually a mistake. The exam boards are pretty strict about marking and usually get it right. The tolerance on individual questions is tiny, and there are “seeded” papers that all markers do without knowing they are there so the Board can check their marking is consistent. Don’t waste your money.

As others say, not a remark, it’s a review of the marking to see if the mark scheme was applied correctly.

There is no need to do it as a general rule. It is certainly not in any way a standard procedure. The vast majority of marks are unchanged after a review, whatever you may think from MN posts (no one is going to post in great excitement about unchanged grades). Yes there are some results that are shocking and I am glad those people asked for a review, but for the most part a rise of 12 marks is unusual. I think, as others say, that if a GCSE grade were surprisingly low it would certainly be worth recalling the paper for a look.

So I personally think financial support for those struggling would be better spent elsewhere, for example on tutor support to help those likely not to get a 4 in Eng and maths.

Honestly @CassandraWebb , unless your DC almost got a 4 (or maybe a 5 or 6 if needed for specific courses) it makes no difference. A regrade doesn’t make them more able at that subject. It might tick a box – as in, you need maths grade 5 to continue with xyz A level or Eng grade 6 for abc university. Otherwise leave it.

Also I always think when people say “oh no how unfair, only one mark away from a grade 7” – well, if you were only just in the grade 7 boundary you would hardly moan the other way would you? Someone has to get just one mark below the boundary.

Our school refunded the cost if the grade changed. DS was one mark off the next grade in two subjects. One went up, the other didn’t, so we got half the money back.

DS had French A level remarked and went from a B to an A. No cost obvs. If it hadn’t changed I think it would have been £40 ish. Thst was the only gcse or A level paper my 2 kids had remarked. It’s not that common.

Not unreasonable at all OP I paid £160 last year for 2 remarks, both encouraged by teachers. I was fortunate that the grades went up and I got the money back, but lots of families would not be able to do that.

DD is having a remark of Eng Lang, she isn't near grade boundary but one paper (the fiction one) is 15 marks lower than the other and it just doesn't seem right. She attained a 6 but we were expecting a 7 or 8.

I have thought this ever since we paid for a remark after reviewing my daughter's biology paper and finding at least 6 missed marks - really obvious things that really couldn't be wrong. She only needed 3 to go up (and we are talking from a 5 to a 6 which she needed to do the A level subject that she wanted to do so it was important). It came back +3 marks but they deducted one from elsewhere so it was overall +2. But still some of of the marks that I believed were obviously missed had not been awarded.

So we appealed. That was a gamble that cost us over a £100 which I thought at the time that some people just don't have! It shouldn't be that way.

In the end she got all the marks that were missing and went up a grade so we got a refund but the whole experience was bad. I mean 6 marks missed in biology on questions that aren't even subjective! Sometimes it was when she'd e.g. mentioned a drug to treat heart disease which was in the mark scheme and the marker had just not awarded the mark!

My son also had 3 marks missing in his A level further maths that took him from a A to an A* (he was only 1 mark away).

I do believe there is a lot of rushed markers due to them being underpaid, not experienced enough and with too many papers to mark. These marks matter to young people and sometimes are important enough to change the path they are on. Examiners should be better paid and better trained and I do think that each paper should be double marked blindly and discrepencies at the boundaries resolved before results are released.

That's really poor @idril and I agree with you that there should be a better process overall wrt examiners and training.

I have just paid £135 this morning to have 3 papers remarked. 2 marks and 3 marks away from a pass in 2 subjects, i have had to put it on a credit card as I really don’t have the money.

If these grades don’t go up after the remark then my child’s college place is withdrawn and they won’t be able to do what they want. They are heartbroken and have spent the morning in tears.

Our only commutable university is Cambridge. Sadly they don't operate on catchment areas (and indeed even if you live nearby you have to live in, you can't live at home).

Out of papers that were sent for a review last year (GCSE and A-level), nearly a quarter resulted in a grade increase. Obviously that's because papers were sent for review where it was thought they could result in a grade increase and three quarters didn't result in a grade change, but that shows it's not especially rare to go up a grade.

Note that 0,1% of reviews went down a grade so yes, definitely seek the advice of the school first.