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.

Of course they should be allowed, why would any kid have to take a wrongly marked paper.

Reviews are not looking for extra marks. Unless you're prepared to just throw money at it (bearing in mind that someone is always the wrong side of the boundary) you'd be better off getting them looked at first.

Exactly this. One of DD’s teachers this morning came bounding over, congratulated her on her grade (higher than she was expecting) and said she was only a couple of marks off the next grade and he was going to submit a remark. State school. They can’t offer unlimited remarks as all those who are disappointed in a grade but not necessarily very near a grade boundary would be doing so in an attempt to bump a grade.

Missed pages are usually down to scanning errors, or printing errors. An examiner can do absolutely nothing to mark a page they cannot see.

Well shiver my timbers. Is the data disaggregated by boards and subjects anywhere? I guess I should have clarified that my experience is in English and AQA, and I was only considering GCSE re-marks.

The vast majority of papers are marked online, by multiple examiners. Even if one examiner’s marking is inaccurate, it’s unlikely that particular examiner will have marked more than one or two of that school’s cohort. In many GCSE and some A Level papers, questions are marked individually, so one script with, say 12 questions, may have been marked by 12 different examiners.

Wow that’s interesting. Can I ask which board and subjects? They do throw a lot of money at marking and there is a lot of checking - plus an absolutely crazy flurry of re-marking/checking papers that had been pulled up as badly marked - so I am surprised that it’s that poor by results day.

Do not under any circumstances put both papers in without a teacher looking first!

It could be that one paper has been marked incorrectly and you go up a mark, but the other paper has also been marked incorrectly and you go down a mark so you are left with the same mark. If you'd only put the first paper in for a review, you'd have gone up a grade.

So to get a regrade, like many people have here, you need to go through 5 stages? I don’t believe this can be the case?

There is no such thing as a regrade.

You can skip stage one and go straight to review, of course. But that's why so many don't move.... because there's nothing at all
wrong with the original mark.

It was AQA eng lang and lit. DT, and two stats papers. It was 2 kids. I asked for remark of 10, 5 grades went up. They were close to the next boundary. Except the eng lit paper where it did look like two pages were not marked. That was the paper where 12 marks went up.

so I got half my money back!

Thanks @noblegiraffe- we definitely won’t be requesting the remark until we’ve seen all the papers - it’s just so frustrating not knowing how long it will all take. Really hope there’s an obvious missed question somewhere! As it doesn’t sound like they look to give you extra marks if it’s just been marked a bit harshly :(

Sorry it was actually Biology and only one Statistics. So - Eng Lang, Eng Lit, Biology, DT and Statistics. Quite a range.

No, if an error of marking is detected at any stage, it will be corrected. The vast majority of people who request a review of marking never choose to go beyond stage 2. Generally, people only escalate to the next stage if they are not satisfied with the outcome of a simple review of marking.

I think you are being pedantic. If a grade changes, it is colloquially known as a regrade. Are you saying you need to go through all 5 stages to get a regrade - or if you prefer - the opportunity for a grade to be regraded (same same).

Super helpful, thank you.

No. I'm saying that "regrading" doesn't exist. Neither does "remarking".

Reviews are marking are not looking for extra marks. They are simply checking whether or not the original mark was reasonable.

Of course you don't have to go through 5 stages. But I would never recommend a review without the papers being looked over by someone who knows the mark scheme first - they're not cheap, for a start.

So if you request a copy of the exam, stage 1, how on earth do I know as a parent whether it’s been marked correctly? Paper in question we potentially might asked to be remarked is a grade 5, other paper in the same subject is a high 9, but I couldn't tell the difference because I don’t teach that subject.

our school said they don’t look at papers - that can’t be right can it or how on earth would anyone ever know whether to push for stage 2, the review-y bit?

Important omission - she was predicted a 9, so the 9 is more normal for her than the 5, which she has never got before.

This is potato potahto stuff. We all know what we mean.

But you also have the schools that don't cover. My kid always got 9s in England lit.. Last year she got an 8 in actual GCSE, a pint off a 9. The school suggested we get it remarked. We had to pay. We are fortunate in that we could afford to. She gained 15 extra marks. Others are not in that position and would not get the grade they deserve

Some schools have a blanket "no checking" policy.
Some will charge you for someone to check.
Some will ask experienced staff to do it for free.

It sounds like your school is in the former category. You won't know if it's been marked correctly without some advice. It's worth comparing the marks across both papers to see if anything looks awry because the skills are the same.

But if they won't look or advise - and they don't have to because the students are no longer on roll - then you will have to decide what to do yourselves.

If the mark goes up, you get a refund.
Sometimes the school pays for remarks based on unexpected results.
But you need to be aware that the grade can also go down!

I was advised by the school to get my daughter’s paper re checked last year as she was 1 mark off a 4 in her English lit. We paid for both papers. I believe that those on free school meals would have had if paid. I’m on universal credit so still a lower income family but didn’t qualify for help. The marks didn’t change. English lit isn’t the one needed and she got much higher grades for her other exams so didn’t need to do any resits either.