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.

Private school, I can't remember re the igcse, it must be. They used to sit it January then mid way through September they announced it had changed to November.

DS and 1 other were the only 2 in their year group allowed to not take the higher paper orr retake foundation in the June, due to SEN.

Well well well. I wonder if the Eng lit missing pages had been scanned? In the olden days of hard copy a marker had to tick every page to prove they’d been seen. The answer booklet pages are numbered - so even when scanned the marker should be able to do the same onscreen.

The bureaucracy of examinations is a thing to behold.

Not sure this is accurate, every year we ask for remark of a number of papers and every year most of them change, some substantially, so not sure where you get your intel on statistics?

I'd look at the question level marks and I'd have asked the student to get me both papers back yesterday.

Something weird happening there. The weird is often the student messing up a question though!

Flashback to last summer there - I remember thinking "what were you thinking??" as I read the offending question.

It did look like they had been scanned as there was a very small tick on each page but no other marking marks on two pages.

At my school we pay for paper reviews if students are one mark from grade boundary and up to 3 marks for students in receipt of PP, any other students who are 2 or 3 marks off are encouraged for review but have to pay.

I have no faith in exam boards - every student we send for review have had their marks increased.

Anyway OP (and others), I hope you find a way for a review.

Thank you so much. Really helpful. I will ring the school this morning and discuss. Completely agree, if she just had a wobbler then it’s totally fine, and you chalk that up to experience.

Thing is that parents didn’t get the paperwork about remarks/reviews. all we saw was the paper copy she collected from school and it was followed at 2pm by an email which only went to child which had a detailed breakdown of scores per paper and what to do if you weren’t happy (reviews etc). Child was out by then commiserating so we didn’t see this or even realise there was this info available until much later on. Not a great system in retrospect. Parents need to see the forms and the breakdowns so they can cast an adult eye. My daughter was resigned to her fate and didn’t think anything was odd, it was only us seeing the disparity in scoring that made us wonder. By then she had blissfully moved on which is a blessing in itself.

They will need the candidate to make the request - they're not your papers after all. Our review info was in the results pack, and on the website so you might find some info there.

I copied in the parents of the kids I contacted yesterday as a means of getting it done, but it's the candidate who needs to do the requesting.

Yes thank you, I know this now so I think what I’ll do is talk to the school first and just gauge the process (ie will someone look at the paper with her) and then approach her to see what she wants to do. She was out late last night at a party so will be sleeping late. If she wants to leave it then we will.

there was nothing on the website at all, which was really disappointing. No pack, just a sheet of paper to get results. No other info to parents so relying on child. My child is bright but disorganised so but for me insisting on logging in to see the whole picture, we’d never know.

When the dust settles, I will suggest to the school that this changes as parents need to see everything as well so they can help their child with any decision. The deadline for action is today so it’s a very tight turnaround. We are first time exam parents so no idea of processes or review info before now. School will quite rightly be focussed on those who have missed what they need for 6th form so kids like mine, who have done really well objectively but not achieved their predicted 8s and 9s across the board, will be understandably low down on the radar.

I emailed both teachers yesterday but nothing back. Assuming they are on holiday and not available.

School submit for re mark if very close. And pay if its their choice.

Head of dept, head teacher or other slt.
Other teachers are still off.

Ah ok. But school was full of teachers? All the teachers I know were in and wanting to know what their students got!

I will redirect!

Voluntarily.

I’m a teacher. We get 14 weeks ‘off’ but none of us think they are actually all holiday. We work in between to get the job done. Most exam year teachers will want to know what their students get and be on hand to help students on exam result day, as posters on here were. I saw a load of them at school but not my daughter’s teachers. Entirely reasonable, but disappointing. I am a ‘go the extra mile’ and hugely nosey about results teacher, but not everyone is.

Totally get it. Work in the sector.

Can anyone advise about whether we should have one of DS GCSE papers reviewed?

He is 3 marks off the grade boundary for an 8 in his preferred A level subject that he wants to carry on at university.

He has one paper has come out a fair bit lower than the others (in grade boundary for 6 on that paper when other papers are comfortable 8)

He has been worrying about the paper in question all summer, because he says he realised he’d got some things wrong, so crossed them out, but then squeezed his subsequent answer into the space above and around higgledy piggledy instead of requesting a fresh answer book or whatever.

He’s worried the marker couldn’t read his writing. (Tbh he has quite messy handwriting at the best of times, so this is very likely).

Is it worth getting it looked at? Or is illegibility/ambiguity of spelling a reason it just couldn’t go up? - in which case he will unfortunately just have to chalk it up to experience.

It’s a modern language writing paper, so accurate spelling is very much being assessed.

No need to actually go in though - every head I've worked for has circulated the results by email. I mean, I do a bit of analysis, speak to colleagues where necessary and respond to student requests but I don't see the need to travel a hour to school and back merely to hang around!

I can see you might want or need to be in if you're HOD of a core subject or SLT, but only the exams officer can organise mark checks and where students have worries about UCAS, they're really best off speaking to the HE advisor.

It's a holiday!

@Longtimelurker1980 the said "the deadline for action is today" - what do you mean?

It's probably not necessary if he's met the entry requirements for the A level, but if it would set his mind at rest, why not? His writing may be bad but it's extremely unlikely to be the worst they've seen; don't worry.

Ask for the paper back and have a look. If we can't read it (and examiners can read most things!), we have to award on what we can read.

I can only only speak for my subject (Economics) but exam boards struggle for markers (their own fault as pay is poor and they treat them.badly) and I find it's not unusual for examiners to miss points not directly stated on the mark scheme, as frankly some of my better A-level students know more than the person marking! So if performance seems uneven between papers or out of keeping with mock results etc, it's well worth checking.

@Longtimelurker1980 - the second paper sounds totally off. I mentioned above that one of my DD’s friends last year had hers remarked and went up by approx 25 marks across two papers and 3 grades! From 6 to 9 in English language. The creative writing piece in particular had been assigned a completely incorrect level, must have been assigned a level 1. However, in her case the English teacher did take a look immediately and advised it was harsh marking/verging on unreasonable. I think DD’s friend had written a quirky story that was descriptive but completely beautiful and artistic - she had won competitions for some of her poetry/writing. So one can see how it could have happened as it was “different”. However, equally other parts of her paper had just been incorrectly marked, literally stuff underlined that was correctly spelt.

Yes, all candidates need to email the school directly and sign the paper as they are taking the risk of a downgrade. In practice, a couple of marks could come off here or there, but chances are your high achieving child will go up.

So that raises the additional point - perhaps it is more parental involvement rather than parental wallet that makes the difference. Our schools also cover the costs for FSM. Especially as they are grammars allocating places to FSM on lower entry points so they are invested in maximising their grades anyway to show that it is working. A lot of the kids anecdotally report that some of the FSM are lower achievers in the cohort.

The letter she got from school said we need to request a review/regrade process by today, 21 August. Is this not correct?

on reflection, comms on this has been super poor from the school. We are both academic professionals but struggling to understand the process here!

Not sure how its all done now but when I left school I worked at some exam boards dealing with remarks/reviews. I, as an 18 yr old, went and found the paper, counted up the points and checked if any questions had been missed and marked it if it had been and then submitted back. I would honestly say ut was 50/50 - but can also go the other way and marks removed if added up incorrectly too.

Schools will absolutely have funds to pay for those they believe should have a remark but probably dont published it so many wouldnt know.