Question re A level missed grades going to review of marks

[Boysarefab]

My DS missed his firm and insurance by a few marks so was rejected by his chosen uni's. Teachers suggested a priority remark on the two subjects. He has offers in clearing which we may accept one of but if after the review he gets the grades he needed for the original firm or insurance do they have to honour it? The dilemma is that we only have a couple of days to accept the clearing place and be also guaranteed accommodation and the review will take longer than that. Anyone have any experience of this and what happened. Thanks

Thanks - we're waiting for history.

Can anyone clarify that I’m correct in my thinking, please?

DD sat WJEC English lit.
Her result sheet shows UMS marks, not raw marks.
She is 4 UMS away from the next grade band up, so the HoD suggested a review of marking.

However, am I correct in thinking that raw marks carry different values to UMS marks, and therefore, 4 UMS may actually mean she’s actually further away in raw marks which means there’s no point in asking for a review?

DD got a remark for physics in 2019 and went up a grade. We have had a gew GCSE's remarked over 4 children, they usually come back very quick,in a day or 2

@Zott I know exactly what you mean! DS had missed a lot of school but did work hard for his exams. He was on the money with his other papers in terms of how they went. For example, he knew maths papers 1 and 2 had gone really well and paper 3 was brutal. When he got his strong A and then the teacher showed him his breakdown: spot on in his own estimation. Now, for politics, he felt these had all gone super well with a strong showing in paper 2. He is one mark off an A - no issues with his Firm and normally would not bother but he wants closure: did he go wrong or is something amiss? Given he had not over estimated his other exams, is very curious. . School suggested a non priority review of marking and are waiting for the teachers to come back to look at the scripts and see which one to send.

Meanwhile, his best mate is waiting a priority review for maths for his Firm. mate got a B - one mark off - and has always been stronger at maths than DS. We are really hoping for him!

I hope everyone gets what they need.

Politics is the one that seems to be the most problematical. True to life!

@ZandathePanda That made me laugh!

I have an old uni friend who is a team leader for AQA History and AQA politics. He will also be a reviewer for review of marking. These are his insights:

Because there is a tolerance level then a marker giving 15/20, 16/20 or 17/20 is seen as ok. This can bite those on the border of two grades but someone has to be on the border.

However, markers get approx 5-10 mins to mark a two hour script (within pay rates). For those who have 'internalised the standard' and/or are prepared to stand back from something a bit more novel and take more time then usually fine. But, if markers are rushed or less experienced and afraid of the seeding they do to check they are within the tolerance level, they tend to squeeze at the lowest mark. While marking schemes are reviewed and updated during standardisation, and while team leaders can support markers who are unsure, some markers don't ask for help and stick to the lowest tolerance level. Also, mark schemes say credit other valid ideas: but unless markers ask for support, then things can be missed/squeezed.

However, while all this means not many grades change via the review, some do if unreasonable academic judgement (outside of the tolerance level and where markers have not asked for help) occur: and sometimes this does happen. There have also been some rarer instances where input of marks has been a keyboard error and also where marks have not been inputted.

So glad I teach at a uni where we don't have this going on!

Any success stories of going up by 4 marks in a review of marking? Considering asking for a review as unlikely to drop down to grade below.

Our review is back and there is no change to DD's mark, which was one point short of an A*. It doesn't make any difference to her uni place, but I'm relieved they didn't knock anything off!

@HarrietDVane that's a shame, it was worth a go. Probably dreaming here with the gaining 4 marks!

We did an English Lit one too (I think OCR) - was 2 marks off but remark came back identical which was disappointing but quick!

No the university is under no obligation to still offer a space though I’d have thought if they still have spaces they will. I’m an academic and we’re often in this situation. Last year we rejected two people on A level day due to not making their grades, their places were immediately filled. They rang back 2 days later to say they’d now had their grades increased but it was too late, we didn’t have capacity to take them.

Really sorry to hear where they have not gone up: but seems this is the odds.

We weren't too bothered as obviously DD's university place was confirmed either way - it would have been nice to get the A* but that's life. We wouldn't have appealed if DD's head if dept hadn't pushed for it. I feel more for people whose university places are jeopardised.

I think that if you ask for any paper to be ready-marked then all should be. Selecting only the disappointing ones introduces too much if a bias in favour of the more pushy.

@HarrietDVane same here as in makes no difference to uni place etc! DS's best mate is an agonising wait for a maths review of 1 mark and his firm depends on it. it is really hard for those waiting re uni places!

Just a quick post; AQA is all over the Press today for probable grading errors, including students being marked as absent when they were in exams. AQA have not got back reviews of marking for a lot of A level students awaiting uni places.

Did anyone else have a successful remark? One essay question was very low on a paper (never got as low before) Dd got back so we got a non priority review. Gained lots more marks to clearly go into an A*. Wasn’t needed for university but it was nice for her to get the recognition for herself.

Yes! One mark off a B (extremely disappointed son who usually gets a high B or an A in this subject) the remark gave him a B but only just! Wasn’t needed for university but DS was pleased.

That’s great Zott.
It would have been good for Dd to get the right grade to begin with but the validation now is nice too.

We did! One mark off an A for Politics and two papers went for review and both went up -by quite a bit! Again wasn't needed for uni but it felt off and teacher said it was likely wrong. Glad others got justice, too!

We had the same issue as @zott but DD was 1 mark off a B for Physics - I wish I'd found this thread on 19th August! 😁

Not one of the teachers were available on the week of results! We felt quite abandoned by school which is a shame as they had been great overall until this. I didn't get a reply from head of science until the day after GCSE results. Consequently, they didn't get hold of her papers and so they blindly recommended a remark of paper 3 based on one teacher's experience of having marked it but not seeing DD's actual paper. The result was that she lost 2 marks! So we asked for a remark of paper 2 as we knew that she wouldn't go down a grade but it did mean that she now needed 3 marks to move up a grade. I wasn't feeling confident of getting 3 extra marks at this stage. Well, it worked and she was awarded a B. Phew!

I'm now wondering if I can request school to reprint her results or if we use the remark email. What has everyone else done?

@BriocheForBreakfast that’s great!

DS was A levels but I remember a couple of months after GCSE results we were given certificates by the school from each exam board so I would just check your certificates (and file as carefully as passports!) when they come and keep the remark email as proof should there be a mistake.

The school email had an attachment with a letter from the exam board detailing the new result so I told Dd to store this safe (so she forwarded it to me)!

Thanks @zott. Sorry I wasn't very clear but DD was A levels too. It took the school over a week to advise us that a remark would be a good idea and then another week to advise on which paper.

I'll do as @ZandathePanda suggests and store the remark document.

@tryingmybest13 on reflection, I just thought I would come back and thank you for the post you did as it encouraged Dd to ask for a review. There was one paper she did which she thought she’d ‘smashed’ and got the lowest marks. When she got it back, the marks seems to be 2-3 marks lower of every question but the review of that one came back very quickly unchanged. She was disheartened but I mentioned your comment. The other paper that went in, she thought was accurate until the first essay question where she got 40% on which she thought was worth so much more. She’s never got less than two thirds. So this paper went in and she gained 8 more marks. We think it must just have been this one answer.
Which fits in with what you said.