Are remarks/review of marking just for the wealthy?

[runner2023]

I have 2 friends whose children have sat exams this year.

Parent A: Her DD got 4 A stars and an A last year for A level and had a place at Oxford. Parent A put in for a remark for the A grade and her DD then was awarded 5 A stars.
Today her DS got 2 x 6s in English, she requesting remarks and also for maths and physics because DS 'only' got an 8 and she would like 9s. This must be costing her a fortune to have 4 subjects remarked. He got 9999998877766. They are well off.

Parent B: DD got AAC and needed AAB for a place at the LSE (contextual as she goes to a low achieving school). She lost her firm and is going to City University instead. She was 3 marks off a B grade, but parent B can not afford a remark and said it the same cost as a week's shopping. Her DD is fine with going to her insurance. The family has 4 children. They are not on the breadline but money is tight.

It seems the wealthy are able to request remarks at the drop of a hat. This seems very unfair.

Again, read my follow up. Ofsted will investigate because schools use that tactics to boost data tables.

Usually the head of dept will decide if a remark is necessary. 3 marks off is usually the maximum. Also for a subject like English teachers tend to go for remarks as they can pick them up when asked again due to the nature of the subject. With Science and particularly Maths it’s not as straightforward due to the types of questions - it’s either right or wrong usually. We put some remarks in last week and none came back - we had some students that were only 1 or 2 marks away. It is nothing to do with the wealth of a parent. At my school we pay for the remarks. But obviously this is dependent on the school and their budgets.

Actually no within the national curriculum they are KS 4 assessments. KS4 is Yrs 10 + 11. A 2 year course for KS4

Bridget Phillipson should be addressing this as Education secretary as there is not just a financial aspect to this but also a school aspect, whereby only some schools have staff available and proactive to review papers and suggest marking reviews, and fund these reviews. We have had teachers on these threads saying they do this and others arguing that they won’t use their holiday time for this. This system is wrong and unfair.

But even more than that, there needs to be better accountability at the exam boards and OFQUAL. It is simply not right that papers are being graded with many marks missing which costs students their university places or 6th form places or costs them a lot of money upfront to investigate.

Those responsible for the style, timetable and quality-control of these public exams are at fault and the govt should be holding them to account. I have seen no discussion of this in the press - if there are any journalists out there, this is a big story and the govt needs to be made to focus on it. This is the source of the problem and sorting this out will be better than any fixes to the review system.

Secondly, there should be a statutory national system for schools in how they support pupils with unexpected results so that ALL pupils have access to reviews and it’s not reliant on teacher goodwill.

Thirdly, within certain parameters eg within 5 marks of grade boundary, reviews should be available for no fees. This should be funded collectively by the exam boards.

These are just my suggested solutions, there may be better ideas, but at the moment the govt/exam boards are ignoring the problem and students suffer.

Investigate what?

People can take as many GCSEs as they like and feel capable of. It's only going to boost the school's position in the league tables if the child gets good grades, in which case it was the right decision for them to take the exam and why shouldn't the school get some credit?

@twistyizzy
obe of my DD’s did 13 GCSE’s the other 12, both did 4 levels plus epq, quote school dependent. State schools I should add, not grammar and poor educational achievement area

Yet data shows only 0.1% ie 390 pupils do this. So they must all be on this thread

Ofsted don't like the practice of sitting GCSEs early either. They will challenge and inspect the reasons behind the practice. The concern is that a school's primary motivation for early entry might be to boost its league table performance rather than for the pupil's benefit. So, whilst early entry is permitted for many students, Ofsted will question whether it truly serves the pupil's interests and learning

That's taken from Ofsted themselves so ask them

Firstly we need a post-qualification admissions system. For so very many reasons, the teacher-astrology of predicted grades and the subsequent stress of not knowing where you're going for definite until a few weeks beforehand, the clearing scrabbling, the priority reviews of scripts etc, etc. God it's madness it really it is.

Secondly, of course it's unfair that the financially comfortable can get a review of marks without worrying about the money. Didn't stop us doing one recently - school encouraged it because she's was one mark off an A star. Turns out she'd been under-marked by 10% on just one paper. Which bearing in mind there weren't many spare marks to be had is something else. Why wouldn't we want to remedy this since there's a system to do so?

We have refused the refund and have asked if it be put in a pot that the school has to help FSM students.

It would have helped if you hadn't started with 'no one takes 13 GSCEs' which felt like an attempt to discredit the OP, when in fact it's not no one. And the stats you're quoting are children taking all those GCSEs in 2024 rather than children who may have got their grades across years. Yes, it's rare to have 13 GCSEs, but not that rare. I did two in a year after my lower sixth - one in my spare time through a club (nothing to do with my school) and one as a complement to one of my A levels taught in a school club. Lots of schools, including state schools, offer these sorts of opportunities, and as I said one of our local state schools does enter some of its kids for this many subjects in year 11 having started the majority off on the courses in year 10 (which I think is a dreadful approach).

In my 2nd comment I accepted my error

I feel sorry for the girl from a poor background who didn’t get into LSE but could have for a £50 remark.

LSE could have changed her life chances hugely.

Some Unis have that cache and open doors and LSE is one of them. I hope it’s not too late and someone helps find the money.

They have to start in Yr 10, GCSEs are a KS 4 course

Not 13 subjects though? That's what I disagree with.

Well no because most kids don't do 13, at any stage. The majority of adults in UK have 8-9 GCSEs
Some may have more but the majority don't. Very very few do 13 GCSEs ever

But the very specific point I was making was that I disagreed with the local school that routinely starts all year 10 pupils on 13 GCSE courses. Nothing wider than that.

How on earth did they timetable that? Surely there is only the time for 10 in school hours? The only people I know with more than 10 did others out of school or they did extras in their lunch or after school. To timetable 13 for everyone seems crazy and I just can’t see how they do it.

The updated statistics for 2025 are here. However, they don’t cover the OP’s situation. Neither do the statistics mentioned by a pp. The 2025 statistics only cover those say in the summer 2025 series. Not GCSEs eat early. Therefore, while less than 0.1% of 16 year olds sit 12+ GCSEs in Y11, the boy in the OP wouldn’t be included in that statistics.

DCs school paid for a re-mark on A level FMaths as it was 1 point short of an A. They said in instances like that they would always request a copy of the paper, to see if it was warranted. In DCs case both maths teachers who had experience of marking A levels agreed they could see where 4 more marks should have been given so sent it off for a re-mark. Unfortunately it came back with the exact same score - so there was no more that could be done after that.

DC now has to apparently “live his life with the embarrassment of getting a B” which is of course ridiculous, and I told them so. You got your uni place, you learnt the content you were supposed to. As long as you got to the intended next step in your education it’s all good - nobody will stop you in the street an ask your grades! In fact on applying for yr3 placement (in yr2) the only academic information that was required was your yr1 uni marks, on the obvious assumption that if you’re doing that particular degree you have the requisite qualifications to gain entry on the course.

I have no idea! The whole thing sounds batshit to me. It's being done to appeal to the parents who would rather their children went to independent school but can't afford it and is part of a general attempt to look different and ambitious, but I suspect in reality it's a mess.

Yes that's the data I used.

I don’t know a single private school that timetables more than 10. My child’s school offers at least 2 extra gcse but it is a lunchtime club twice a week for 2 years. I literally can’t fathom where there is a 3rd extra time in the timetable. 10 was hard enough.

Because these posters talking about 13 GCSEs are saying some were sat in Yr 10 which means schools are teaching content in Yr 9. I know many do start end of Yr 9, especially with sciences/maths but the fact remains majority of kids sit 8-9 not 13

I seem to remember from our tour of local secondaries a few years back that quite a few started the GCSE syllabus at the start of year 9 for maths.

I'm surprised Ofsted don't have better things to do with their time tbh.

What are the consequences if Ofsted decide they are unhappy that children are getting too many qualifications and the school is doing too well in the league tables?