Year 12 - 2025/2026: Here we go again!

[QueenMabby]

A new thread for the new school and college year. A friendly thread for parents of those going into year 12 in September 2025.

On that subject, I was also thinking that if a lot of grades do go up (say 20%), then should they not adjust the grade boundaries and knock down everyone who only squeaked onto the grade? As clearly it would mean they were giving out more higher grades than intended.
I guess though that the number going up are just a tiny proportion. I am glad not to have to go through this again though, my trust in the system has been broken.

@clary thanks for replying.
He was predicted a 7 but wasn’t near that and to be honest came out of every exam he did saying it was fine.
No bridging work was set for any subject at his new college.
He said he knew he would have work hard but I think he already feels down about it after just one lesson. I did have a feeling he would struggle having done French myself many moons ago at this level- let’s see what the next few weeks bring -I want to be positive but equally there is a short window to swap.

This is why I like our schools policy of starting 4 subjects and dropping to three within the first term. Subjects can be very different at A level and some are completely new.

@TheyNotLikeUs - with Maths we weren’t concerned because she would have to lose a lot of marks to drop a grade and I’m not sure you can mark maths that badly to warrant that. I will be double checking both German and geography if the teachers suggest a review because dd is quite happy with her 7s and wouldn’t want to risk losing them!

Ds has a full timetable, barely any breaks so I've decided he can stay at home Monday morning which is the only day on his fortnightly timetable that he doesn't have a lesson till 1.30. All other days it's full days. It's tough this doing 4 till October 1/2 term.

i emailed last week because unfortunately he's again sat next to the girl who well basically smells. I complained 4 times previously as he kept being sat next to her. Couldn't believe he was again. He didn't want me to email, but I just had to.

Took ds's to see Coldplay.
Ds2 now has football every week, he's trying to get as much refereeing as possible aswell.

Dh says he's a nice little driver, so that's coming along nicely too.

@SomersetBrie that’s my thought too! obvs not a serious suggestion but after all, no one ever asks for their grade that is one mark above the boundary to be reviewed. I think tho as you say, only (only!) about 20-30% of reviews lead to a raised grade, and I imagine a tiny % of grades are reviewed at all. So overall it won't make that much difference.

What sort of folders and dividers are you buying? I thought of buying the soft folders for bag carrying. Is that sensible?

@SB1971 sorry I missed your reply! So I think with a mid-range 6 it will be a challenge – mainly because that grade indicates that some of the basic grammar and vocab knowledge may be missing. I suggest that over the next day or so he does some revision of verbs and tenses, and maybe basic vocab for the first topic – which I presume is the changing family and the impact of divorce, so quite a bit of GCSE vocab on the family topic will come up and he may be expected to know it. If that all comes pretty easily then that's a relaly good sign for him.

Re the reviews, I was hoping it was quite unlikely to lose enough marks to go down a whole grade if only one mark beneath the boundary - at least in geography anyway, maybe English is less predictable. Though it probably is true there are less reviews and even fewer actual changes than is would appear just reading on here, to maintain the integrity of the grade boundaries!

Dd has a plain ring binder that she takes to and from school with a divider for each subject. She then has a lever arch file for each subject at home to transfer her weekly work to.

All planned perfectly (and aesthetically!) but now maths has given out exercise books so she has seven of those. And they’re ORANGE - I mean how dare they?? They clash with the colour scheme! 🤣🤣

We don’t need any folders as everything is done online but I don’t know how common that is.

I'm not massively worried - despite being very close to that 3/4 boundary for English Language.

Her marks for the two papers are 3 grades apart and I'm only asking for the lower one to be looked at. I have emailed the teacher to say only submit for review if the marking looks very off. If DD just managed to royally screw up every question and the teacher thinks it was a fair mark then we'll stick with the 4. If it does go in, I will feel slightly sick till it comes back.

With Literature, she got a 6 in one paper and just missed on the second. Given the 5 feels low compared with mocks and her feelings after the exam then I'd like both papers sent for review as we are way off the lower boundary. I also suspect they may have been very harsh due to her dyslexia.

We have folders, think there are online accounts as well.

Folders, just as @QueenMabby described, on normal A4 with dividers for notes for all subjects, transferred to A4 lever arch at home (with dividers)
We have a red, blue, purple scheme here so an orange maths book would indeed upset the colour scheme! (Although I don't think Ratty would be that concerned) - just have to accept a bit of complementary colouring eh @QueenMabby

Have finally seen Ratty's timetable, he only got it yesterday, oh my word, what joy!

Today just, I say just it's a full half day each, but just chemistry and maths, and yesterday was just, although all day, but just physics.

Oh how good is this.

I know it's going to be hard and intense, but just the subjects he loves/enjoys.

Not heard back from old school about Eng Lang remark yet, but they emailed him about asking if they could get his physics remarked as he was two marks off a 9, I thought, why bother? But he had ready sent the "yes by all means go ahead" emailed back by the time he talked to me!

@frozendaisydo your school pay for the remark? Or was that a case of ‘oh I’ll just pay the £50, thanks for checking’ 😂

@labradorservant no idea!
We are depending on Ratty communicating accurately to us about what him and his old school are cooking up, so you can imagine how effective that is!

English Language is prioritised, but depending on what they're applying for they do look at the English Literature as well. Obviously the higher in both the better, but universities tend to be looking at a 5/6 for Langauage. Depending on each uni, many London ones are 6s not 5s and occasionally for competitive courses 7s, though that may be in practice rather than specifically detailed on requirements.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow Assuming she did AQA English Lit, as the most common. Paper 1 has only 4 SPaG marks extra, so Q1 and Q2 are both 30 marks (not any SPaG), and then there's an extra 4 SPaG marks for Q1, the Shakespeare question.

For Paper 2, there's 3 sections, only Section A (modern play/text), has an extra 4 marks again for SPaG, the question is already 30 marks on its own. Neither Section B, or C have any SPaG marks involved.

So examiners could only in those questions directly penalise for things like spelling, or grammar. However for everything else, including the inital 30 marks, they should be going by flow, writers voice etc and coherence. Even if there's inaccurate SPaG if the points are clearly explained and it still makes sense, they really shouldn't be penalising like that, it should be specific to the AOs and also it's not penalising as its positive marking scheme, so they look to reward you as much as they can.

@TheLivelyViper she's Edexcel for both English Lit and Lang.

Unfortunately, her dyslexia is severe and without editing software it will affect spelling and syntax the worst, and punctuation and grammar to a degree.

As an poster - who is an examiner - on the Review of English thread says, there are cases where SPaG is marked when it shouldn't be, or examiners basically can't be bothered to work out what the student is saying (handwriting, or dyslexics affected).

Lit the marks are low compared with mocks and how her tutor felt she would score, and compared with how she felt papers had gone (she was really hoping for a 7/8), and Lang is just weird with almost 3 grades difference between papers.

Well, my dd's geography didn't go up - which possibly illustrates the point that most don't! Not too much of an issue as she got an 8 and I think universities often don't distinguish really between 8 and 9.

She has found 6th form tiring so far and a bit alarmed by the sudden increasing demand of work, especially chemistry and biology though she was expecting it. She has been quite good about private study too so far, so hopefully that will continue. She decided not to do an EPQ, as she has signed up for silver D of E and they take place in the same enrichment time. Apparently they have been told to start organising work experience now for next July so that is something else to stress about 😂

We're still waiting for any news about daughter's remark school said they were sending 3 subjects as all within 1 mark of the boundaries.
She was however asked to sign something so school could get her psychology papers back as school want them to teach the year 10/11 students, which made me very proud.
She's tired being back but enjoying just doing things she wants to, I can't understand what shes doing already so I guess that's setting the stage for the next two years 🤣

@TheLivelyViper thank you that’s really useful . DS has 7 in English Language so hopefully that helps offset the 5 in literature . We are commutable to London - but I think his overall grades have made that quite hard anyway (88877776654) ( which sounds nuts as he has way better grades than I got) He’s doing Further Maths Maths Physics and Computer Science -currently pretty shattered so I think a resit would probably push him over the edge . Probably best to work with what he has I think . @Mafaldaweasley not just your DC that is shattered if that is any comfort … mine perked up a bit as I have managed to book his first driving lesson for the weekend . Heads up to those who’s DC aren’t yet 17 .. start talking to driving instructors earlier than I did if they want to start straightaway .. most I spoke to in August didn’t have availability until November or even the New Year

Yes well that shouldn't happen, but examiners have lots to mark and so can happen, if they don't or can't be bothered to spend the time trying to understand a students work if it's more complicated, they often just won't. Not just for kids with dyslexia, but bad handwriting, too many things crossed out and then arrows etc, many just spend 1 minute and if they can't work it out, they mark what they can and move on.

Did she not type her exams? Or the school didn't get her a scribe, as if her problems were that bad, they should have tried to go down that line so that it's not up to the examiner she got, and not just the examiner but when they have to mark it, if it's late and they're tired, they have a lot less patience for something like that, which they shouldn't but obviously happens.

@waitingquietly I wouldn't bother resitting unless he'll properly spend the time revising it and practing questions etc, which will be harder whilst doing 4 A-levels. Looking at his subjects, they'll be less likely to penalise for his English Literature as I'm guessing he's not aiming for a Humanities or Arts subject so he'll likely be okay, as the Language grade is high as well.

@TheLivelyViper she types all her papers (has used laptop for everything since Y6).

I asked for the possibility of losing SPaG marks and having spell check and editing software enabled, but was told not possible (or she didn't tick enough boxes).

My concern - and why I asked for the option of having the editing enabled - was precisely because her papers are hard to read in the same way as someone with very poor handwriting. You often have to read a sentence a couple of times to understand what she is saying because of syntax issues.

Unfortunately the SEN dept seemed to have zero help or support available for dyslexics so was a bit of a losing battle for many years.

I tried pointing out the discrepancy between her BTEC essays - done with spell check and editor where she got 98% as lowest grade, and her English exams where it was turned off.

That's quite poor of them, the regulations are tight for software like that, but in her case, it looks as if she'd be accepted. Though it is very hard to get such editing features for GCSE I know, despite evidence, they want to keep the numbers as small as possible because they say that then it's not a true reflection and it blurries fair SPaG marks compared to others but obviously in her case examiners will likely just not bother to properly read it slowly as it will take time and as they have no information on the candidates they won't know that it's due to dyslexia. Whereas in universities, they often have schemes for that, considerate marking etc, where they inform examiners about x issues and so students with dyslexia for example won't be penalised for bad spelling for example. It works quite well but obviously a harder role out nationally for something like GCSEs. That's why I asked about a scribe, as that could have off set some of those potential problems, but again difficult requirements.

Are you in Essex county Council? Just as they have stopped funding or accepting any diagnosis for dyslexia, they've essentially said they don't believe in it, so now where kids would be having an Ed Psych assessment for it, they no longer can in Essex. It's causing major issues especially when kids with later diagnoses are trying to apply for things like DSA etc and lack speicifc pieces of evidence.

I understand the examiners POV, but the impact it has on students grades is to big for that excuse to be acceptable, though it often happens. In fact as someone whose talked to many examiners, many did remark if (even though they remained fair), they were more harsh unconsciously with those essays they marked late at night, when tired or close to the deadline. Were they unknowingly more harsh with them, or if they had poor handwriting less willing/patient to try and understand it.

What ones have you put up for review? It may still be a luck of the draw, on getting someone willing to actually spend the time, whereas her teacher would have been, the examiners may not have. I'm very sorry for her, as it's not a level playing field for someone like her if you block her from the software and other adjustments to make it one.