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.

Good luck @OhCrumbsWhereNow - definitely sounds worth a look in both cases.

Amazing that some schools have been so on it that remarks are coming back already.

I'm just dealing with dd's today. Mixed with the teacher help. I understand they do this out of the kindness of their hearts but such different responses.

English Lang (one mark of 9) - spectacularly helpful and kind
Drama (two marks off 9) had already requested paper before we even emailed but seems unsure on process.
Combined Science (three marks off 9/9) really really unhelpful and dismissive. I do wonder whether it is because it is combined she's done and she doesn't know the head of department as she does on the other subjects. I'm going to request the papers anyway to see whether a relative can work out if any need to go in for a remark. Probably not, but I would rather someone saw it.

We've got an A-Level one in as well (for Politics) where the teacher went through all papers and identified in priority order which should go in without us asking. Was so incredibly grateful to him, but it's a non-priority mark as she's already into her uni so that might take a while.

@SuperSue77 It's a fairly mixed cohort in November - obviously a lot aiming but the 4 but a range of others too

Just checking in 😅

Thanks @Elevenmillion we are really proud of how hard she worked - also got a 3 in English language in year 10 mocks and then seemed to go up a grade at each subsequent test but never had more than a 6; part of me was worried the 9 might be a mistake, but she had
similar marks in papers 1 and 2 and an 8 in lit so I guess it just shows consistent improvement.

Hoping it has given her a confidence boost as she always talks about friends who are 'naturally good at everything' and 'really smart' and she has done comparably - yes, she had to work but I'm hoping this will give her an edge in A level as she has learned how to revise!

Not got any textbooks yet - need to check with her if school have recommended any, buy we used the CGP ones for GCSE which were really good. I got her 2 of their 'bridging the gap' books for chem and biology though doubt she has opened them yet!

DD2 starts lessons Monday - but has a tutorial and a fresher fair - which is some campus information and stalls to go round - this Friday.

She has access to her timetable already - no clashes as she doing an odd mix that was a worry. It seems very soon. Have a few more weeks till DS need to be up at Uni but starting to book things for that as well.

DD2 inherited a lot of text books - DD1 did one subject in common and DS another - but she has two bridging books I doubt she's opened and some bridging work she sort of started but will need to get done in next few days.

Will wait to be told about any more needed.

I think Edexcel paper 2 is worth more than paper 1. Possible 60%?

Yes it is, but she got 47% on Paper 1 and 62% on Paper 2, so significant difference percentage wise.

Every other exam she took, she was within 2 or 3% of the same mark on each paper - maths she got exactly the same mark on all of them.

Given Paper 1 was her preferred paper on the day, and the one she generally gets better results in, it seems anomalous to have 15% difference.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow i think you’re doing the right thing. If the teacher has agreed to take a look then it’s a no brainer as you’ll both always wonder. Good luck!! 🤞🏼

Agree that I will always wonder. Haven't heard from teachers yet - but I did say that we are not a priority (have everything needed to progress) so to focus on those who are first and we're happy to wait.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow fingers crossed for her - I reckon you're absolutely doing the right thing by having it reviewed by a teacher and then you'll know. We had this with A-Levels - teachers recommended one subject should go in and the other shouldn't, and we felt so much more like we'd done the right thing knowing an expert in the subject had seen it as just seeing the papers and marks meant absolutely nothing to us as a lay person, the comments on them may as well have been in code!

@OhCrumbsWhereNow i think you’re doing the right thing. If the teacher has agreed to take a look then it’s a no brainer as you’ll both always wonder. Good luck!! 🤞🏼

Fingers crossed for all those awaiting reviews. One of my friends is reviewing for her exam board and is working hard every day to get through them all!

Dd starts back at her school next Wednesday. She won’t get her form or timetable until then. We’ve had the co-curricular timetable out though so she can plan in her music stuff. She’s also hoping to do the Crest Gold award which will
look good on her personal statement.

She’s started to waver towards medicine after years of being chemistry / biochemistry focussed so that’s a whole new thing I’ll have to learn about!

We’ve submitted 5 reviews and had 2 back. One I posted about Friday last week - music - gained one mark but he needed two to move from a 7 to 8. Had another back this morning - computer science - gained 3 marks and has moved up from and 8 to a 9. Yay! Now means he’s got 5x9s across all sciences, comp sci and maths - which is very good for someone hoping to do a maths/science degree.

Am really hoping for some luck with the English language review (his one grade at a 6). Less fussed about the other two (English Lit/Business) but wouldn’t say no to an uplift if they find it!

Thanks for the new thread @QueenMabby!

DD1 is doing her bridging work for her supposed "favourite" subject but all I've heard this morning is moans about how tedious it is...

I'm very interested hearing about the grade reviews as DD2 hasn't told us anything further about hers, I managed to winkle out the information that she has received the scripts, but no idea whether her teachers have finished looking at them or what they've decided or anything! I assume nothing has gone for review because somebody would have asked me for money!

@mojobrojo that's great to hear - you must be thrilled on computer science. Fingers crossed for the others.

I've just filled in the form for the first of DD2's. Not feeling hopeful I must admit, but I'll always wonder if we don't try, and it is the teacher's recommendation that we do.

Hey everyone, I wanted to answer a couple of things mentioned on the other thread - hope that that is OK.

I seem to have said this on a lot of threads lately but @SuperSue77 please don’t worry about your DD’s marvellous grades not being good enough bc they are not all 9s. In 2024 about 1,200 students in the whole country gained all grade 9s (when doing 7 or more GCSEs); assuming similar numbers this year, it seems very unlikely that as many as a quarter of them will apply to fill the 300+ places to study med at Nottingham. I am sure your DD’s score will be just fine.

In response to another post about grades, I do very much agree that qualifications suitable for students who are not suited to GCSEs should at least be offered instead of GCSEs. But it’s clearly not feasible for everyone to get a “passing” grade (say if that’s a grade 4) at GCSE maths and English.

I agree there are issues with marking – in fact some boards were really struggling to recruit markers for some subjects. However there may be lots of reasons for that which could be sorted – the pay is not very good for example, so I know of a number of markers who have stopped doing it this year. If that were improved, there might be a better pool of experienced and knowledgeable markers and mistakes would decrease.

Wonderful news! We’re waiting on 2 reviews, both submitted on results day and hoping for similar!

Further update - had English Lit back too now. Also been upgraded to a 9. Went up by 10 marks!

I think we’ll be pushing our luck to get English Lang upgraded too but I’m hoping - we put that one in Friday whilst the others went in Thursday though so we might be waiting for a bit longer.

We have requested the papers for English Lit and English Lang so we can ask the teachers to take a look.

Predicted 8 in Language and 7 in Literature & achieved those grades in the mocks. Distinction for speech. GCSE grades 2 x 6s.
AQA Lit score was mid 6.
Don’t know their score for Language as yet.
Awarded 9 & 8 in other essay based GCSEs.
DC thankfully unbothered as not planning on doing English at A level. 6 is also a perfectly good grade but I am curious. It’s made me realise I haven’t seen any of my DCs English work or practice papers before! Unlike other subjects everything related to English stayed at school. I think I was quite blasé as their marks were always 7+ so foolishly assumed it was in the bag. I have other DC coming up to GCSEs so I’m going to kerp a more active eye on it. I wish I’d got a tutor to do a few past papers with them as DC may not have been savvy about the mark scheme. They had attended the school invitation only high grade extra lessons though. So I will be interested to see the papers and the teachers thoughts on the marking. Looking at the overall stats for reviews it’s unlikely to change my DCs grades but i would like to look at what happened.

@clary @SuperSue77 I looked at the numbers for this year it's around 1300 (0.2%) who did 7 or more GCSEs and got straight 9s. It's on gov.uk qualification results in England summer 2025. 5.5% got all 7s or above in 7+ GCSEs.

Wow @mojobrojo your reviews are going well!

How has this experience left you feeling about the entire exam process? To be honest I feel a bit mistrustful of it now!
Also did you pay for each paper to be remarked or just one for each subject? How much has it cost?

There we go then – 1300 people are not all even going to go to uni maybe, and certainly they will be spread out among a number of universities and of course many different courses. I am prepared to bet that the actual number of “all 9s” applying specifically for medicine at Nottingham will be in the tens at most – and the uni has 300 places for med.

I know that we hope that our DC will maximise their opportunities in every way, but honestly it’s come to something when 4 9s and 4 8s is not seen as absolutely good enough for any option going forward.

On MN it does sometime seem as tho many DC gain all 9s – but it is a very self-selecting cohort and understandably parents of those YP want to shout about it. I would too! Only on here can I boast that DD in the first year of number grades got full marks for her English lit exam essays! But yunno, someone who dropped a few marks on Shakespeare and Dickens is still more than capable of takig the A level and getting into a top uni.

@mojobrojo wow that’s good news but a 10 mark increase makes you question the marking! How far was the English Lit off the grade boundary originally?

@clary thanks for your insights, really interesting

Wow! Which board was that?

10 marks is massive.

Congratulations and fingers crossed for Language!