Going to university (2019/20 academic year) - finance, flat shares, friends old and new and freshers' week to come...

[NewModelArmyMayhem18]

Following on from thread 8 which filled up in just 72 hours.

Its either that cheap and cheerful kitchen set, or he has some of our still usable but not great pans and we buy some more expensive ones..

zanda that's great news!

By missed off , do you mean undermarked by 8 , or literally that a clerical check found 8 unadded marks. If it's the latter, that's so poor in an essay based subject!

Hope not outing myself here but Edexcel Politics. Paid a cheque (now hopefully ripped up!) to the exam officer at school on Thursday. I think the script was seen but dont know who by. Teacher was very confident she should have got many more marks though were not going to have others remarked.

Same board as my DS! His friend , I know, was shocked by his D in politics (predicted a B) and has a remark pending so will be interesting to see how that goes.

So, sounds like undermarking. They probably won't get more remarked because of the costs.

Politics is one of 'those' subjects, of course. They need a more robust marking system with these essay subjects but I can't think what it could be.

Very odd politics results at Dd’s school. Someone got an A that was getting Ds. Lot of A/A pupils got Bs. Another B/C got an A. Teacher said they were ok overall as a cohort but very unpredictable in who got what.
The exam itself was a bit disconcerting. One of the questions was on Brexit and phrased in the past tense so they obviously hadnt kept up!

Lots of you commenting on how many marks short of a grade their dc's were. We have nothing on the certificates showing how many marks he got. Just the grade. How do you find out please?

@zanda Great news! It’s great that they’ve recognised their error and that you’ve got the right result as it would be depressing to end up with grades that don’t reflect the standards shown through the years of sixth form. It’s really a poor system where these important results can be so variable, and when access to reviews depends on the willingness to pay for a review.

@icanbewhatiwant your school exams officer or subject teacher will have a breakdown of the raw marks

Back from liverpool and got private city centre accommodation for 1500.less than uni one (if you include the bus fare too) From tears to smiles!

Yes. Feel bad we were willing to pay but a friend’s mum wouldn’t. They should get it right in the first place.

That sounds like a good deal @RedHelenB!

How was the trip to York those who were dong a visit today?

Dd 'only' got a B in 2 subjects but had been predicted an A and got A in her AS and mocks. She was particularly disappointed in 2 papers where she got a (very high) C.

So I have phoned the exam people at her sixth form.
They are clear it may well not make any difference to her overall grade. But have suggested I ask for copies of her scripts for this years exams. Which i have. Costs £11 each which is a lot less than a remark..
When I get them tomorrow I then forward them to the correct tutor for the subject and ask them to review it (for free) to see if they think her marks are fair. And if not that's when we pursue a remark. At least that way we know that the marks have had a 2nd opinion whether they are fair and right.

I think Edexcel is the exam board where you can see scripts for free so that's why a teacher will have looked at the politics paper.

I think it's rubbish that the different exam boards have different charges and some allow papers to be seen for free. DS commented: "That's what you get in a market economy."

Sadly, he is correct! I don't think it has made more schools adopt Edexcel, mind! Largely because decisions are based on content and reputation.

OCR favoured by DS's school charges the top whack!

nabbed the argos mini kit and the £3 chopping boards.

Any suggestions for cheap crockery? Don't want sets, just individual unless its super cheap.

Charity shops had crockery around here. And I loved the tip re take patterned stuff so you can tell it's yours.

Dd has been to the gp and checked. She's had a full medication review so her repeat script is up to date and she has been told she has had the meningitis jabs.
Opticians tomorrow for the last free checkup she can have.

@DrMadelineMaxwell We're going through the exact same thing. Son got A* for 2 of his subjects in the end of Y12 exams and for his mocks but got B's in the final exams. He was so shocked! We found out yesterday he was 4 marks off an A in each subject so we're getting his scripts back too and asking his teachers to see whether it's worth getting them re-marked.

Fingers crossed!

The receptionist at the GP's didn't know what the meningitis jab was. Sigh. He's to phone back tomorrow when the receptionist who knows what she isdoing is in! Mind you the GP didn't seem to know either & said to ask reception (he's new apparently!).

Piggy sorry just seen your post. Undermarked by 8. Teacher reckoned more but we’ll take that!

Mustbetime is it worth trying to speak to the practice nurse - they can be very clued up on vaccinations. Ours was very helpful. Ask for a call back?

Entschuld that is interesting - general advice at dc's school is that it's probably not worth it if it's less than 2 marks under - though that does seem a very narrow margin (even more so having heard about Zanda!).

Whether it's worth it may also depend on whether they need the grades for a particular university place I suppose - although if they've 'earned' a higher grade they should get it anyway! Is your school confident that 4 marks below runs very little risk of going down a grade?

The reason they say 2 is because of fear of the marks going down (and the risk of opening floodgates, too!) but this does remain rare (I would say 1 in about 20 remarks are reduced and usually this doesn't involve a drop in grade). Grade boundaries at A Level are usually wide. For example, my DS is 5 marks off the next grade up in Spanish but would have to lose all of the marks he got in the paper itself to go down a grade!