Worth requesting a remark?

[PushItToTheMax]

DD is 3 marks from an A in her best subject, which she is gutted about as she was predicted an A star and her results look well below her normal marks. She is going on to study this subject at uni, will also need postgraduate qualifications.

She is also 1 mark from an A in her 2nd favourite subject - this one was a shock the other way as she’s achieved a lot better than we expected!

She has met her grades for her firm so doesn’t technically need higher grades, but for her best subject especially she’s absolutely gutted and can’t stop crying. I think it’s really knocked her confidence about studying it at uni.

I can just about afford the remark costs but it will be tight. I’m just a bit unsure what to do for the best. We didn’t get to speak to teachers at school this morning as DD was distraught, trying desperately to hold her tears in until she got to the car. I’m trying to reassure her that BBB is actually really good, that she’s in to her firm but it’s not really sinking in.

You seem to be very blithe about this. When are the teachers doing this work? Are they missing out on family time? Are they paying to put their children into child care for £100 per day per child, as a previous poster is? Are they working through the night, as I did? Are they postponing planning and preparation for the year ahead, so that they and all of September's pupils are starting on the back foot? Or is this exclusively the expectation on the single, childless, parentless, teachers who happen to hate travel and holidays, and do you think it is fair to land all of this onto this particular demographic?

How do you think this is happening?

And you understandably seem very bitter about it. We can all agree that teachers are overworked and underpaid - Government funding needs to increase.

However, many teachers see reviewing scripts as a natural part of their role. In many cases they will be using this year's papers and marking schemes for next year's mock, so question-level analysis is time well spent. Where they see patterns in their students' loss of marks they can sometimes focus their teaching for next year's cohort.

I am not bitter. I am angry on behalf of your staff about your attitude that yes, they are overworked and underpaid, but this is "natural" and therefore piling on the extra hours is fine. I am horrified by your use of the term "question level analysis" as if it is a trifle, so I am hoping this is a sign that you have misunderstood and are misusing the term.

This attitude is abusive, and the outrageous part of it is that you are not outraged on behalf of the staff, the students, the school, and the whole education system

This suggests a lack of understanding of reviewing, frankly. "Near to grade boundaries" was a good call when it was remarking, but those days are long gone.

I willingly and happily review in my centre. It's not my job but I see it as part of my role.

However, I wholeheartedly agree with what you've said here.

But it’s ok for teachers and teacher’s families to bear the brunt of the costs? That is highly unreasonable.

Remember, teachers are not paid for vacations. Their salaries are evened out across the year, but they are paid for only about 10 months or so per year.

If it makes zero difference to her doing the course she wants, does it really matter, she may have been predicted an A star but it’s just that , a prediction, unfortunately, as I’m sure you are fully aware, life doesn’t follow a nice carefully preplanned script, learning to accept that will surely be more use.

@metellaestinatrio - I’ve been teaching for 30 years and fine a lot of A level exam board marking in that time for a range of exam boards. Despite checks and balances markers do sometimes get it very wrong. In subjects like mine, English, an inexperienced marker (and there are lots of those) can miss nuance- it’s absolutely worth getting a review.

At GCSE, DS was 1 mark off an 8 in maths (3 papers) and also another subject. The other subject's teachers asked our permission for a re-mark (their department would cover the cost). He didn't get the mark.

In maths, the dept would only pay for the nearly 4s and nearly 7s. We had to pay £130 to have the 3 papers re-marked. They took 2 marks (!!) but found 3 extras so his grade did go up to an 8 and we got a refund.

Appreciate the considerations are different in a state school but the OP’s daughter appears to be at an independent. I have to say that if I was paying £20K plus a year I would expect teachers to be available on results day to advise on these kinds of issues and would consider it to be part of the role. The teachers at my school did this 20 years ago.

I appreciate sometimes that will mean the teachers having to pay for a couple of days’ summer holiday childcare but they are not unique in that - as a fellow professional I sometimes have to do the same; paying for summer camps on my non-working day (for which I am not getting paid) because my work doesn’t fit neatly into my part-time pattern. It’s not the same as stacking shelves at Tesco.

Why is it ok to demand these things of private school teachers who are often paid less and have worse terms and conditions than state school teachers?

@1diamondearing because the parents are paying a fortune in school fees and the school needs an offering over and above what would be available at the local state schools in order to survive. This kind of value add is part of what makes parents choose private in the first place. If the private school teachers’ terms and conditions are worse than in state schools and they don’t agree with coming in on results day they could presumably move to a state school for better ts and cs and fewer impositions on their holiday time?

Be careful what you wish for! (a lot are moving- because of exactly this attitude, I am paying for this service, therefore you must serve me....)

There is always movement between the two sectors, many teachers spend time in both during their career, but currently much of the movement is one way, and reasons vary, of course, but this attitude is one of them. Pensions are another

It is frightening to read of entire pages or worse going unread. I don’t understand this; at my university every academic’s marking has a sample pulled for full review by a peer. The second person’s thankless task is also to make sure that every page of all exam scripts has been read. Then the School admin team checks this last criterion again and re-checks the addition of marks. All of this is before external moderation.

A School with a problem in this area would be in big trouble with the Dean, or worse - named and shamed in the annual Examinations Report at a minimum.

GCSE and especially exit exams of all kinds surely deserve the same care. What kinds of double checks are in place?

Unread pages are highly likely to be a scanning error. In the exams I mark it is impossible for me to miss pages that have been scanned - I simply can't move on until I have.

There were more than half a million candidates for one of my GCSE papers this summer. It's simply impossible to do what you're suggesting.

Thank you, Mrs Hamlet. Surely the number of markers and admin staff is proportional to the number of candidates. So efforts should scale.

GCSE is less important than exit exams, though - A level or otherwise.

We're constantly sampled - automatically and by humans. But if the additional pages have been mis-scanned, then we don't know they exist.

No, it doesn't suggest any such thing. I know what reviewing means. As I said up-thread, my own son had three of his GCSE papers reviewed and they all went up - one by 3 grades and the other two by 1 grade each.

I am a governor at the school, so I know that a significant number of other students' papers were also upgraded following reviews.

The focus on papers close to grade boundaries is partly to ensure there is little risk of papers being downgraded.

p.s. Almost 75000 GCSE, AS level and A level grades were changed after reviews in 2024: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reviews-of-marking-and-moderation-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2024-exam-series/reviews-of-marking-and-moderation-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2024-exam-series

That's 1.2% of the total.

This. Absolutely this. I’ve screwed up exams in the past. I’ve also had exams where I’ve had lower marks than expected, despite having come out feeling really positive. I’ve had exams and assignments which I thought had gone really well and had indeed done so. At the end of the day you just have to trust that the examiners have done their job correctly. To reiterate, my B in History didn’t stop me doing my first choice course or getting pretty decent marks in many modules, uni exams, my dissertation or my PhD thesis. My B in History didn’t stop me from getting a PhD student ship at Sheffield, an essay prize or various travel scholarships. She needs to move on, accept her very decent A level marks and enjoy university and get next challenge.

Firstly, thanks for your comment about scanning. Also, the comments coming in now suggest a very small sampling rate. Unless MumsNetters are very unlucky, perhaps the scanning should be better vetted and the sampling increased? Not on the markers, I realise.

I don’t see that the comment you replied to suggested a lack of understanding. Surely one would be most concerned that the marking rubric had been followed correctly for exams just below the grade boundary.

Not sure what you mean, but yes I’m genuine. I did name change fir this thread though to protect DDs privacy. My name choice is nothing more than a nod to one of my favourite songs I happened to be listening to at the time!

Examiners have absolutely no idea where the grade boundaries fall. They don't even exist when most of the marking is done.

And my comment about grade boundaries is actually about reviews - small mark changes are not permitted except in certain circumstances. So the days of routinely putting in scripts close to the boundary for review in the hope of an extra mark or two are long gone. As are the days of grade protection.

It bothers me that some schools are still advising this to parents without actually looking at papers first. It's a lot of money to ask people to spend when the vast majority don't change.

Of course there are errors, and that what reviewing is for. I don't claim otherwise.

I'm not sure what you mean about the sampling rate, I'm afraid.

OP- please ignore those telling your daughter to 'move on', based on their own personalities and life perspectives. I hope you have put the remark in. She does not need to put her 'trust' in examiners. They are busy, fallible people who can get things wrong. A friend's daughter has just had this year's Economics A level paper back as a priority remark and she went up 5 marks. People are talking about 'resilience' but other key life skills are being assertive (especially as a young woman), knowing when to challenge- and knowing yourself, i.e. what you personally need to move on. Best of luck.