GCSE remarks - anyone hold my hand here?

[Theas18]

Quite willing to be told this is the educational equivalent of a " first world problem" as DS isn't one of the poor poor kids who have had their future ambitions stomped on by "Gove ism" because they didn't get the C they needed for english etc.

Still can't help been twitchy for DS though!

They've sent his English lit back for a remark (1 UMS off the coveted A*) and his history (was a couple of marks off). School must be confident as these are going - at no charge to us, as part of a test batch prior to requesting a full year re mark.

It actually does matter to DS for uni applications in a very very competitive field too, but he'd still e able to apply with his As in these subjects.

Wonder how long it'll take?

No didn't bring her grade down - but 1 mark the other way would have taken it up! The same for her English - but the board is WJEC and we are in England so don't think it will go up.....just hoping it doesn't go down though ;)
Good luck with the history remark.

I haven't had the official letter but have received a short email which mentions that my DD's D grade (AQA Eng Lang) from June has remained static. No idea if we've lost or gained any marks yet, we were 3 raw marks off a C and 5 UMS. Looks like we will be doing the November re-sit!

Good result here. DS1's English Lit went up a mark and as he was originally only one mark below an A he went up a grade from A to A.

We're hoping for something similar, squirrels. Which English Lit paper was this? DS was one UMS mark off an A and his teacher reckons the whole cohort did noticeably worse on the 'To Kill a Mockingbird/Inspector Calls' paper than the other one. Their marks didn't reflect all they'd done previously/in mocks etc..

Oops. Think I've posted on this thread already!

It was AQA, the Inspector Calls one. I don't know how many remarks were sent off by the school but DS says his friend's paper was unchanged.

Am very interested to read this thread! Those of you having re-marks...whereabouts are you? I thought they were refusing to re-grade in England.

My DD1 was awarded a D in English Lang when she was predicted a C. We then received a letter from the Headteacher, informing us that she was one of 35 in the year that they were contesting. I wrote to the local MP (on advice from Headteacher), basically saying he would investigate?! and contact Twat Gove to ask him to write to me directly.

In the meantime, DD has had her place on the Level 3 course withdrawn and is on the Level 2. She plans to eventually go onto the Level 3 directly after. As she plans to go into the Education sector, she will find having the D grade a stumbling block unless she resits.

Am now waiting to hear back from the school and/or Twat Gove...although am not holding my breath!

A remark is different to a regrade slinky.

In Wales they regraded some English GCSEs by changing the grade boundaries needed to achieve certain grades, the actual scripts themselves were not revisited - a raw score of 38/60 (say) would remain 38/60, but they changed the score needed to achieve a C (say from 39/60 to 37/60) so an individual that had had their script marked with 38/60 would have their grade changed from a D to a C. Nobody received a lower grade as a result of this.

Anyone, anywhere can ask for a script to be remarked within a certain time period of the results coming out (I think that mid September is the latest for June exams, so it is too late now). It costs around £20 per paper, but this is refunded if the grade changes and sometimes a school will pay. A remark is where an examiner looks at the script again to check that the right number of marks were awarded first time around. The number of marks needed to gain a C (or whatever grade) does not change, but the number of marks awarded to a childs script might. So in the example above, an examiner re-looking at the script that was originally awarded 38/60 may decide it is in fact worth 39/60 which then meets the threshold for a C grade and so the grade would change.

Remarks don't usually result in grade changes, but, especially in more subjective subjects like English and when the first result is very near to the threshold they can do. Very occasionally a remark changes a result by a lot, and they sometimes result in lower grades being awarded too.

Stll waiting for DDs AQA Eng Lang. Getting increasingly worried, as most in the batch form her school that went together are back, woth increases. hers is one of a few not yet returned.....

Slinky I was referring to English Lit. The grade boundary problem was with English Language papers.
When the results come out they get their marks as well as a grade and because DS was only 1 mark short of the next grade we thought it was worth having it remarked, especially, as glaurung says, because English Lit can be more subjective than say Maths.

And ds's teacher, who's been on the scene a LONG time, said there was general concern that the AQA Inspector Calls paper specifically had been poorly marked. Something to do with far fewer pupils taking it (??) but I didn't quite follow her logic at the time. Anyway, the school has sent back a whole batch so we'll see. It's no big deal either way, but it'd be nice if he actually had the "badge" showing how he's apparently performed all the way through.

Yay! Good news. DS has gone up three marks to an A from a B!!

Good news Clam! Oddly enough DD's group got lowish marks for An Inspector Calls though they did OCR. It was the only CA that they resat. She got an A overall though.

Bad news re DD's French remark. She stayed at a C for the written paper remark despite getting A* in the other components - so A overall. DD could not understand it and wanted me to appeal. I don't think they will remark a second time though. I wonder if OCR are less willing to change marks after the markiing fiasco last year. No news about the History yet, but as that is also OCR I don't hold out much hope.

Good news for DD. She went up from an A to an A*. Yipee!

DS increased by 10 UMS for Geography and got his C. Does this mean we get our money back?
Now lets see if anything odd happens with the November resit.

We sent two AQA French papers for a remark. One went up from A to A (to go with candidate's other 8 As, so he was delighted), and one went up from D to C, so the student in question could hastily access the college course he wanted to.
You have to wonder who is marking these scripts.

As an aside, the French AQA higher candidates did much better than the Foundation, which I suspect they want to phase out.

stressheaderic I assume you are a teacher so is this normal or have there been more remarks and unusual results this year?

Great news for your DD Sue52! Great news here as well, DD just checked her email and the one history paper she had remarked has gone up to 9 UMS - taking her from a B to an A. She is very happy as she now has all A*s and As overall. In DD's words "GCSE examiners suck". If she had wanted to do history A level she wouldn't have been able to at her school.

2 out of the 3 exams she had remarked have gone up. Still mad about French but not much I can do about it now. I wonder how many other kids out there are stuck with the wrong grades, whose parents can't afford a remark - £38 per subject is charged at her school...

More good news here - DD got AQA Eng lang remark back. Up 5 UMS to the B she badly wanted to keep more options open for A'level choices.

Better news for DD's wjec English Language remark - gone from a B to A* !!!