Is there any merit in resitting B grades during Y12 - in the hope of getting A*?

[kittybelle]

Or will uni just take the Y11 result anyway? Was thinking of doing this for Eng L, Physics and Biology - where we are shocked he did not get A* (as he did in mocks).....will put in for a remark as top of B boundary in the interim.

I was thinking that these 3 would not be too much work for him and he could have got a go...if it was too distracting and compomising his AS then would just pull out of the resit. If he got Bs again would be have to declare it to uni....or just ignore and not document on uncas form.

Do you mean English Language or Literature? There will only be resits available for language in November. No resits for literature. It would only be worth resitting if he had an A* (or high A) for his controlled assessment, otherwise resitting the exam won't have enough impact on the result.

If you mean retaking the whole course (lit or lang) then he'd need to redo everything - all CAs and all examined units. That's a lot of work. I suspect it would be prudent to concentrate on A-Levels rather than to use up time redoing entire gcses.

Hope that helps.

Thanks truth -- I agree dont want to rock the boat for AS - it was lang so assumed to real work to do...the ca was only a B - so then for it to be worth while he would have to re do the lot next June....so timing worse that Nov wrt AS

All exams ever taken are supposed to be declared on UCAS, so technically at least he would have to declare all resits and original results, although I'm not really sure what would happen if he didn't. The resits would show as resits in any case due to the date they were sat.

For physics and biology he would need to resit the practical elements which could be tricky to organise and time consuming and there is a fair bit of revision work for the exams for those subjects too - I would say not worth it.

For the English Language there is the possibility of a November resit, but I think 60% of the marks are on the controlled assessments (it is probably slightly less than this now the speaking and listening has been taken out, but still a high proportion) which would be a massive pain to re-do, again, not worth it. Resitting the exam though can be done without much/any preparation. One of my dc did this 2 years ago (when the school recommended it to those with a narrow miss who they felt had been robbed, as the resit was offered free that year due to the hoo ha over the grades). Even though it was mainly the CA where the expected marks had been lost (she didn't redo this) and she did no extra preparation for the exam, the resit result came back a percent or two higher which was enough to shift the overall B grade to an A. As truth says, the high weighting of the CA means an exam resit realistically can't raise the result from a B to an A*, but it can nudge it up to an A.

Whether it was worth it or not I don't know. Only the very most competitive courses consider GCSEs in great detail - at the point she was still considering medicine, which at many places did need a GCSE A grade, but also a lot of them wouldn't accept resits either. Certainly, for what she has ended up doing the resit wasn't needed (they told her this at interview).

Most courses will be far more impressed by high AS and A level grades, so arguably, putting these results behind him, trying to learn from any mistakes made (did complacency after high mock results play a part?) and
working towards the best possible A level grades would be his best option.

Thanks this is excellent advice and has really helped my decision making.

Biol and Phy were iGCSEs and neither syllabus had practicals so this does not present an issue....I worked so closely with him on both at the final stage of revision where he did every past Q for each topic and he was getting between 95 and 100% so the Bs are a disappointment.

We still dont know the Phys marks (CIE). Biol was 5 off so we will remark and cross fingers....sounds like it is prudent to draw the line at a remark - rather than chasing Rainbows and potentially putting his AS at risk.

Wrt Eng lang - again this was igcse - so would need to check if the Nov resit is an option....if the ca is carried thru as part of then worried that reality of pushing up to an A is slim....so this might be the only one that he would resit.

I think that a top grade in Eng lang would be positive throughout life -- and on reflection - more importantly honing his Eng lang skills for another year will support his essay based A levels and is a life time
skill...

Which IGCSE did he do we do the CIE option and have no controlled assessment. In fact, we have no controlled assessment for literature either (although this is an option). It was a main reason for switching. Sick of being told in moderators reports that our marking is spot on and then seeing the marks brought down a grade in the UMS system!

Physics was igcse with cie

What was the English?

Just to say, my son was predicted a B or A in Maths and scored a C (and he knows why). His new college has agreed for him to resit in a year, as supported self-study, and he will allocate a set number of hours weekly of his free time to it.

He wants an apprenticeship, so the number of resits is unlikely to matter but a better Maths grade might stand him out from the crowd. Certainly it will do him no harm.

Is your son planning to apply for a science based course? If not, and he has generally good GCSEs, then having B grades for Bio and Physics shouldn't affect his university chances that much. If they have to be retaken over the course of the year, then this is likely to impact on his study of his AS subjects, which will be more important for getting a university place.

The English language one may be worth redoing if he can sit it in November.

He would have to declare they were resits on UCAS as not doing so is considered fraud, and can have serious consequences if detected after a place has been offered. It would probably be obvious they were resits anyway, due to the subjects involved and the time the exams were taken.

I can't really see what the point is .Once he has done his AS levels GCSEs are irrelevant

Thanks All - he wants to do architecture at uni. He got an A in Maths, A in Geog, A in Eng Lit - then 6 Bs. The 2 As are a couple of marks off A so will remark and cross fingers but no big deal if not upgraded.

He is doing Maths, Geog, Art and Theater Studies for A level -- last 2 are course work which has to be complete by April - so arguably he has some spare time after so thought he could potentially squeeze in the retakes....and if he achieved A/A - he would then be approaching unis with 6 A/As.

The Biology and Physics are igcse (AQA and CIE) respectively - with no practical or ca options - so my thoughts (deluded?...Discuss..!) are that he could pull of a B to an A with a max of 5 days revision for each subject?

The both might get upgraded on a mark so might not have to consider this.

The Eng lang ca was his poor mark - so if this has to be pulled forward for a Nov resit then he would not get much traction and maybe should just do the June 15 exam.