Could someone please explain about remarking English GCSE papers?

[icouldjusteatacroissant]

She failed English Language, and her teacher said she would send the paper away to see if they could claw back a few extra marks. her projected grade was higher.

Is this common practice? and realistically what percentage of papers are upgraded?

any info at all on this would be appreciated, this is new and strange territory for our family.

If the teacher is sending it back the school will pay.

Last year my DS missed a C in german by one mark and the school send it for a remark. They managed to find an extra mark

English Lit I had to pay for - 3 or 4 marks off but it came back unchanged.

It is definitely worth trying

Last year my son got a B in Maths but was a predicted A*.
We were told by loads of people that it was not worth a re-mark as he was so far from the grade boundary but the result made no sense whatsoever so I insisted that his school request a re-mark.
Unbelievably 12 marks, yes reader 12 marks, were found pushing it to an A grade.
Mistakes do happen - not sure what it was in our case (missing page or something I guess) but definitely worth a punt particularly if there is big discrepancy in what was predicted and achieved.

I work in a school and they are not happy with the English grades - remarks are being asked for.

thanks for more replies. wow that is a massive discrepancy! you must have been so delighted.

have told dd to expect a resit. it appears that even though the language exam was more accessible than the lit, nationwide the lit scores were generally higher due to a tougher lang exam as someone up thread mentioned. they have tightened up the rules on punctuation, spelling etc. although schools in my area are sending back all language papers for the whole year.

I'm already looking for a tutor for a November resit

Have you requested a re-mark?

I didn't get chance to request a remark jest. when dd went for her results, the English teacher was waiting for her, and told her she would be sending her paper back as it was borderline. dd signed the form giving permission, and I've had an email from the teacher saying the school is funding it.

sorry jean

The school should first ask to see the paper, before paying for a re-mark. Then they can see whether they agree with the examiner's marking and identify if there is any realistic scope to gain more marks. If so, you may only need one of the papers to be re-marked. Incidentally, coursework can very rarely be re-marked (if your daughter did that).

If there's been lots of disappointing marks they may have sent them all back without asking for papers back.

You can't ask to see the paper before applying for a remark at GCSE, only A-level.

noblegiraffe Thanks for that. I didn't know.

At my son's school there is no option to see the script and then request a re-mark, it's one or the other.

thank you. no there was no coursework.

If she does have to re-sit, she won't have to re-do the course work/controlled assessment.

Here's how we do it - this is AQA but not that different I'd imagine.

Usually the school will look at the UMS mark (made up of Controlled Assessment & final exam - it's 40%/60% with AQA).

The marks are ratio'd (different scales for different components) to generate a final UMS score between 0-300. Each 30 UMS = a grade, so 271-300 is A*.

The D band is therefore 150-180, C band 181-210.

Accordingly we'd ask for a re-mark for anything above 175. Ish. Maybe as low as 170 for a student who had done far worse than expected, especially if it's not an online mark - physical marking might mean they got an unusually severe 'rogue' examiner, but online marking is usually different people for each question so less likely to be wildly out overall.

There'd be no point requesting a re-mark on a UMS of 155, say, as they were obviously miles off & might even end up with 149 = E!

If a child was predicted a B & got 205-209 so a top C, we might again take a punt on a re-mark, but it's the ones at top of D band in a core subject who might go up to a C who take priority - firstly because lack of a 'good pass' grade can kibosh a conditional college place, but also because of headline figure for league tables, I'm afraid...

I would say that it is worth getting a remark if just a few marks short of a C. This is because you now have to have GCSE English and who wants to be doing resits in sixth form?

thank you. I haven't had the marks yet, the teacher said she would get them to me next week. I might have to come back here for you to decipher them for me!

So, what would the views of teachers be about the following:

B's in Biology and Physics - 2 UMS off the A

A in English Language - 5 UMS marks off the A*

Predictions were A for Bio and Phys and A* for English.

I am perfectly happy to pay. This is about self-esteem as much as anything and she was mightily peeved to have those Bs on the certificate.

Appreciate it's not a first world problem and there are young people out there desperate for an upgrade from a D to a C in English and Maths but nevertheless just wondering?

My son was 2 marks off an A for mandarin igcse. I paid for one paper to be remarked and it came back with the same grade. It was worth it for him as I think he would always have wondered if there was an error. He was also pissed off with a B.
Personally, prefer the days of O levels where you did n't know how close you were to next grade and school sent in remarks for borderline candidates and anomalies.

DDs best subject is English. She got can A rather than predicted A*.
She was bang in the middle. 4 marks more an A*, 4 marks less then an A.
She doesn't want to risk going down to B.
Can we ask for copy paper first then decide whether to remark?

No, you can only apply to see the paper first at A-level.

We are having AQA English literature remarked. DD was predicted an A* and it was the exam she was most confident in, having received full marks for several practice pieces. She got an A , one paper was marked as a very low B . We have to pay for it which I'm not bothered about. DD had received fantastic results yet was in floods of tears as this was the one she really thought she deserved. If it is indeed correct at least we will be able to get the script back after remark to see what went wrong. This being important as doing it at A level and hopefully degree level. She needs to find 10 ums marks, and is slap bang in the middle in total between the A and B boundary which is very nerve wracking.

I think we're going to have Eng.Lang. remarked.Dd got 263 mark equiv. A boundary is 270.She wants to do Med./vet. So the more A the better.The B boundary is 160 so its unlikely that the grade will go down to that extent.
Can everyone post the remark results?It will be an interesting comparison.

My local school's English language results from WJEC are dreadful. They've dropped 20% on last year's pass rate. Something has gone dreadfully wrong somewhere. Are there other students at your daughter's school who have also done unexpectedly badly?

Definitely get a re-mark.