Could anyone help me decipher my sons gcse science marks

[Steggers123]

I wonder if anyone can help me, I've posted about my son before, he has dyspraxia and learning support has been a nightmare the last two years, with papers going missing, scribes not being put in for, controlled assessments being deleted etc

Today he got his gcse results and he did really really well, he got 3 A's and 3 B's but all through school his sciences have been his strongest subject... he got 3 D's. All his paper 3's were unclassified.

I'm struggling to figure out where his marks sit on the grade boundaries and wondered if someone could enlighten me, I'm not sure whether we should ask school to request copies of his papers so we can check everything that should have been sent to the exam board was sent (he uses a laptop for exams) or whether we just let it be and move forward.

For biology his marks were

Unit 1 Tier H 70b
Unit 2 Tier H 57d
Unit 3 Tier H 43u

Physics and chemistry were similar, he may well just have bombed, but it seems odd to do well on all your other subjects and crash out on your best subject. Thanks in advance.

You need his unit 4 marks as well to check where he is, each is worth a quarter. The unit 4 is the controlled assessment unit he did in school.

Sounds like he might not have been taught unit 3? so they were going to put him in for double science or foundation maybe? I'm not a teacher so can't say really, but definitely sounds like you need to investigate.
my ds1 sat single sciences in a school where they only teach double, so he taught himself unit 3. looking at his biology marks
He sat AQA
unit 1 H 83 a
unit 2 H 85 a
unit 3 H 93 a*
unit 4 98 a*

he got an A overall.
looks like teaching himself is more successful that being taught in class!

Grade boundaries move every exam series because they are adjusted based on whether the papers were harder or easier than last year. You should be able to look up the grade boundaries for the papers your son sat. I don't know if they're on the public websites of all exam boards, but they are definitely available to the schools.

Okay. Just googled and got the boundaries for OCR, edexcel and AQA. So they're available.

I did have a look at the grade boundaries but they didn't tally with the marks on his sheet, I'm assuming the marks we have are a percentage and I don't know how to convert them so I can interpret the grade boundaries. Hope that makes sense. We are struggling to get our heads around what has happened, he was all set to take biology and physics at A level and suddenly that's gone out of the window.

Pm me the exam board and I'll see if I can make head or tail of it.

They are his ums. 70 is the boundary for a B. 57 is a high D, anything below 50 then is unclassified as it falls off as he has Sat the higher tier. Not unsurprising to have a lower mark on paper 3 as it's far and away the hardest.

Is this AQA? If so, the boundary for a D for BL3H was 27/60, which is 50 UMS. Your DS got 24/60 for 43 UMS.

Look here.

I remember your posts about his mocks. The access arrangements were appallingly organised then, and I would certainly be seeking reassurance that everything was done properly now.

Yes those marks are the UMS. 70 UMS is a B (just!), 60 a C, 50 a D. Anything under a D on a higher paper is unclassified as higher tier doesn't go lower. So the 57 was close to a C, probably a couple of marks. But it wouldn't be enough to go up a grade given the fail in unit 3.

There should as another poster said, be a mark for unit 4, the ISA. This can be moderated down from the mark the school might have indicated he got.