English GCSE remark : expert objective advice needed!!

[Piggywaspushed]

Ok, I have been batting this round on a few threads and need to preface this by saying I am an English teacher... but it isn't helping me at all!

DS got a 5 in Lang and a 6 In Lit. Both below (rather generous ) target grades of 7.
We d found out he was 5 UMS marks into 5 in Lang and therefore needs 8 marks (I think) to get a 6. Not normal remark territory and I'd be terrified of him being downgraded.

However, I have now found out his breakdown and it is bizarre:

Language paper 1

1.4/4
2.4/8
3.3/8
4.12/20
5.8/24 + 6/16

Language paper 2

1.4/4
2.5/8
3.5/12
4.6/16
5.18/24 + 11/16 (this is amazing compared to paper 1!)

The last wording is not mine but the HOD.

The discrepancy between P1 and P2 is marked and the section Bs are the real oddity given that they aren't very different tasks. I have checked and he did paragraph. You also need to know his spelling is highly proficient. He has that teenage predilection for commas and probably didn't use much punctuation other than full stops and commas. His handwriting is hard to read sometimes but he does tend to write quite lengthy answers and was (before the exams) quite confident in jumping through the hoops of each question.

I would be interested to hear from fellow English teachers who have no emotional investment in this what they might advise? I'd like Paper 1 looked at - but once seen it can't be remarked.

I know a 5 is 'good enough' but he is a better student than that. In one of his lit papers he missed an 8 by one mark!

Any thoughts gratefully received.

They should do but I think ti depends on what targets and hwo much difference an individual child's grades make. The data people will probably flag up students whose data would make a difference (children form certain subgroups or a=on certain boundaries). In our recent training , we were basically told progress 8 writes off the progress of those towards the bottom end because each individual grade has such a low point score , an improvement is insignificant tot he data. bleak, but true. So the focus for that kind of manipulations and machination will be at the top end. It still stands though that the largest schools' English departments will have 800 results + to look at, so any parental intervention is probably worth it all round!

@RedRule, out of interest, how long is it taking for the reviews to be done? It sounds, from what you've posted, that it's a quick process?

Having submitted a request for both of DS's English disciplines to be reviewed, I'm now swinging from feeling very positive for an upgrade (in at least one) to worrying that I've raised DS's hopes and he will be even more deflated if the punt doesn't pay off...

Well all the ones we put in by Monday are back but we are still waiting on all the ones we put in since Tuesday.i was lucky my HT is respectful of professional judgement and, just this year, has allowed me to challenge any concerns subject teachers have raised. W put in about 25, virtually all pupils who underachieved in their teacher's judgement not the grade 4 or 5 borderline, because our results there were beyond our best hopes. So far 14 back all up by at least a grade. Good luck to everyone waiting.

Thanks for your answer @Redsrule. Our request would have only been actioned yesterday, so would not expect a response until end of next week earliest, I wouldn't have thought. And presumably once school starts again there is likely to be an influx in requests for reviews which will slow the whole process down?

Incidentally, does that mean if the papers of those achieving top grades were remarked there would be a likelihood of some downgrades?

Also, if many grades have been wrong initially, doesn't that mean that some of the original grade/level boundaries are screwed and that this year's results for AQA English aren't reliable at all?

+=

Thanks for your really useful thoughts!

DD is a bit embarrassed about contacting her teacher to ask, so not sure we can do any more. As she is with AQA, would it be the case that she would have to ask school to get a copy of her paper, then for the teacher to look at it online or something? Can teachers see the marks awarded at this stage, or just see what she wrote?

Are teachers generally happy to do this for pupils - it seems a bit cheeky to get them to review this! If the teacher thought DD did better than the marks suggest, we would then as for a review of marking, which we would then pay for?

As a related question, do teachers/school really look at results/individual pupils in the way some suggest? I've had contact with lots of parents since the results have come out, and none have said teachers or school have been in touch, even when some results have made people go 'huh?'

In subjects where lots of people seem to have underperformed, do school usually look to get reviews or just start to examine their teaching? What about where individuals seem to have performed lower across the board - is this actually identified and does anything happen? There has been complete silence from school since results day, so are we to assume that nothing else will happen, or does it kick in when term starts??

Sorry for so many questions! I really appreciate people taking the time to advise on this.

@NotQuiteSureExams you've asked some very interesting questions.

DS's school has been radio-silent, except in response to my initial query about this English exams marks (as we'd not been given any breakdown other than the achieved Levels) which prompted our decision to get two papers reviewed (outcomes pending).

DS says that he missed out on an A in Computer Science because moderators marked the whole class down on their course assessment. Apparently their teacher was really annoyed. From what has been said on here, I would imagine that might be just such a scenario where the HoD might request that all papers be reviewed?

It would appear that lots of the teachers won't even see a breakdown of results/who got what etc...until the beginning of the new school year though so I guess it would only be then that they might suggest reviews etc? However, I wouldn't have thought they'd have time/energy to forensically investigate all results individually, would you?

That the deadline for submission of requests for reviews etc...is in mid September would suggest that there might be some calls to action from teachers, once the pupils are back at school, wouldn't you think?

Naively, it being the first time we've gone through this, I had an expectation that school might prompt parents to ask for reviews but it seems this is not generally the case.

As a teacher, rather than Subject Leader, I looked at my class's results in detail yesterday. However, without an AWFUL lot of faff, I don't seem to be able to see the question by question breakdown. I would literally have to spend about 5 minutes per pupil doing this for 4 different exams - and I only have one class of 22 students! Multiply that up and what seems like radio silence to parents of an individual child does show it is an impossible task for schools to analyse every individual. Our school has 400 in year 11!

I'd expect schools to focus on students on key borderlines : I haven't found at this stage that anyone much seems to analyse under performance in terms of remarks, unless parents intervene. You are right in saying the underperformance is scrutinised at Performance Management level, though! Therefore, some teachers will push for remarks forma slightly selfish point of view (or one that reveals the constant scrutiny we are under)

So, as a concerned, committed and involved parent: intervene, intervene, intervene.

So, it goes without saying in smaller schools , or in obscure , smaller subjects you may well hear more from the school.

Thanks again!

So maybe things will happen after term restarts - or maybe they won't?! But realistically, DD2's only-just-a-6 is unlikely to be looked at unless her teacher has several underachievers and it might affect them in terms of performance management?

Any words of wisdom for DD about approaching her teacher? Are you happy to help ex year 11's with this, or is it a case of move on now? Just standard sympathy or a real attempt to find out what went 'wrong'?

Lastly, how often do parents ask school data managers for question breakdowns do you think? The one at our school seemed to think it was quite an unusual and tricky request. Is it rare, and just from pushy parents?

You don't need to wait for teachers to approach you at all.

I would email her teacher directly, ask her for a breakdown of the marks and s/he should be able to oblige or find someone who can.

The school will have a form to fill in as DD needs to give consent.

Data managers don't normally do this so it may be you simply approached a person who was rather startled to have to evolve interpersonal skills and talk to a parent. It's the exams officer who deals with exam stuff!

Hope that helps!

To add, I would always answer any student or parent query and would be happy to help. This is true of nearly all teachers, who as well as being turned into data driven automata are - honestly- mostly human! And we often have children ourselves in the same position, which is how this thread started, after all with my poor DS.

Best of luck to you and your DD

After finding out DD got 53/80 and 80/80 in Eng Lit OCR, she decided to view script for paper 1 as she felt it went really well. Told by school that by the time it comes back, deadline for remarking will have passed so she had to put in for remark! Not happy with that.

It's Edexcel that have put that cat among the pigeons. I have no idea why the other exam boards allowed that to happen!

It has always been the case that , once the paper has been seen, it cannot be remarked.

It's Edexcel that have put that cat among the pigeons. I have no idea why the other exam boards allowed that to happen

I'm very grateful to Edexcel as it has worked brilliantly!

A consensus between many teachers is they have done this to cut down remark requests, one student of mine was 2 marks off and I would normally request remark (as a school we would pay), after reviewing his paper I felt he was lucky to get the marks he did; therefore time, money and grade saved.

I think that the other boards will quickly follow suit

I do hope so - too late for my DS though who is refusing to have his paper remarked. if I now call it back and see it should have got higher I'll be so dismayed. :(

I think the deadline for viewing papers has passed without having a remark at the same time. Dd1 had an OCR was reviewed and I think she said the deadline was last Thursday.

It was a good thing to be able to do though, as she felt in that paper (History) she was down about 20 marks on her usual, but was right down at the A/B boundary, needing 18 to go up.
She was wondering if the work she'd done on extra paper hadn't been counted. When we got it, she could see that it had been counted, so could stop worrying on that front.
She did look at it and feel the marking was harsh, but has added up and reckons that it would be about 16 marks maximum up if marked on what she thinks was fair so not worth remarking. It's just given her peace of mind, whereas if she hadn't she might have always wondered.

The English is interesting though. She was predicted much better in Language than Literature. She got an 8 in Literature which she hates and would have been far less surprised with a 5 (on for 6/7) but got a 6 in Language when she expected a 7/8.
Again she's down on the 5/6 borderline, so doesn't want to risk a remark on that, but if not I'd think it was worth doing by the sound of it here.

I do feel though that the remark system is one of those one law for rich and poor though.
Anyone can do it-but as a family we could afford to put any borderline ones in with the risk of not getting the money back. But I can think of other people who would have to say "sorry, I think you should be higher, but we can't afford to risk £40 on getting it remarked". Then you get the families who could afford it, but whose parents don't really bother.
I know people here are saying the school is paying, but I doubt that's true of every school (not sure dd1's does-may do for pupil premium perhaps)

It does give those who can afford to get any close ones checked an extra chance at something that should be as even as possible across the country.

I have requested the breakdown of DS's maths and English marks from the examinations officer. No response yet but I wonder if they are lower priority seeing as he has now left the school?

redsrule how have the rest of your remarks come back? It is your experience that prompted me to ask for DS's breakdown rather than just accept he got 4s (various mocks ranged from 7 to 3, but mostly got a solid 5).

I did the training to mark paper 1 (but then didn't actually do the marking for convoluted reasons)-I was gobsmacked at the level of perfection required for the top SPAG marks. One of the exemplars had 1 error (it's/its), twice, and was awarded 14/16. Conversely, at the bottom end of the scale, it seemed like getting 5/6/7/8 out of 16 was very easy-you'd practically have to not know how to use capitals and full stops to get lower than that. Very strange stuff.

You might think that tiggy as that is the official view certainly but my experience of students at A level this year and redsrules's experience at GCSE does rather seem to suggest they are remarks by any other name!

I'd also like (optimistically ?) to think the new system reduces chances of marks going down? Because they are not simply 'remarking' it might reduce an examiner's temptation just to trim a mark or so off here and there?

What does everyone think? is that just blind optimism.

redsrule, if you are still here , have you had any go down yet?

I am still working on my DS and a few examples should help!

Oscha

I did the training to mark paper 1 (but then didn't actually do the marking for convoluted reasons)-I was gobsmacked at the level of perfection required for the top SPAG marks. One of the exemplars had 1 error (it's/its), twice, and was awarded 14/16. Conversely, at the bottom end of the scale, it seemed like getting 5/6/7/8 out of 16 was very easy-you'd practically have to not know how to use capitals and full stops to get lower than that.

Which is why, if you look back at my OP , my DS's Q5 marks hust look downright weird!

Paper 2 6/16 (so can't use full stops, capital letters ,spell much of anything (bit of a no hoper essentially) and Paper 1 11/16 ! wtf?!

The only niggling thing I have is that DS has poor handwriting and has never used capitals properly (he has very poor sense of space and shape) and I suspect one examiner has blasted him for this without seeing a bigger picture...

I agree Piggy - 6 and 11 are very odd!