Remarking GCSE Maths?

[Bunnykins76]

Hi, I had a letter saying my son was 3 marks away from the next grade and I’m still undecided what to do. He doesn’t need the higher grade for college but I’m thinking more later in life for work and how a higher grade could look better. I’ve asked for the boundaries info and been told 3 marks away from the next level, would have to loose 31 marks to be downgraded. I feel (hope) the risk is minimal but wondering if worth the £41.40 to have it checked? If he was only 1 Mark away I’d go for it but as it’s 3, I’m not sure if worth it. Any others in the same boat? Wondered what others had decided?

You do know the cost is per paper, so you may have more than one paper to get remarked?
It might be worth asking the school if there's any possibility of paying to view the papers and if they could glance over them and see if they think any of them would go up by that amount.

Dd's twice had maths go up 2 marks (GCSE statistics and further A-level). The statistics we felt was a bit of a long shot, but the paper had a lot of explanations on it, so we decided to give it a go. School was surprised as they generally said maths rarely altered by more than one mark.
For the further, the teacher saw her paper (that exam board sends all the papers to the school) and phoned her up to say that in their opinion there was 1 paper that should go up by 2 marks (which is what she needed) and another one that should go up definitely 1 mark, and possible a second. So we put the first paper in. We wouldn't have done it if the teacher hadn't said that.

You get the money back if it does go up. However if you put in 2 papers and it goes up by 1 mark on paper 1 and 2 marks on paper 2, you would only get the money back for paper 2 as that's the one that put you up a grade.

I don’t see you have anything to lose otherwise you’ll always be wondering.

The letter suggested remarking paper 1 so they’ve obviously seen something on that, I’ll try and talk to the head of Maths to find out why they suggest that one and see if I’m able to go in and look at what they’ve seen. Thanks

They haven't necessarily seen the paper to make an informed decision.

As far as I'm aware, Edexcel exam board at A-level are the ones who send the school all the papers, all other exams you need to ask for them. I don't know if the school can ask without your permission either.

What you have to lose is £41.40 (or £82.80 for 2 papers or £124.20 for 3 papers)
You could find you go up one mark on each of the first two papers- but that won't get your money back as it hasn't gone up a grade, and then stays the same or even down one on the third. Often schools will advise trying with one at a time for exactly that reason.

It's unlikely it'll drop a grade, so if you're happy to lose the money it's worth a shot. If you haven't got that money to potentially lose, then I wouldn't worry.

I wouldn’t bother for 3 marks for maths, especially as he doesn’t need it for his next step. Maths rarely changes by more than a mark or two.

Yeah I wouldn't bother for maths in this scenario. Three marks is quite a lot. What grade to what possible grade are we talking? If it's (say) 6 to a 7 then I wouldn't do it as a 6 in maths is never going to be any kind of issue unless you want to do A level maths ( and even then, the grade being 7 won't actually improve your maths ability IYSWIM). Ds2 was 3 off a 7 in computing but he's not taking it further so I'm not doing anything with it.

If it's a 4 to a 5 I might tho.