Appealing admin error GCSE ? Submitted for foundation instead of higher.

[Sevensilverrings]

Hi, I’m looking for some advice from teachers, or anyone who’s perhaps in similar situation, if possible? I know you’re all a little busy right now!
My son has done fairly well in his GCSEs, given the bizarre circumstances, however there has been an admin mistake somewhere along the line. He achieved a 7 and 6 for Chemistry and Biology, and we were surprised to see that in his strongest science, Physics, he only got a 5. It turns out his school Ex ems officer accidentally submitted him for foundation paper, so this is the upper limit. They have told us otherwise he would have got a higher grade. (They acknowledge he should have been submitted for higher).
School seems reluctant to appeal. They have instead given us letter from teacher saying the grade he should have been awarded. We are considering pushing for appeal because our son is feeling he worked hard for this grade, and it’s directly relevant to his chosen Alevel and uni aspirations. It’s also an outlier compared to his other grades.
He has enough to do the Alevels he wants at the college he wants, but it still seems unfair. He has ASD, and it’s all very black and white for him. Do you think, in the scheme of things it’s worth getting into a debate with the school (they’re great in lots of ways, but don’t respond well to even gentle criticism). Or should we just roll with it? Son could be talked down, but I’m not sure whether he’s quite right to push to get what he worked for...he really did work hard.
All advice welcome. Appeals need to be in form centre by Friday.
Thanks!

Ofqual said early on that there would be cross tier grade changes on moderation to maintain rank order. That was when rank order was the main thing of course, rather than CAG...

I’m confused though, his results paper has the course code for each subject, and the reason we noticed the error s because the Higher sciences have an H at the end of the code and foundation courses have a F. Surely it is impossible to grade a course with the foundation grade code at higher than the top foundation grade? That’s where the school are claiming the error is. I think the bit I still need to clarify is the role of the exam officer, who helped with the ‘streaming’ of the grades....he may have downgraded the teachers prediction when he has seen Foundation course entry for the subject. It would be fair to assume a teacher wouldn’t recommend a foundation grade and then give a higher predicted grade. If he didn’t spot the error this would make some sense, although the exam officer was part of the original communication about moving him to the higher paper before Christmas....

Do you have a letter from the school saying they submitted in error and his CAG should be something other than a 5?

So what seems to be indicated from the school is that teacher enter CAG.

Between that and the exam board being given the grades through internal moderation it was changed because someone had put him down for foundation paper?

If so then I'd say that is an administrative error. More so a communication error!

But it may be more complicated because he was awarded the CAG they submitted and you'd need them to agree it was changed internally by mistake.

Madonna, we have a letter saying he should in their opinion have the higher grade. It was written in a hurry before a college interview, so Very brief, and doesn’t explain hat wen wrong a all.
They will write something more articulate if we want., but they are reluctant to appeal. (They said since he is in his Alevel come it’s not a concern, but obviously it is for him)!

From the teacher, or the Head?

Itsgettingweird, yes that’s about where I’ve got to. All very confusing, but we do have clear evidence from many emails last year that he was submitted for foundation in error, so I think it’s obviously the schools mistake. We will see where we get to.
Having two kids at the school we regularly have to advocate for because of SLDs means I’m very careful to keep them sweet and choose my battles, which isn’t ideal, but I’m used to it.

The letter is written by the teacher and countersigned by the exams officer who checks and submits the grades.

In that case, I would certainly ask the Head directly why they are refusing to appeal on the grounds that they made an error. They signed off on the CAGs. Either they were not told there was an error or they chose to ignore it.

[quote Musmerian]@NotAKaren - that’s precisely what I’m saying. My husband and I are teachers too and have both been heavily involved in CAGS rank ordering etc for both GCSE and A levels and we initially assumed it was a mistake but those are his actual grades. Both as a parent and a teacher I think this is rubbish. It takes the shine off his well deserved high grades in his strong subjects and is clearly not an accurate reflection of his ability in those subjects. We assumed he’d get his CAG which was two 5s but the algorithm thought otherwise and the higher grades stand.[/quote]
Unfortunately this makes a mockery out of all of the results. It's really sad. Funny though how so many parents are fighting to get grades adjusted upwards where there has been an error but not many are willing to do it the other way round.

The grades weren't adjusted upwards through error though. They were adjusted upwards by the Ofqual standardisation model. There is no route for appealing that.

And they had to let those stand, at least for A level, because they were the grades that were originally awarded (and university decisions were based on) before the CAG U turn (and the mock exam U turn, and the subsequent second mock exam U turn...). So you get the best. Not sure why they went with it for GCSEs too, but they did.

@Musmerian I salute your honesty and as you say there are likely to be other instances like this. It perhaps explains some of the rather out of kilter random upgrades that's students at some schools have had. In the same way that some feel it is unjust for to have been awarded a lower grade than expected I am sure those in this situation would probably feel a bit of a fraud about the whole thing.

@0DimSumMum0 - who is actually going to do that though realistically? In my 25 years of teaching and examining I’ve seen this happen in exam situations too.

Bizarre algorithm grade hikes were mentioned in this article
schoolsweek-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/schoolsweek.co.uk/from-1-to-8-the-exams-algorithms-bizarre-grade-hikes/amp/?amp_js_v=a3&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQFKAGwASA%3D#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fschoolsweek.co.uk%2Ffrom-1-to-8-the-exams-algorithms-bizarre-grade-hikes%2F