Gcse 2021 anyone appealing?

[Cleanmean]

Dc has had a rubbish year, getting covid and being off school for ages (like many others). He's just got his results and is pleased but 2 of his grades are lower than his tracked grades and may mocks. He wants to appeal but I said it'll be impossible to appeal this year as teachers will have followed the protocols very carefully and there's less margins for error. Is anyone appealing this year and if so what do you think your chances are?

[quote MrsHamlet]@kackle they have to abide by it BUT each school has their own policy, which you should have been shown.
The JCQ info is here: www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/JCQ-Guidance-for-Students-and-Parents-on-Summer-2021.pdf[/quote]
Yep. That’s the one I have got. Page 35 refers to

As the range of evidence is flexible and can be tailored to an individual student according to coverage of the specification, then instances of special consideration should be limited. Centres should be able to select work completed by a student where they were unaffected by adverse circumstances.

Our school tag policy says

Details of mitigating circumstances are recorded and where illness or other personal circumstances might have affected performance in assessments used in determining a pupil’s standard of performance, HoDs will be directed to take account of this when making judgements. To ensure consistency in the application of Special Consideration, teachers will reference the document:
JCQ – A guide to the special consideration process, with effect from 1 September 2020

*note this document is an old version which talks about normal % uplifts in standard (non covid times exams**

This is also included from the TAG flow chart document from school

‘
Evidence of mitigating factors. Check Deputy Head list and pupil interview comments - if evidence added/substituted, complete a variation form “

No substitution evidence was included for my daughter as per the school tag policy or JCQ guidelines

Where do I go from here please?

You contact the school (probably the exams officer if you've not been told someone else) and you ask them what their process is for appeals based on the fact that they do not appear to have followed their own policy.

Sorry I should clarify, dc doesn't want to appeal because he missed an exam in Nov and sat it at a later date, he thinks he might be able to claim special circumstances and ask for substituted evidence on the grounds that he had covid, then his siblings did and he was off from Oct half term to Dec. He's woken up today and we've had a long chat and I think he's not going to appeal after all, but he does want to know what all his assessed grades were and he may resit the 2 exams in autumn.

I will support him whatever he decides, but don't think he will get anywhere with an appeal. Is there any info about resits? Will it be an exam board paper, will it include all the content or be like the mock papers (ie reduced content)?

The autumn series will be a normal exam series as far as we know. I've been asked about my availability to mark my normal paper.

Those mentioning that kids with additional needs have had poor treatment... this is detriment, and having additional needs should not cause detriment. If the way this year’s assessment have been run have caused detriment to them then this is surely grounds for appeal?

Following, as we are considering how to proceed with a couple of DD's subjects. Have requested info for main one asking how it was arrived at.
(Another situation where unusual evidence / special consideration has been needed.)

We've started an appeal for one of DDs grades, if nothing else to than make a complaint about her being led to believe she was going to get a grade 9 (the teachers shouldn't have said anything, plus the kids were told that they wouldn't get a grade lower than the mock), and then being awarded an 8. It took the shine off her results yesterday, as she knew that she'd had a 9 in her mock plus another for one of the three other pieces of evidence used (only one mark lost), but she can't remember exact marks for the other two, just that she was top of the class. The other lad in her class who was also led to believe he'd get a 9 also got an 8. Which is fine, but we're all cross that she was effectively told otherwise.

We have the form for DD to fill in, I'm not sure it's worth pursuing it with the exam board but I do think there's an issue with the teacher/school here.

@frugalkitty

We've started an appeal for one of DDs grades, if nothing else to than make a complaint about her being led to believe she was going to get a grade 9 (the teachers shouldn't have said anything, plus the kids were told that they wouldn't get a grade lower than the mock), and then being awarded an 8. It took the shine off her results yesterday, as she knew that she'd had a 9 in her mock plus another for one of the three other pieces of evidence used (only one mark lost), but she can't remember exact marks for the other two, just that she was top of the class. The other lad in her class who was also led to believe he'd get a 9 also got an 8. Which is fine, but we're all cross that she was effectively told otherwise.

We have the form for DD to fill in, I'm not sure it's worth pursuing it with the exam board but I do think there's an issue with the teacher/school here.

As I've said above, this may not be the school's fault. The exam board may have adjusted their grades and brought down some of their 9s if they considered there were too many based on historical cohort data. Have you checked with the school what grades they actually submitted?

@Squidlydoo

That’s interesting. What if the schools proposal for determining grades (which parents were sent a copy & it was accepted & agreed by ofqual), stated

‘ The final mock exams in May should be given the very strongest consideration in determining final grades as 1. They are the most recent evidence 2. They are undertaken in the strictest examination conditions and 3. They cover the whole syllabus’.

This is A level btw. Would a student be within their rights to appeal in the basis the schools own procedures were not applied, if they were not awarded the grade achieved in the mock?

Exam boards won’t have moderated any students down. What is more likely to have happened is the grades have been adjusted by the school to bring them more in line with previous years results.
The issue is the fact a teacher has said “you’re a 9”. We have specifically forbidden teachers from discussing grades for this very reason.

The overall grade will be a holistic judgment, not the result of one mock or assessment. This is proper and fair as takes into account the circumstances of the assessment

I'd say that just says the mock is more heavily weighted, not that the mock is the grade.

@Squidlydoo exam boards have moderated students down.

@Braveheart35

The students should not have been told the grades achieved in any assessment since March. The school will have rightly weighted the most recent sets of mocks more heavily but ultimately the decision is a holistic judgment.

For example, final assessments will have been created by teachers, it is therefore more likely students will be better prepared for the elements with in them and it is likely would score well. Schools would be penalised and challenged by the exam board if a disproportionate amount of students secured top grades.

In normal exam series, the grade boundaries would be determined based on the performance of students. More difficult to do that this year so holistic judgments were needed. It is likely students could secure a grade 9 in an assessment and only be given an 8 or even a 7.

The other complication is that grade boundaries change year on year.

The whole process is extremely complex. If the school has managed it well, students should feel satisfied the process was fair. Even if they don’t, the processes in the background will be determined by some rationale abs grades agreed by multiple members of staff.

Unfortunately the method this year was never going to be without its problems but I still feel it is the best option for students - compared to normal exams!

@mumsneedwine

Exam boards will have contacted schools and asked the schools to moderate the marks down - particularly if the data looked completely out of step with previous years results.

The changes will have been made by the school.

Exam boards have categorically NOT changed any grades this year

@Squidlydoo

Thanks for that. I should probably move this, as I’m referring to A level grades. The school didn’t write their own exams, they used the full set of locked papers from the Nov series. All students were given their marks from these mocks and told they would not be given equivalent grades, but the grade boundaries from 2019 & 18 could be used as guidance. There were no other school assessments apart from these exams.

@Braveheart35

Lots of schools have done the same and it is good practice.
The issue with appealing this is that you have to prove the process is flawed - which may be difficult as this was the advice from JCQ. An appeal will not lead to remarking of work as the exam boards have already said they won’t do that.

Good luck though.

Our school did not give out any mock grades at all for last few months of mocks or assesments , sometimes they were given the raw score but that was it as they didn't want anyone assuming they were getting x, y ,b
Ds results were ok but one subject he got a 4 in he normally gets 5/6 and high marks although he was ill for the last assessment, another subject he got awarded a 5 yet normally sits at a 7, the others were where we expected, with one being a grade higher than expected. Its been a tough time for them and must of been hard for teachers too .

[quote Squidlydoo]@mumsneedwine

Exam boards will have contacted schools and asked the schools to moderate the marks down - particularly if the data looked completely out of step with previous years results.

The changes will have been made by the school.

Exam boards have categorically NOT changed any grades this year[/quote]
Yes, this is exactly my point.

The teacher may have assessed the student as a 9.

The exam board may then have said, no, sorry, your grades are too high and you need to moderate downwards.

As such they may have been forced to adjust their grades.

If so, this is not the same scenario as a teacher saying to a student you're on a 9 and then marking their work as an 8 and submitting it as an 8.

As such anyone not happy with their grades should be checking first with the school whether they were asked to moderate downwards by the exam board. If the school were, the appeals process is going to be very different. I'm not even sure what the process would be. I'm with an international exam board in my school so can't comment with authority on the process with UK based exam boards, but I assume you'd have to appeal the exam board's decision rather than the school's, here?

Enid I agree completely. If DD's work (along with others) has been graded too generously by the teacher/department and has then been moderated down, that's fine. If she's an 8, she's an 8. Our issue is that having been firmly under the impression that she'd get a 9, being awarded the 8 is rather disappointing. Hoping for a 9 is one thing, but this is the one grade she was pretty certain about....due to the marks she'd been given and from what the teacher had encouraged her to think.

We may not pursue it, but the school need to know (especially as the same happened with DS with the same subject/teacher. He just wasn't as bothered as DD so we didn't query it then).

It's up to DD and we'll follow her lead.

@Squidlydoo I'm afraid this is not true. A school near us has had some subjects moderated down and only doing out on Monday when received the results.

Found out on Monday. Stupid predictive test

[quote Squidlydoo]@mumsneedwine

Exam boards will have contacted schools and asked the schools to moderate the marks down - particularly if the data looked completely out of step with previous years results.

The changes will have been made by the school.

Exam boards have categorically NOT changed any grades this year[/quote]
Absolutely NOT true.

2 exam boards changed our grades slightly in both directions for about 15 pupils.

If the grades he got will affect him getting into college or an apprentiship then he should appeal.
If he can still progress with the grades hes I wouldn't bother with an appeal

I am absolutely raging just been told by the school that DD was not entitled to access arrangements so none were applied...she has autism and her keyworker was well aware of her needing certain arrangements. It really feels like this is personal now, probably because I had to threaten to take them to court for disability discrimination before they would offer any real support. I thought the refusal to accept MH hospital stay and death in the family as mitigating circumstances was bad, this is unbelievable!!

@BumbleMug thank you for confirming I wasn't going mad.