GCSE 2022 Results - the moment of reckoning!

[Rollergirl11]

Hello everyone, here is a shiny new thread ready for DC’s results day tomorrow and a much needed hand hold for us nervous parents. 🥴🤪

Tomorrow is the culmination of an incredibly turbulent 2 year journey that our young people have had to navigate. Fraught with ups and downs. They have done us all proud!!

Here is a link to the previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/4566030-current-year-11-2-more-weeks-of-exams?page=37&reply=119483572

@mushroom3 they do need your permission because the grade could go down, rather than up. Obviously an overall mark that’s one below a 9 makes that very unlikely but your permission is needed regardless.

Schools have access to the breakdown of marks per paper, which we use to decide if we need to a) see the script and b) request a remark. In your DC’s case, it sounds as if the paper 1 marks are vastly different to paper 2 and therefore, this could suggest examiner error.

You’re right, a grade 8 is wonderful and he should be very proud of himself but I’d say the school is right to query the disparity between papers. My first action would be to see the script itself and decide if the mark
scheme has been applied correctly. If it hasn’t, requesting a remark is the next step. The remark will check that the work has been marked correctly; it won’t be an error adding the marks up because the school has already seen the breakdown of marks per paper.

We haven’t seen a huge different between what we predicted students and what they achieved but every year, there is a wider margin of error in English than in a less ambiguous subject, such as Maths, for example. There is a certain amount of human error expected when you’re applying a mark scheme like the ones involved in English marking.

@Alsoplayspiccolo you’re absolutely right.

My centre has no marks for English on the sheets we gave out. We have them but the way we've set up SIMS meant that we gave out the overall grade and the Spoken Lang. There wasn't an additional column for the mark. That's on us though. We definitely have the marks.

Things are certainly very different to when I was at this stage. My full set of As at O level and then again at A level were local newsworthy in the early 1980s. Admittedly I didn't go to very good schools and I'm sure better places turned out a lot more similar results but it was very unusual in either of the non selective comprehensives I attended.
The standard offer for Medicine at the time was BBB from the vast majority of Universities though Oxbridge might ask As. BBC, BCC or even CCC weren't unheard of from some medical schools if they liked you at interview. The only course which I'm aware of routinely asking AAA in those days was Vetinary Medicine and that was at least in part because the popularity of the original tv series of All Creatures Great and Small had led to an explosion of interest and the numbers applying were huge. So they had to differentiate somehow.
I went to one of the biggest Universities in the country and those of us (across all faculties) who had gained 3 As or better at A level were invited to sit a scholarship exam. I don't know how many of us there were but we all fitted in one lecture theatre, fairly well spread out, so maybe 150 or so, perhaps more, but certainly nowhere near as many as there would be nowadays.
I got a real shock when my own children started looking at Universities and found how the requirements had gone up. I know it's a different world. Far more young people do A levels and go to University and of course there are far more Universities. I'm not convinced the changes are all for the better, though, but then maybe I'm just a miserable old fogey. Reading some of the comments about pupils believing they are a failure and won't get into good Universities if they have "only" achieved 7s and 8s for their GCSEs suggests something is going wrong somewhere though.
Well done and good luck to all this year's exam takers. I think they have done well to have got through these last few years whether they have a sheet full of 9s or not.

Thanks @Alsoplayspiccolo @MrsHamlet @EngHOD . @EngHOD it's English Lit that the English Teacher raised (also 8/9 border) . As she mentioned it to my son that she thought it was wrong, I wonder if the paper 1 mark breakdown doesn't add up to the total. The English Lang papers are the ones with the large grade/mark difference with the average being 1 off a 9. It's a very helpful suggestion, thanks, that my DS asks his teacher to get a copy of the scripts and checks them. I have mentioned to my son that only 1/5 reviews result in a grade change so as not to get his hopes up! I am not going to do anything at the moment as far more important are checks for those at the 3/4/5/6 borders who need certain grades for college or to do their preferred A levels.

Did any of yours do the WJEC hospitality and catering course? My Son did and I was just wondering about how to list it on his sixth form enrolment we have to do? It's on his print out but there are 2 entries with different grades so it looks like 2 separate exams. I am assuming I should just enter it once as I think it is the equivalent of 1 gcse? We are not in Wales and all the other exams are either AQA, Pearson and OCR. Thanks.

Weird results for English for dd too: 9 in one paper and 5 in the other, neither grade being representative of her ability/mock grades. School has requested her scripts. Several other students in the same situation.

I thought that when the new number system was introduced the 9 was going to be a super rare feat. But seeing the grade boundaries it looks like you can miss out on more than 50 marks on a paper and still get a 9. Surely that shouldn't be the case? I would have thought those that miss maybe 0-10 points should get a 9 because they have done truly, truly exceptionally, which is what a 9 should show. And obviously an 8 would also be brilliant but not at 'genius' level.

About 6% of candidates are awarded a 9 so it's fairly rare. I'm not sure there's much point having a grade that is awarded only to genius level candidates. How many marks you should be able to drop obviously depends how hard the paper is!

At A level, an A* is awarded when a student scores 90% of the available UMS marks. Depending on the difficulty of the paper, the actual raw marks that equates to will vary but it’s a way of standardising awards from year to year.

I think you’re right. It’s depressing to think that some kids are upset because they didn’t get straight 9s, when they still got straight A stars (or going back further, straight As). Such unnecessary angst really. I don’t see the point of the genius-on-a-good-day grade.

Can I ask if a 4:3 is a pass in science. I know combined science counts as two gcse's but is it possible to pass one and not the other, if that makes sense?

Same here, we will be requesting the script.

I hear that @DianaGarageDoors about how rare but practically 90% of parents on my FB said their kids got an A*!

Cornish

im same - more than half I’ve heard got multiple 9s in northern comp

This year 22-25% of all grades were 7+

Sorry, I expressed myself poorly. 6% of candidates for a given subject (maths, say) get a 9. But of course they take more than one subject.

It may also be that your friends have clever kids. It may also be that the people who got lower grades are less likely to post on FB 😉

Managed to get marks off the school for DSs PE exam. He got a mark off an 8 in paper 1 and a 6 in paper 2. It was the practical that pulled it down. He was marked at a very very low 4. I thought that was the case as they failed to use half of what was submitted to them in error, the teacher basically tried to cover this up but the fact that he is county level in his main sport and the footage submitted was basically of an achievement that was one of the highest achievements he could submit in that specific sport so God knows how it was marked so low. He got a 5 overall with the 2 papers and practical, 5 marks off a 6.

Nothing we can do now but I am so cross with the school, at least DS knows he did well in the exam. He also was a couple of marks off 8s in other subjects so he is feeling quite confident which is nice. I am more angry about it all than he is. I guess the amount we pay for the school and the nearly 9% increase in fees this year leaves a bitter taste!

Had confirmation the school have sent in a review of marking for DS Eng lit fail (one mark off a pass)

theyve put it in as “Unit 8702/1PN”. Is this paper one then only? Do they have the breakdown of masks for the two papers so know which one to request ?

Marks even

My DS got a 4-3 in science in 2019. I emailed the school's exams officer to ask that same question as I wasn't sure at the time and was told that it was one GCSE 'pass' and that the 3 is not a GCSE pass (although it is still a GCSE, just not a 'pass'j. My DS's college accepted and recorded it as ONE GCSE pass for the purpose of the number of passes needed to get on his course. I checked on the exam board pages too and it said the same although it took some hunting through the finer detail to ascertain.

1PN was poetry and the C19th novel. Centres have the mark breakdowns

Gosh, I haven’t properly caught up, but hope everyone is now in a good place with next steps, even if they were unexpected ones.

Things went well here and DS1’s hard work paid off. Two 7s, six 8s and a 9. He is a man of few words usually but actually said he didn’t want us to read them but he wanted to read them out to us.

He has enrolled at his school’s Sixth Form to study Spanish, History, Politics and Classics for now and seems very happy and is looking forward to the next step and even coming clothes shopping!

How often does this happen statistically? Son managed to get the same grade in all subjects (not 9's, that would be a bit easier to understand).

Happy but a bit upset that he was only 1 mark off the next grade up for two of his A-level subjects, 2 marks off for another subject. Had been convinced he would get the higher grade based on teacher feedback, predictions, mocks and performance on the day.

@marmitecake - Thank you