GCSE Support - the results are in

[SheilaFentiman]

Continuing the threads we had going during revision and waiting for results day!

Yes, I do, I felt so bad for him. Well done, What a great outcome 😀

DS was 1 mark off a 9 in FM. Is it worth asking for a review? I know it doesn't affect him for a level choices but with it being so close I feel that FM is a subject that an extra mark could be found?

I'd get the paper back and ask a teacher to have a look through and see if they can find any errors in the marking.

I don't know if anyone remembers me saying my son completely missed the unseen poetry in the 2nd Eng Lit paper? Somehow he managed to still get a 5!!

As an English teacher, that is amazing!!! He must have done very well indeed in the other sections!! Well done him.

Joining in on the weird English Lang (AQA) results- DD top set/on target 7/8 throughout secondary /predicted&mocks an 8, ... but got a 5 ... Lit predicted 7, got a 5 ...school response 'marking can be precarious' .... something not right somewhere? ... (all other subjects on/ above predicted...)

She got 6 in higher maths.
Any advice from teachers here?

@DarkChocHolic Don't do maths A-level with a 6. My school would allow it, and it tends to end badly. I would suggest that if she managed to get to Y13, a D or an E would be the likely outcome.

(see some data analysis)

@nnoblegiraffe
Thank you. I have seen this table you shared previously. I just hope she sees sense in this logic. I doubt her school will offer her Maths so it may be a non issue anyway.
Is IB SL maths the same level of difficulty as A level Maths?

Maths marking is generally quite tight, you could ask a maths teacher to look over his script (this is free) to see if it's worth forking out for a review of marking.

Not an expert but I'd actually say it's one where it's least likely to be found. Maths has far less discretion than humanities where subjectivity could come in a bit more?

I don't know anything about IB I'm afraid.

DD just got back from seeing her friends. Many of them all got abiut 2 grades lower than predicted in AQA Eng Lang. DD only one grade off what she hoped for so isn't too bad but really wants to do it at A level. BBC news said "172,000, failed English language - the highest number in a decade". The amounts of resits is going to cost education lots of money.....like they have loads!

I've got twins, one with SEN so very different expectations for them both. My NT twin got 7s, 8s and 9s apart from English language in which he got a 5. But it was Edexcel not AQA. Not sure whether others have had lower marks for Edexcel? It is his weakest subject but it still seems crazy that he can basically get an A or above in every other subject except English. We are on holiday and annoyingly his school would only release marks in person so we don't know how close (or not) he is to the grade boundary. He's happy he passed it. I'm worried about uni applications and whether it will affect getting offers.

My SEN twin by some miracle got a 4 in English and a 5 in Spanish and 3s in all others which for him is a fantastic result. He's not doing A levels and already has a place at his specialist school for 6th form.

I would say that although we were told by my NT twins school that all results were released online, when DS3 does GCSEs, we will definitely make sure we are back from holiday on results day! It's far too stressful being 7 hours behind and not being able to access staff.

@Dancerr same here. Dd also completely missed the unseen poem. She got a 4. Not sure how but we'll take it. Looking at a possible 2/3 in both and got a 5 in language.

Well we had a late email from the 6th form ds wanted offering him the a levels he wants to do. He was so happy, i am so glad he is going where he wants.

Hope it’s okay to pop up and answer this. My daughter is doing IB SL AA maths and it is considerably more challenging than the maths A level I did. DH has double maths A level and did engineering, he says some of the content is equivalent to second year of undergraduate. DD has friends doing IB SL AI maths and it appears to be less challenging but is not easy!

I think the distinct 'averageness' of his average is going to probably wipe out 'good' traditional uni courses (I'm thinking things like, Engineering at Bath/Bristol/Exeter)? Is that a fair assumption?

I don't know about engineering admissions but you can see on individual course pages how much weight they give to GCSEs - Bristol is 20% GCSES, 80% A levels. Bath ask for quite a few at 7+. You can also contact individual uni admissions depts and ask whether his grades would be a deal breaker, they are usually really helpful.

Maybe also consider what his GCSE results might tell you about how he will do at A level. Bath and Bristol have a standard offer of ÅAA for mech eng, and I guess most DC who achieve that would average higher than 5 at GCSE iykwim. Maybe he will be fine though, if he got 8/9 in maths, physics and whatever else he would do for A level, and only failed irrelevant ones that he wasn't interested in?

I did AS levels as 1st year of A levels which could go down on the UCAS form which would buoy things up if they did well, but am I right in thinking these don't happen now? (the college only talks of A levels)

Wales and NI still have AS but most schools in England have stopped doing them. So predicted grades will be the key thing. If he can ace Y12 and get strong predicted grades, his GCSE profile will matter less.

@AAnonymousoctopus
Thank you for the insight.
It will be SL AI maths for her if at all she is offered.
Nevertheless, it will be challenging for her and more.
I suspect we are just postponing the inevitable if we go down this route.
I will speak to her teachers and hopefully they give us a honest picture.

Hi All
congratulations to all dcs that got the results they wanted.
Did anyone’s DCs do OCR computer science? There was lots of discussion post exam about the paper difficulty and it being looked at yet grade boundaries seemed higher than previous years. Many of DSs class came out with 3s despite being predicted 7s. DS passed but dropped a couple of grades - it had previously been one of his strongest subjects. Can’t find much online about it post results.

He was predicted a 4 so I don't know how he did it leaving out 30 marks. Also he got more marks in the 2nd paper than 1st? 🤔 😆

Well done to your dd too!! I just assumed he wouldn't have passed it! 😔 when he told his teacher I think her heart sank!

Are you looking at the 2019 boundaries for comp sci because they are the ones to use, not the inflated grades of the last three years? They are down for paper 2. Grades 4,7 and 9 were respectively 2019 - 35, 56, 68, 2023 - 29, 46, 64.

Sorry to repost but I am from a world where we just accept what we get (and would be amazed that a child had passed any, let alone all)

Do I just email the exams officer and ask? Thanks

@dessicatedblackbird you ask the exams officer for priority access to scripts for the ones you want to see

Then you ask someone at the school who has experience in marking the paper to have a look at it to see if it's worth getting it reviewed.

Marks can go up or down, but most do not change.

Another weird English mark here - ds was getting 8s and 9s in both over the last year, then ended up with a 7 in lang and a 6 in lit. Everything else as predicted (7's and 8's).

He's doing lang/lit for A Level and now it turns out to be his lowest grade. Head of English said it's just a number, not to worry, but it is weird.

He's 3 marks off a 7 in lit, but I don't know whether it is worth a remark.

Email the school and ask if they could a subject teacher to review the scripts and advise on whether a review seems worthwhile. In my department we do that as standard with all our borderline kids in September anyway. We ask for permission to look at the script then the EO emailS the scripts to the department so we can look for any glaring errors. Usually there aren’t any and it’s therefore not worth a review. They don’t remark, so it will only change if the mark scheme was incorrectly applied or the mark for a question was unreasonable. The reviewer is asking “could this mark reasonably be given according to the mark scheme” not “is this the mark I would have given this answer”.

We had one grade go up at GCSE last year, and it was the one that we recommended after reviewing the scripts. We looked at loads and only found one that seemed out of tolerance. Quite a few other parents with kids close to the boundaries decided to pay for reviews anyway “just in case”, but none of those went up. It was expensive for them too as they had all of the papers reviewed, whereas the candidate whose grade went up only had to have one paper reviewed (which the school paid for).

Thank you. If I ask for a review of the script can we also see it. The biggest drop is a subject they had planned to do for A level, the teacher is still willing to let them based on all their previous performances but I think we need to know why it went so badly so if the mark is correct.

@Takoneko so that person's grade changed before the certificates were issued?

Just to say I can't thank you all enough for your help over the last year.