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Original poster

Eng GCSE grade oddities

220 replies

Sausagesandpeas · 25/08/2023 09:10

DD consistently pulled 9s in her English Language mocks but has come out with a 6 in her results yesterday. She said she’d thought the exams went well. I am requesting copies of the papers to see if there is anything glaringly odd going in. Is it worth asking for a review? It just seems so odd.
Didn't get chance to talk to school staff in the bedlam yesterday.
Thanks

OP posts:
MrsHamlet · 25/08/2023 09:13

Don't ask for a review until you've had the papers looked at

Softdressesandblouses · 25/08/2023 09:15

Yes, a 3 grade discrepancy like that should be reviewed.

HollyGolightly4 · 25/08/2023 09:18

Definitely review. The English language grades are really odd.

teativezzzi · 25/08/2023 09:22

Yes, look at paper to check it's been added up correctly then if it's not a glaring clerical error, speak to school about a review. I'm seeing lots of discrepancies like this in English (and Maths) this year.

MrsHamlet · 25/08/2023 09:23

English lit is marked online. Clerical errors of that kind (unless they're keying errors) are rare because we don't do the adding up!

Zaaarrr · 25/08/2023 09:24

My dd got a five and she was expecting a seven. She did AQA. She was planning on doing it for A level so it's sent her into a bit of a tailspin.

HollyGolightly4 · 25/08/2023 09:25

Zaaarrr · 25/08/2023 09:24

My dd got a five and she was expecting a seven. She did AQA. She was planning on doing it for A level so it's sent her into a bit of a tailspin.

If the college will allow it, she should definitely still do it. It's totally different to GCSE and much better!

Smoothbananagram · 25/08/2023 09:26

Is it AQA? We had a few disappointments at the top end as well. They can be all over the place! Last year we had a significant number go up. Definitely worth considering a review. Have a look at how close she is to the lower grade boundary as it can go down as well as up theoretically.

Zaaarrr · 25/08/2023 09:28

Thank you @HollyGolightly4 for that as yesterday I did not really know what to advise her.

It's her favourite subject and she very much does want to do it at A level. She wasn't expecting a five at all

HollyGolightly4 · 25/08/2023 09:35

It's horrible @Zaaarrr. Honestly, the marking is all over the place. If she likes it, she'll do well at A Level I'm sure.

Toohotrightnow · 25/08/2023 09:38

Same here and for several others, predicted 8/9 and got 6.

ittakes2 · 25/08/2023 09:42

check the grade boundaries first too.

boysmuminherts · 25/08/2023 09:47

My son was expected a 5 or 6 in AQA English Language and got a 3.

YellowDots · 25/08/2023 09:55

Why is English Language the only one without a number grade after it?

OvaHere · 25/08/2023 09:57

We've discussed this a lot in the GCSE thread. DS dropped from an 8 to a 5. He's 3 marks off a 6 so school are reviewing. A 6 is still way below what was expected though.

It seems to have happened to a lot of the English top setters. In our school most seem to have come out with at least one grade lower than predicted.

Conversely some DC predicted lower grades have done much better than expected.

Various theories are being discussed in the other thread. Could be the change to exams a few years ago, looking at last years thread there was a similar but less pronounced inconsistency.

Another theory is that the reduction of 7,8,9s being awarded this year has pushed a number of the upper end students downwards.

It feels 'unfair' on an individual basis but I accept that statistically speaking that may not be the case.

MrsHamlet · 25/08/2023 10:04

YellowDots · 25/08/2023 09:55

Why is English Language the only one without a number grade after it?

Because there is too much data for school systems like SIMS to cope with - thanks to the spoken Lang mark.

The mark exists but you will have to ask the exams officer or teacher for it. It's a known issue and not of the exam board's making.

YellowDots · 25/08/2023 10:15

Thank you @MrsHamlet .

IndiganDop · 25/08/2023 10:17

@Zaaarrr
Fyi your daughter...many many many years ago my sister got an unexpected C for English Lit. It was her favourite subject and she was gutted. Her school was just as confused as she was, let her do A level anyway, and long story short she got an A and went on to study Eng Lit at Oxford.
Once she was allowed to carry on to the next stage, it never mattered again.

Interestingly, my DS got an unexpected 9 in Eng Lang. Always around a 6 in teacher predictions, mostly because he didn't get enough written. They did let him use a laptop in the exams and I think it must have made a huge difference! I always thought he was better than a 6 in terms of his style and voice. He got a 9 in both papers, almost exactly the same mark.

dutysuite · 25/08/2023 10:39

We are really shocked by the grades, my son was pulling 7s and has come out with 5s, we are currently having English remarked as suggested by the school - he was going to be studying English Lit A Level but he will have to do English Language now instead. I’m in the process of trying to query his food grade - we’re not too bothered because he isn’t using food for anything but to go from an 8 to a 5 doesn’t feel right…might be that the course work hasn’t been marked?

Whatames · 25/08/2023 10:44

@dutysuite
i teach English Lit and Language A Level. Language is definitely harder so really don’t understand why with a lower grade would study English Language rather than literature.

MrsHamlet · 25/08/2023 10:49

Whatames · 25/08/2023 10:44

@dutysuite
i teach English Lit and Language A Level. Language is definitely harder so really don’t understand why with a lower grade would study English Language rather than literature.

I absolutely agree with this.
Lang A level is much harder than lit and a huge step up from GCSE.

dutysuite · 25/08/2023 11:22

Whatames · 25/08/2023 10:44

@dutysuite
i teach English Lit and Language A Level. Language is definitely harder so really don’t understand why with a lower grade would study English Language rather than literature.

Sorry I mean English Lit/Language but he wants to do just English Literature and I believe that’s a facilitating subject so requires the higher GCSE grade.

happyhippiehippo · 25/08/2023 11:26

Strange here too. DD is doing Eng Lit for A-level and got a 9 in that but an 8 in Eng Language.

Of course these are great grades and doesn't stop her from doing anything but just curious as hers was an iGCSE where there was a CW component (in which she scored 95%).

So she must have scored around 65% in the exam but DD thought after the exam she'd scored around 85% (I know predictions like these are not always correct but she was only a few % points off on the others) - she actually thought it was the exam, out of all subjects, she did the best in!

For context, DD was predicted a 9 throughout Y11 and scored 89% in the Feb mocks (the average at her highly selective school was 65% I think), after minimal revision. Similar story in Y10.

It could be that she relied too heavily on CW to make sure she upped her slightly, then, weaker science subjects but I do find it odd that she got her prediction so, so wrong especially combined with the massive drop from her mocks (for which she'd studied only the day before) and previous end-of-years.

She's too far away from the boundary for a review, and it really doesn't matter, but I think we'll request the script just to find out where she went out as a learning opportunity.

LighthouseCat · 25/08/2023 11:39

Odd results for us too (predicted 9, got a 6). Someone posting a theory in the other GCSE thread which I thought was interesting. Here is it copied and pasted: "We had an unexpected Eng Lang grade here too. I watched a Mr Salles (English teacher) YouTube video from just after the exams where he predicted that some lower grades would go up and some higher grades would come down. He said that the pandemic affected this cohort's education differently. Some students still had access to full online (or in person if they are boarding) education. Some students also spent the lockdowns reading a lot more and maybe writing their own stories etc. At the other end, many students missed out on a significant amount of learning (+ skills and exam technique). The grades are essentially a competition. If the top 3% get a grade 9, then students who may be talented enough to a get a 9 most years may be pushed down to an 8 or a 7 by those who had access to a full education and take the top grades. At the other end, more students have missed out so will get lower grades. This means your grade 4 student could get bumped up to a 5 or 6 as there are already so many people being given grades 1-4 who scored lower than them. It's a normal distribution graph so there are always more people with the middle grades. The gist of what he was saying (if I recall correctly) is that there are more students at the upper and lower ends this year due to COVID and therefore students have been shunted towards the middle (up or down). In theory this means that the students aren't necessarily getting grades that reflect their ability or that are comparable with previous year groups. It does show their national ranking though."

IndiganDop · 25/08/2023 11:46

Mr Salle's theory wouldn't work for us (up from 6 to 9). Only had online teaching in Jan-April 2021 lockdown. Live in NW where our lockdowns were longer and he was in and out like a revolving door when they sent the kids sat close to a case home for ten days.

What his school did do was teach them to prewrite a basic story and adapt it to any given prompt - eg add a few lines about setting if it says "write a story set in Winter". He writes extremely well but is not quick at coming up with creative ideas, and I think having his basic story sorted was very very helpful.