Clerical check gcse grades

[Stickortwister]

I wonder if you can share if staff at your (state) school are processing appeals for gcse grades at the moment, or are you able to contact admin staff at school before term starts.
DS has missed out on the sixth form place at college of his choice by 1 mark on a gsce. He needed a 6 in 2 sciences to do maths. He's met the requirement in maths and physics but from looking at the grade boundaries he is one mark off a 6 in biology and 2 marks off in chemistry. We ideally wanted a clerical check ASAP but apparently the staff doing this are off work for another week ( just getting out of office when we try and contact the exams officer).
It's not a disaster but means he will probably enrol at his current school sixth form with lower requirements than go to the sixth form he wanted to go to.

Is this normal at state schools for the exams officer to not be working after results bit before school starts?

I have been able to contact the exams staff

Have you asked his preferred sixth form if they will accept him?

Is a definite no to the other college. They'll have him to do other subjects but not to do maths and physics.

Trying to get a feel if reasonable for exams officers to process these things in other schools before I start complaining to school

Clerical checks of components marked online are a waste of time and money because the computer does the adding up.
You'd be better off getting priority access to the scripts and having someone in the centre look over them.
Our exams officer is in but teaching staff are not, until Monday.

We're having an appeal for English language which missed a six by one mark- but because it was only one mark and under appeal, my dd's college accepted it as a six. It might be worth fighting it with them.

No, it's not reasonable. It will depend on your school's budget and the employment contract of the exams officer.

Even if they are working in the holidays, they may be prioritising A level appeals that might impact a student's higher education transition, over GCSE appeals that will benefit a rival sixth form.

Our school has been processing some appeals for glaring under-gradings where parts of papers haven't been marked at all, ready to send them to the exam board on Monday, but they're not currently responding to other miscellaneous requests.