Y11 2023/24 thread 5 - results!

[Techno56]

New thread as no 4 is nearly full

Yep it's a lot of money and you may think the paper that was 1 off the next grade is worth it when it may be the one that's 20 marks away!!

My friend I mentioned before ho works at a college said one exam board has failed to mark whole papers for maths this year.

Problems sometimes is the Exams office!

We asked for a copy of English exam script to see if worth asking for a review at £100 or so, paid the requisite £15 for a copy of the script only to be told by the Exams officer the window to request has gone and they won't process it. Yet AQA English seems to indicate it is a) freely available and b) Date for reviews etc still in play.

I am not sure how difficult it is to get the scripts for the school, they seem to make things as difficult for us as possible. I would have thought its a simple application and they get emailed the results, but not sure if its more complex than that. They sure seem to suggest it is a huge admin task to do this.

Child is 8-9 marks away from the next grade boundary and normally i would not be bothered to look at the paper due to this but this years AQA English Language seems to be very off the mark. No pun intended.

I agree @JohnnyJonnyYesPapa . Our exams officer seems a bit vague. I don't believe there's a cost to request the script and I don't think the deadline has passed.

Some schools are really good and proactive. Others are not. We think one of our child's score was not added properly. Consistently scored 80+ in one exam. predicted 9. Paper came back at 45%. Child shocked. Felt it went alot better and despite scoring 45% or so was 2 points off a 9. School was not even bothered by it. So having to ask for a review as we think they may ahve missed adding up a question or more. Others are point off or so in a few papers so asked for a review. School seems not to want to help or be supportive. I don't understand as with better grades it reflects on them too as well as the children.

I can understand if someone is 5-10 points away from the next grade boundary but 1 or 2 marks away should be reviewed.

Again, if you have the money you can ask for it. If you don't then £50 per paper is a gamble.

I’m really surprised how differently things work in other schools. My DD received her exam results online at 8am. Before she even got to school to pick up her results slip, her teachers in two subjects had emailed her and suggested she asks for the scripts. At school she gave permission and the scripts arrived immediately, so DD reviewed them with her teachers. 2 papers were selected there and then to put in for a review of marking. We received the results 5 days later. I think we got lucky.

If you look at the PDF here, it seems your exam office might be partially right - it looks like the deadline for the Copy of script has now passed (deadline 5 September), so any requests now will need to be for the Original script, which may take up to 6 weeks, and AQA ask that schools hold off requesting these until after the reviews of marking have been submitted (see the flowchart, final page). The deadline for reviews of marking is 26 September, so it's a risk that the original script won't come back before that deadline.

But you'd hope (especially as you are paying a hefty administration fee to them!) that the office would be happy to apply for the original script for you, with a warning that if it does not come back within the next fortnight, you'll need to go straight to a review of marking (to meet the 26 September deadline).

Post-results services – summary guide summer 2024 (aqa.org.uk)

I got an email from school on Friday to say that DD was one mark away from the next grade in Maths, however they want £147.12 which I absolutely cannot afford, it's a shame though as one mark seems so small and after reading all the posts on here it seems marking in many subjects has been somewhat off, not sure if I should try and find the money in the hope that the mark is found or just move on?

DD emailed the exams officer thos
morning to chase up. No response back. Glad its her and not me dealing with it as I’m annoyed ! She emailed them about an hour after picking up her results and has only had an acknowledgment .

Although another couple of days and I will be wading in .

DD was a mark off 9 in history, she was advised to send for review & came back with eight more marks. Her friend was the same, but came back the same grade.
Another girl asked for a review on biology & grade rose fr9m a 6 to an 8!

The marking seems so off reading this thread.

I am not sure how difficult it is to get the scripts for the school, they seem to make things as difficult for us as possible. I would have thought its a simple application and they get emailed the results, but not sure if its more complex than that. They sure seem to suggest it is a huge admin task to do this.

If it's Aqa, not difficult at all

Why are they saying it's so expensive?

Have they checked the paper?

Is there a clear marking error?

Maths has gone up to a grade 9. Dc very happy this evening. Not heard about others yet. School post the exam board information out , using good old fashioned Royal Mail so don’t know how many marks he gained yet.

No idea the message I got said:

Following careful analysis of our GCSE results, we have identified that name could benefit from a review of marking in the following:

:
Subject
Marks away from achieving the next grade
Cost of review
Maths
1
£147.12

We have based this decision on how close she is to the marks required to achieve the next grade and our experience of her general ability. However, the final decision of whether to pursue the review of marking is up to you as a family. Please also note that marks can go down as well as up. We believe it is highly unlikely that grades would go down, but it is a possibility.

sorry it’s a bit jumbled as I’ve cut and pasted it from the email, there was some other info about payment and submitting forms but nothing else.

@Johaanah which exam board? Because that's a lot more money than I would expect!

And maths is generally either right or wrong. If want to know that they've identified where that mark is coming from. I know we've had some maths back with added marks - but the hod only sent back papers where we knew there were errors.

There definitely seems to be lots of miscommunication from schools though, DSs teacher said it was worth trying as he was only 1 mark off but did say it was unlikely to change, she hadn't seen the script at that point but my understanding was that it was not likely they would find a mark but there could be a chance there was a mistake, for the teacher to say its worth trying as its just one mark makes no sense, the school were very surprised there was a change in grade as they said its rare, this year it appears not for AQA. The paper came back with an additional 4 marks on 1 question due to 'error in academic judgment'.

@JohnnyJonnyYesPapa I really can't see why you can't still get copies of scripts - it's literally a download. I know the deadline has passed according to that but it might be worth pushing.

This doesn't mention a deadline:
https://www.aqa.org.uk/exams-administration/after-results/post-results

Completely confused finally got DS to check old school emails and he had email 3rd of September to say he was regarded for computer science from 4 to a 5. They never got me to pay anything.

Excellent news @Tebheag

Had he given permission? They must have seen problems with the marking to put it in without you paying.

Hi yes they asked for his permission the day he got his results. Was waiting for email to ask me to pay but never happened.

It's Edexcel.

Yes this is what I was thinking and if I'm honest I really don't want to gamble £147 on it. School haven't really given any indication either. I guess I'll just leave it and move on, she's started a new school and is taking a resit in November anyway.

@Johaanah looking at the fees, it looks like they're proposing to put all of the papers in which is insanity

To be honest the school really don't care about non academic students - well it's not even non academic pupils the high achievers are the main priority and focus, and as it's in a wealthy area with only 8% of pupils eligible for pupil premium I think most parents would probably just make the payment and see what happens. I kind of wish they hadn't mentioned it.

That's shit. I'm sorry to hear that

New here and trying to decide whether to send my DS's AQA Biology Paper 2 for a review. He's 3 marks off a 7. The Head of Science has seen the paper and says that 2 questions are 'under marked' and there are possibly 3 more marks he could get. I'm pretty sure I'll do it, but just worried in case marks go down. Having said that they'd have to go down by 20 marks to change from a 6 to a 5, so doesn't feel too risky.

Annoyed I didn't ask them to look at both papers now. Have asked the exams officer if it's possible to get Paper 1 checked, but not sure if it's too late.

Across the examination boards it's only 0.1% of re-marked papers that go down a grade, and in a subject like biology it would be near impossible to lose that many marks (given so many of the marks are awarded for mention of a specific word/term, which he must have included to get the marks in the first place!).

I think the only gamble for you will be the cost involved.