AQA GCSE English reviews

[WhereAreWeNow]

Quite a few of us in the big GCSE results thread are looking at getting AQA English reviewed.

Starting a new thread in case anyone wants to share updates about the review process or have a bit of a moan about AQA!

DD got 8s and 9s in mocks and all classwork. She's an avid reader and writer and she knew the texts inside out. She felt the exams went well. But she got a 6 in Lang and a 5 in Lit. School is definitely asking for Lang to be reviewed.

In a similar boat here, going to ask for a review in Lang.

Following. Also asking for a review of Lang.

Ah, we're getting an English Lit review but ours was edexcel. Do you mind if I tag along?

My DS got a 3 and was 3 marks away from a 4. Very unexpected, was predicted a 7, got a 6 in mocks. Came out of the exams telling his teacher that he thought it had gone really well!!

My DD also did much worse than expected in AQA English and we are requesting a remark.

DD missed an 8 by one mark in language. Its not something she's doing at A level so I'm wondering if it's anything to worry about? They have to draw a line somewhere...

I've requested the paper from school but obviously I have no clue if it's been reasonably marked- waiting for her English teacher to feed back to me but I think he might be away on holiday so might have to wait til term starts again.

Lang does seem to have some real surprises this year...

Edexcel Lit surprise mark for my dd.
Mocks were 8/9 and she came out of the exam feeling positive. She got a 6 and felt gutted yesterday.

Predicted 9s and got 7s yesterday, DD is gutted and we've asked for the English literature papers back to look at. If the teachers think it's worth submitting for review, I think I'll ask for both literature and language to be looked at.

Daughter thought she’d done well on AQA English Language. Got a 5 - one mark off a 6. School are requesting a review.

Interesting that you've had similar experience with Edexecel @Gandalfsdaughter and @OhNoBumblesStolenAToy

Does anyone have any idea of how likely it is for a review to result in a change of grade? My daughter has been one mark off a 7 in two subjects, this Eng lang paper being one. Is it very common for it to go up?

It was the same last year - lots of strange results in English Language in particular.

Agree with this.

I would also add, predicted grades are terribly unreliable, so I would not base your decisions on whether to go for a review on that. Depending on the research, accuracy of predictions has been found to be as low as 16%..

Good luck to those that decide to get a review.

Thanks for starting the thread @@WhereAreWeNow . I didn't want to bang on about it on the other thread but the comments about the school over predicting or the DCs finding the exam hard etc. are just not the case for us. This is not a new syllabus, these are experienced teachers in a grammar school that gets excellent results and they know what they are talking about. Our mocks are harshly marked too (DS got a 6 in Biology mock, predicted an 8 and got a 9 in the real thing). It is quite possible that certain markers are are just being incredibly harsh while others are not to explain the significant disparities rather than teachers not knowing how to teach Macbeth.

We have requested a review.

Just coming to place mark . Dd didn’t do as well in English language. AQA here , we don’t have a mark , except for a p on the paper which I’m told is a pass for the oral section. Two grades down from what she was predicted.
have emailed school to see if the know the mark , no response yet.

luckily college have got her into resit very quickly and she’s been accepted onto her course so hopefully she can sort it quickly herself.

she thought it went well the test , she must have been having a bad day 🤷‍♀️

or a really hard paper, strange that there’s so many that struggled

School have requested ds’s exam papers for a few subjects, including English language. We will see whether his teachers recommend a review with the exam boards once they have looked at them.

Also getting a Lang review. DS worked really hard on his English, about the only subject he put masses of effort into. Such was his confidence after the exams he was considering it as a back up a level. He got a 5 in both. He was expecting 7's.

Predicted a 7/8 and got a 6, with a distinction for the speaking element (although apparently this doesn’t impact grade). We’ve not got the raw mark though.

@DoThePropeller we had exactly the same! Predicted an 8. Came out the exams feeling really good. Ended up with a 6 and Distinction in spoken element.

Tending towards not going for a review as 11 marks off a grade 7 and that seems like an unlikely jump. Especially weighed against the risk of losing a few marks and dropping down to a 5.

Am I right that if you get a copy of the exam script, you see the marks awarded on each question, so can add them up yourself to see if any mistakes were made? Or does some jiggery-pokery happen to transform raw scores into the scores provided with the grades? I'm trying to work out whether anyone whose DC had a lower grade than expected (or who is one or two marks below a grade boundary) should order the script in the first instance? I assume there's no downside (other than the fee)?

We reviewed EngLit last year as dd predicted 8 and got a 5. Thankfully she was allowed to take EngLit at sixth form based on prediction.

Review came back late September and she was awarded an 8! Exam board think she was given someone else’s grade. School said that’s quite rare though.

I've had an aqa paper back already which has clearly missed a page. Makes the difference between the 6 (given) and the 8 (expected)

If you can get your teachers to request papers, DO