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.

We're exactly the same. Reassuring the see this thread! Good luck all.

We're Edexcel here, but have asked for reviews of both papers. DS predicted 4 for Lit, but came away with one mark short of a 9, astonishingly enough. However he just scraped into a 5 for lang (thankfully at least - he needed that to carry on at his school's 6th Form), which is what he was predicted. We were just wondering if it is likely for there to be such a big discrepancy between the 2 papers? However he has historically struggled massively with English his whole school career, so perhaps language is much harder than lit for someone like him? FWIW he qualified for extra time and typed his papers, so we are not sure if it is a paper marking issue, or just that he was able to perform well in one aspect but not in another

The computer does the adding up, no jiggery pokery at all!

what I have found is either missed questions, missed pages or a senior examiner agreeing that the markscheme has been incorrectly applied (this is the ‘remark’ bit) and the level changes, resulting in mark changes

I’ve had many not shift at all, I’ve had some shift a grade and several in the last few years shift by up to three grades
if your English dept is willing to reread the paper that can be helpful - I put a two week limit on it as I was overwhelmed and basically at one point I was remarking half the year to recommend reviews or not.

We've asked for both Literature and Language to be reviewed (AQA) and have had some communication from the school that they have also raised a ' whole school concern' with AQA but I'm not really sure what that entails.

DC was predicted an 8 for Language and just scraped a 7 and was predicted an 8 for literature and got a 5. Thankfully their next steps haven't been affected by the grades but we would like some clarity - if it turns out that they deserved the grades award then so be it!

My DD was 2 marks short of a 5 for English Language (Edexcel) as a result the college have refused her to do A levels. How do we go about requesting a remark? I have emailed the school but they don't open until 9th Sept. I wasn't going to do it, but having read these threads it might be worth it.

@Franticbutterfly how is the exam officer not in school for dealing with reviews etc? I’m genuinely shocked if that’s the case!

My DC was predicted a 9 in English Language and got a 5! One mark off a 6. So it is interesting to hear that others have had similar experiences. I can't think of a good reason to request the paper though (not a criticism of those who are, I just don't think it is going to make a difference to my particular DC whether he has a 5 or a higher mark).

Anybody finding the same with OCR English Lang and Lit? My dd working consistently at a 7 and felt the exams went really well, worked really hard but came out for a 6 and 5. Not bad marks at all but it has completely thrown her as she wanted to do A level and this is now in doubt. She has also noted that some of her friends got surprise high grades when predicted 5's.

I just had an email back saying that no one would even look at emails until the 9th. Maybe I need to dig a little deeper on their website.

My advice would be to contact the school via the exams officer / class teacher and ask for her exam scripts to be returned. Depending on the school, the request for exam scripts may need to come directly from the student.

Where I work, the process would be for the class teacher - or someone else if the class teacher was no longer available (eg. moved schools / retirement / mat leave) - to review the scripts (the written exams) and essentially remark them / moderate the marks given. The teacher would then advise if they felt the exam board had marked wrongly and would suggest submitting the paper for a re-mark if they didn't agree. This comes at a cost to the parent/carer if the mark doesn't change and there is also a risk the mark could go down.

As a teacher, we honestly want the best for the students. I have two GCSE students who were one mark off a higher grade yesterday and have emailed them and suggested they request the papers so that I can review them if they'd like me to.

With no disrespect to parents (I know how much you want the best outcomes for your DC), please just be aware that a 'review' means your child's teacher looks over and re-marks the script unpaid, before suggesting that you ask the exam board for an official remark. I've seen a remark at A-Level this week come back several marks lower, but still keeping the original grade. Unless it's one or two marks off the upper grade or a few marks off and affects your child's future choices, I would honestly advise that if the class teachers don't disagree with the board's marking, it isn't worth pursuing a remark.

Sorry to hear so many students have been disappointed this summer.....

I know someone who marks for OCR (don't do it at GCSE myself). He is on the review team and has seen some shockers. May well be worth a review.

A small % of overall entries are changed. When you work out the % of reviews that change it seems to be around 20-25%. The QCA review of marking last year made Literature the least accurate, followed by Art, followed by English Language.
This matches our experience with Literature being more harshly marked.

@pinkflamingo83 Thank you for your response. She was 2 marks off a 5 and the college have a refused to allow her to do a levels on this basis

I’m just adding on here to say that any papers submitted for a review will be reviewed, not remarked. It’s to check it was marked within the mark scheme.

With no disrespect to parents (I know how much you want the best outcomes for your DC), please just be aware that a 'review' means your child's teacher looks over and re-marks the script unpaid, before suggesting that you ask the exam board for an official remark. I've seen a remark at A-Level this week come back several marks lower, but still keeping the original grade. Unless it's one or two marks off the upper grade or a few marks off and affects your child's future choices, I would honestly advise that if the class teachers don't disagree with the board's marking, it isn't worth pursuing a remark.
I know what you are saying, and I taught A Level years ago, and a wholesale remark would have been hellish, but if things are happening like questions missing, whole school queries of grades and grades going up by 2 or 3 grades then the exam boards need to be made aware and made to account for it if this goes over the bounds of himan error. It's not good enough really to cause so much stress to already stressed children and parents and teachers. . They aren't doing this for free. They get paid for it and have a responsibility to mark correctly. I know there is always a shortage of markers, because they pay terribly, but even so.

DS was predicted an 8, got a 6 , he really worked hard, felt the exams went well, it just doesn’t make sense . Got his grade back and he was 4 marks from a 7 so not a million miles away. He goes to a pretty crap comp and they really do not encourage remarks or asking for reviews of papers to teachers but I may persevere anyway and see where we get to

GrammarTeacher thanks for your response, that's very interesting. We've asked for the school to take a look at the scripts first and we'll take their advice on whether to get them reviewed formally. In the grand scheme of things, her grades are fine but we just want to make sure there haven't been any errors in marking.

I think Eng Lang marking is all over the place. DC was on track for a 7, the school sent everyone's March mock paper for a remark to check things and DC was marked down for a 4, cue months of anxiety. They got a 7 in the end.

The whole exam needs rethinking - it's a bizarre way of assessing English capability ('answer questions to this extremely specific formula') and the style of writing it asks for is so artificial and not at all good writing.

Thank you for this thread. My ds was predicted 7/8s for both English Lit and Lang but has got 5s in both. Lang is one mark off the 6. It didn’t impact on his A level choices but it doesn’t sit right.

Since yesterday, I have been mulling over whether to discuss with school. FWIW, ds had the same teacher for both lit and Lang for the whole two years. The most experienced teacher in the school with nearly 30 years under her belt. Well regarded amongst the boys and parents because she gets bloody good results. She predicted at least 7s. DS was well prepared for the exams and came out feeling quite positive. Things just don’t quite add up.

@Ohcrap082024 i would request the papers for the Lang as some university course ask for a G6 in English. We went through this last year but unfortunately for DD missing by 1mark it was reviewed and didn’t change overall. I’m glad we checked though and now unfortunately some of the university’s she was interested in won’t accept her with a grade5 Eng Lang

My DD has asked about a review of mark as she was 2 marks away from a 6. We have decided to leave it as she won't ever be applying to Uni anyway so she doesn't need a higher grade.

The odd thing with her though is that she was predicted a 5 by the school even though she never scored any higher than a 3 in any mock. We had hoped for a 4 but were prepared for a 3.

We couldn't believe it when she got a 5 and only checked the grade boundaries out of curiosity and were amazed to see how close she was to the 6.

@MrsHamlet are you saying you mark the whole script, all 5 questions? It has always been my understanding assessors only mark, say Q4 on one batch of scripts, Q3 on another, to avoid any building bias, on the paper as a whole. Has this now changed?
*referring to AQA 8700