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.

Thank you @SummerSwim this is exactly my thinking. Especially as DS is a grade 8/9 humanities student (will be taking A level History, Politics and Philosophy).

DS doesn’t want to request a review as he is simply relieved that his 6th form have admitted him (due to his 8&9s). He doesn’t understand that the grade 5s could/will impact his uni choices. But then he is 16 and can’t see the bigger picture.

@MrsHamlet Aware of fact it's anonymised! Could be me but some previous posts implied marking whole paper - ie reference to not 'doing the maths' which would be impossible, given process.
Thanks for clarification (for other posters) that assessors only mark one question per script, as this is a very important point when parents are enquiring and speculating regarding the process

I posted on the other thread. My DD got a 7 in Lit and a 9 in Lang. This was a flip of what was expected. She'd been consistently getting 8/9 in Lit and knew the texts really well. She came out of the exams really positive. She had never scored above a 7 in Language and had a wobble saying she'd done badly in the exam.

Her entire cohort scored really low on Lit compared to their predictions. There were a couple of 9's, no 8's, some 7's but mostly 5/6. There were lots of tears.

It doesn't make any sense to me. It all seems weirdly out of sync.

@MrsHamlet Agree re centre assessment and investment in own students. However, you don't need to know the candidate to build a bias - which is why the process is as is
My original point was regarding making it clear that assessors do not mark the whole script/paper

This is so interesting, dd was consistently getting 8s and 9s in English language and literature mocks and assessments and she ended up with a 5 for literature and 6 for language. Unfortunately she now hasn’t been allowed onto the courses she wanted to do. We’ve been calling around schools and because she did well in other subjects shes been offered a maths A level, a business btec, physics A level, computing a level but she doesn’t want to do these subjects and one college admitted she was being offered the subjects no one else wants to do. She’s devastated because she wanted to do English literature at uni so feels she can’t do this without an a level (I have no idea if this is true). She’s done so bloody well and it now feels like she won’t study what she wants at uni so her hard work was pointless. She has adhd too and is obsessed with learning about history and literature so it would be extra hard for her to do a subject she’s not that interested in.

Interesting that a school has raised a whole school concern.

I really hope that nothing has gone awry, and it’s stopped the young people being accepted onto further learning.

we are lucky as dd has been accepted onto a l3 course on the understanding she resits in November.

also the cost involved, I can’t see many already stretched schools being keen to delve deeper into looking at the papers if the students have already moved on / been accepted to the next course.

has anyone heard of this being a problem outside of mums net ?

DS got 6 in both lit and lang mocks and was predicted the same. Said he felt both exams went ok.

Ended up with a 5 in lit and 4 in lang!

His slip doesn't have a mark on for lang though - does anyone know how we find out his mark?

It also says lang was a WJEC/OCS paper yet lit was AQA - does that seem right?

has anyone heard of this being a problem outside of mums net ?

Almost every one of DS friends and DC of people I know seemed to get 1 or 2 grades lower in English than their other exams.

DS got all 6/7 but in English 4/5. Others I know of who got say 8/9s across the board got 6/7 in English.

All just seems a bit bizarre!

DS2 got mostly 8/9’s a couple of 7’s and a 5 in language. Predicted an 8!
we have asked for the paper back..

@stealthninjamum it's so bloody hard! DD has been accepted onto the course she wants to do at the 6th form she wants to go to but it's been a tense 24 hours waiting to hear. The English marks really put it in doubt.

English has been one of DD's strongest subjects since primary school and she's always been top set/higher attainer.
Her goal has been to go to Oxbridge but I don't know if that's an option now. I'm told they only usually accept students with straight 8s/9s at GCSE. We'll wait and see what the review brings but I'm starting to wonder if she'll need to resit the exam if she wants to study at Oxbridge.

It just seems such a flawed system. Everything hinges on getting maths and English but English is notorious for erratic/inconsistent marking. There must be a better way than this!

Interesting thread. DD was predicted 8 for Lit and 7 for Lang (both AQA) and ended up with a 6 in both. Like PPs we don't have the mark for Lang, but for Lit he was actually on the grade boundary and so was bloody lucky to get the 6.

He's not the most diligent student, so I wouldn't have been surprised if it wasn't for the fact that he was really pleased with how all the English papers went.

Given he was on the low end of the boundary it hadn't occurred to me to ask to see the papers, but that was before reading the posts here about whole questions being missed. Something to ponder.

Last year my daughter got a 6 for English Lit AQA despite 9 predictions and mocks. We got her paper reclaimed and a teacher at her school who had marked that year for AQA said she would have marked the paper an 8. But she said they had already appealed 20 grades but the examining board just wouldn't shift despite many grades seeming way out. She concluded that as AQA had hit their govt grade % targets that they didn't want to make changes. The same people were remarking anyway and that was that. We had to put it behind us however frustrating it was unfortunately. It made me lose a lot of trust in the allocated grades as a result.

Maybe not helpful, but my dd was the opposite. She was predicted 6 in AQA lit and language and got 8's.

It is worth putting in for a review if you're prepared to lose money. Every year we have people who go up as part of the process. I have never had a year where no one I sent for review has gone up.

Reassuring to read so many similar stories! We have requested a review of Eng Lit which was 1 mark off a 6. I have seen the script (which was typed) and a couple of the pages have been muddled on the lowest scoring paper- not sure if that made a difference or not? We shall see.
Not sure what to do about Eng Lang yet: that one might be a resit.

Interested to have spotted this thread. Ds and many of his year at school did much worse than predicted in English language and literature.

Can anyone explain the review process to me?
School wants to submit DD's English for review. So what does that actually mean? Is the first step that the exam board sends the papers back and the teachers look at it for any obvious anomalies? Then the teachers challenge the exam board's mark if they think it's wrong? Then someone at exam board looks at it and either changes grade or doesn't?
@MrsHamlet or any other teachers/examiners on here who can explain?

Gosh this is reassuring
my dd was predicted 8s in English lang, English lit and business (Also AQA) and got 8s and a 9 in the mocks
she worked incredibly hard and came out with a 6 in all three..it makes no sense at all and she is devastated, it’s a great mark but so far from what she was predicted and has really knocked her confidence.
we’ve requested all the papers from AQA

its also worth mentioning how many students didn’t pass maths…1 in 3 I have read! Something very wrong with our education system (not the teachers as they do an amazing job) and it’s our kids who suffer!

Nothing can be reviewed without the permission of the candidate.

The first step should be to look at the Question level marks. Centres have those. I've asked to recall the papers of anyone with zero for any question - in case they've not been marked (although almost inevitably they'll be candidates who missed out a question)

Then get the marked scripts to look at in centre.

Review doesn't look for marks, so - in my opinion - centres which put in anything just below a grade boundary are mad! Grades and grade boundaries have nothing to do with review - it's simply another look at the marking.

On the point above about 1/3 of students not passing maths (and leaving aside that grades 1-3 are a pass but that people don't seem to know that), that's the way the system is designed. Grades are distributed on a curve - some people have to get those grades.

Thanks @MrsHamlet

I've also found this infographic which helps explain the process. https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/post-results-services

My dc was asked to sign a consent form when he collected results, as teachers had already decided they were going to review some of his exam papers. This includes subjects one mark below grade boundary. If his teachers recommend a review with the exam boards, we will be guided by them. One has recommended a review so far ( thank you to that teacher for checking so promptly -and in her own time). None affect his A level choices though.

Ds was predicted 7 in Language.

Was consistently getting 6 in mocks.

Got a 5 in the real thing.

Weirdly though, he got a 6 in English Lit, was on mark off a 7. But we'd expected him to do worse in English Lit.

Nothing particular extreme, but it was a surprise.

Quite a few of his classmates failed English Language or got much lower than they'd expected, they all seemed to do better in English Lit.