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.

Please all, don't send both papers back unless someone who knows has looked at them and you are sure they have not been too generously marked before you do. Check if one paper has done much worse - not by the numbers as they are not always evenly weighted, but by looking at the notional component boundaries for each paper not the overall boundaries. Your schools should do this, though of course most teachers are not back yet - it's far too much for parents to understand unless you work in the field I think. Marks can go down and do. And without looking at papers first and checking through, you may have a nasty shock by sending off for reviews of marking even if you are well above the previous grade boundary. There is not a big queue of people wanting to do English marking around the country and there can be examples of errors that are far too generous as well as those that are too mean so being near to the boundary is not necessarily the right trigger for a review! Our poor DC - this is an important qualification and it's just not fair on them.

@PeeringOvertheparapet just checking you have not sent back the paper he did extraordinarily well in - just the lower one? If you weren't expecting such high marks at all, sending it back really might not be the right thing to do even if you can see the possibility of the next high grade up from the numbers.

For my ds the odd thing was the difference in marks between the 2 papers in both English lang and Lit. So a strong 8 in one and just scraping a 5 in the other. Is that the type of thing that looks a bit odd? I just thought that he had messed up on the 2nd papers

I'd suggest you need more information than that - was there a question which went wrong? Schools have that level of data.

Yes. Speak to school and get copies of papers question by question data before making the decision.

This is interesting. My son was predicted around 6/7 ( but school never predict higher). It's his weakest subject and he has a high 7 English Lang and high 8 for literature ( got 98% one paper).
We are a little surprised and obviously delighted.

DD was one mark of a higher grade in 2 subjects. She got a 6 in both having been predicted 8.

My concern is that she'll have lost faith in predicted grades and mock results which influence her a level studies.

What's also really frustrating over Eng Lang being such a weird, counterintuitive exam is that it's a key subject to pass at a decent level for A-levels, especially essay subjects.

With the panic when DC's March mock paper got remarked so low, we were looking at a potential situation where they getting at least an 8 for History clearly demonstrating they can write an excellent essay, but potentially not getting a good enough Eng Lang mark to take History as an A-level! Which is bonkers.

Luckily that didn't come to pass and, as I stated earlier, I think the mocks re-mark was nonsense.

Adding my DD's AQA's grades just for data - 7 for Lang and 8 for Lit (2 marks off a 9). Some of her friends who had lower grades were in a class with a teacher who, albeit lovely, did mark very generously...

I hope any reviews have a good outcome for people.

Can i ask- presumably if you ask for the exam papers back you see them with marks on?

Yes, for AQA certainly

Thank you. I’m not sure whether to ask for papers back. He got a 5, 6 marks of a 6. Is going down the maths computing route for a levels (where he got 8’s for everything bar english). Is it worth asking for the papers back just to see if the marking looked rubbish? I don’t want to upset him or make him think the 5 wasn’t good enough. Especially as I’ve checked uni’s and i don’t think it will make a difference for things he’s interested in.

And he would only have been predicted a 6 anyway so not a massive fall. It’s just AQA marking sounds like it’s been a bit rubbish.

How will you know if the marking looked rubbish??

i thought i could at least add up the marks/ check every question was marked?

Of course you could do that, yes.

I'd definitely do that rather just put in for review: the 4-5-6 gaps are small, and marks can and do go down as well as up.

Once the school has the scripts, can parents and students also see them before deciding whether to request a review of marking or clerical check, or are the scripts only accessible to the school, which then makes the decision?

All decisions belong to the candidate, as do the scripts. They should be sent to the staff (if that's been requested by the candidate) and the candidate.

A clerical check for English is largely pointless - the computer does the maths.

Thank you!

This should be impossible. As an AQA examiner for English Literature (pre-Covid) you have to acknowledge every page in the answer booklet. It’s all scanned in so the examiner gets the pages digitally (a bit like a pdf) You cannot submit the marked paper if there isn’t a comment on each page. Even something as simple as a tick to show you have seen the in written on pages. Very confusing.

Mis-scanned possibly.

Ah thank you. So suggests it’s largely pointless then for us. Feel so sad for my ds. He did so well. Seven 8’s, one 7 a 6 for eng lit and a 5 for language and it seems like some of the better unis will be out of his reach for economics degree because of his lang mark. He’s had a tutor but mostly focussed on lit. So annoyed at myself for not realising lang mattered most and focussing on that rather than lit. feel i’ve let him down.

@Dragonsandcats have you seen the papers? What did he get on each?

You haven't let him down. Someone has to be on the "wrong side" of every grade boundary. And 5 is a good grade.

DD is one mark away from a 9. What should we look for to decide whether to request a review of marking or not?

It has to be deemed awarded the wrong level banding for a mark to be adjusted.

So, for example, if examiner A awarded the Macbeth response level 3 and gave it 11/ 30 (well, 34 with SPAG) but examiner B also placed the response in level 3 but awarded slightly higher at 13, the mark wouldn’t change as they both agreed the level of the response was correct.

English is too subjective and it would be too difficult to have to agree an exact mark. Imagine they got a third opinion with examiner C who gave it 12. They have neither agreed with A or B. So do we get in examiner D? (Level 3 spans 11-15 marks by the way)

Reviews don't look for marks. Unless there are clear errors in marking, it is highly unlikely to move.