English iGCSE - 3 marks off a 5 - remark?

[inigomontoyahwillcox]

DD was predicted a 6 in English literature. We got her results this morning and she got a 4. We were all very surprised. The school had submitted an extenuating circumstances report as the exam room had a pneumatic drill/roadworks going on in front of the room, but no guarantee they accepted this as mitigating circumstances. She also has ADHD so although the whole of the room would have been affected by this, she found it very difficult to refocus even when the noise died down for periods of time.

It turns out she was 3 marks off a 5, she needs a 5 to get into her preferred courses at 6th form. Does anyone have experience of asking for a marking review?

If IGCSE is same as normal ones, first step might be to ask school to look at paper and see what they think.

With normal GCSE they don't re-mark they check that marks are reasonable which for a subjective subject isn't quite the same thing.

Any chance 6th form will be lenient?

Yes as Teen says, with GCSE it is not a remark – what they check is that the marks are in the right band. So for a specific AO, there might be band 1 - 1-3 marks, band 2 – 4-6 marks (etc). The review simply checks that the reviewer considers the band was correct for the answer (not the mark, as I understand it).

I have no idea if the same process is in place for IGCSE mind you. Is there still a coursework element? Could that be reviewed?

I don't think there is a coursework element but I will check with the school. Her school have now been in touch saying the 6th form may also take her literature/sociology results (not that we have her sociology results in yet) into consideration as they are both essay based exams. So will discuss with them.

There is CW if it’s Pearson Edexcel but ofc it may not be. Not sure how much it helps if there is tbh, just that the school will have copies of the CW and could look at it again to give you an idea. Tho it will have been moderated externally so it's not as simple as them giving three more marks,obvs.

Just read your update properly - I was talking about eng lit wrt CW but is this Eng lang?

Ah sorry - I meant language, not literature 🙄. She did well in lit - got a 6. It’s with Cambridge exam board - an iGCSE.

It’s the school’s choice whether to do the coursework element or not though - it can be 100% exam

Hi OP. Surprised that you have the results already, we keep ours until Thurs, even the Cambridge ones that are released early!

I'm a EO. Get a copy of her paper from the exams office and then ask the head of English to review it against the mark scheme.

Some years we have tons of increased grades. Two years ago, our AQA English language grades INCREASED after review of marking for 10% of our cohort. (admittedly this was gcse and not iGCSE).

Thank you@Notsurewheretostarthere- DD is going to request both papers and we’re going to ask for the review.

Ah OK – there can also be CW in the Cambridge English language IGCSE FWIW but indeed it is optional. IME most schools do the CW tho bc why wouldn’t you?

Anyway hope you get some useful info @inigomontoyahwillcox

@inigomontoyahwillcox , I'm pretty sure with igcse it's not possible to review the papers in advance and the remark is quite expensive.
In 2023 my ds got a 7 on igcse eng lang - there is no course work. The school could see he got a 6 on the first paper and a 9 on the second paper so we put the first paper in for a marking review and his overall grade went up to an 8. It's was also free as a grade change. The board also don't tell you how many marks were gained in the review, just the new overall grade.

I’ve had conformation we can get copies
of the papers for free but remarks are about £52 each. Hoping we can also be told what she got on each paper like you.

I also thought you couldn’t get papers to look at without also paying for the review of marking. A rule that only CIE have. In my experience, they rarely alter the marks at review.

If it’s CIE, there’s the option for 50% coursework or an additional exam. School will have the mark breakdown.

It's not a remark. It's a review of the marking that has taken place. If it's reasonable, it won't change, even if a couple of marks more would also have been reasonable.

When we had DS’s RE reviewed as 1 mark off a 9 the teacher could request the papers for free, then she recommended which paper to request a review of marks.

So it’s pretty rare, in your experience for Cambridge iGCSE English Lit papers to actually change under review?
DD is 1 mark away from the next grade up and in the paper worth 50% had a shocker compared to how she usually does on that area! it’s a shame (well, annoying) we can’t see the script first.
If they rarely change I wonder if it’s worth the bother but it does seem odd.

Not true. I downloaded several free CIE scripts today for my students. No review of marking necessary.

I’ve been told that this morningtoo, Notsure*, despite our school thinking it’s not possible to see the script.

@Beenquee I downloaded a Textiles o'level and a DT GCSE yesterday, both CIE subjects, both available through OCR (the ocr scriptviewer now shows CIE scripts if you change the exam board on the landing page).

If not, if is probably still available through CIE, administer exams, post results, ATS, then select.

Shocking that an exams officer should turn you away for this.