Year 11 - 2024/2025: The Results Day Thread

[QueenMabby]

New thread for results day. Deep breaths. We can do this!

Papers scoring differently isn't a cause for concern in itself. Wild disparity might be.

This is us too - no effect on progression, but definite effect on her overall happiness with result. DD is ADHD and very dyslexic, and really disappointed with her English grades. She's generally reliable at reporting back how she did as well - and she's totally fine with the grades in everything else as she feels they are accurate.

I just think it would make such a difference to her self esteem if she came out with a 5 in lang and a 6 in lit, and more in line with expectations. I don't want to forever wonder 'what if'.

My daughter’s school had highlighted her English lang as one they recommended for a remark, so they were very supportive - they actually had a form available next to where you collected your results, that you could complete with the papers you wanted remarking!

That's good!
We had a form link in the envelope. So I'd filled it out on Thursday for the Lit given how close to boundary she was. But hadn't for Lang until I saw the difference in papers today - have now sent it off as well.
School haven't flagged anything to us, but I suspect they are focusing on those who need 4s or specific grades for progression first.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow it's awful the impact it has, isn't it? My DS spirals into what I think is a depression. Can't reason with him. Can't get him to focus on how well he has done overall. He has had such a difficult year with lots of hospital appointments and to achieve what he has achieved is amazing and all he can think about is the 4 in Eng Language.

Well paper 2 has more marks so it makes sense she got more marks on that as a total. I would say it wouldn't hurt to look but sometimes people are just better at one part.

The questions are different, the focus and the inserts are different as well, as will the creative writing or letter/formal writing tasks across both. So she may just be more suited to, done more practice in-class and at home of the paper 2 stuff compared to paper 1. Sometimes people are just like that and it balances out overall.

Also the way it works now is, a different examiner normally marks only 1 of their questions. So one examiner will do hundreds of Q4s, another one Q3, etc. So actually a paper will be marked by a few different people, who have been marking that question loads and know what the mark scheme is by the back of their hands. It doesnt mean mistakes wont be made, but it reduces the likelihood. There's no harm in getting the teacher to have a look, though.

Just that especially in subjects like history, Sociology, psychology, English - the papers tend to be different topics, so a student may prefer some speicifc topics and so revise them more or just be naturally more inclined that way. So it's slightly different to maths, where they try and mix loads of different topics for all the papers, so a vastly different mark there is weirder.

DD’s school is a quite high performing school (non selective state) but I think there is a perception that the parents have quite high expectations of their children, so school are prepared for those challenging relatively high grades that are close to the boundary, or lower than predicted.
My DD wants to do medicine, so every grade counts for her - the difference between an 8 and a 9 could mean the difference between getting an interview or not for some med schools. She’s quite keen on Nottingham and to get full points on GCSE with them you need 8 x 9 😬
She got 4 x 9 and 4 x 8 but the 8s were all within 5 marks of a 9 - so near yet so far.

I agree on the total marks being lower because lower available... but as a percentage, it's 47% compared with 61.5%. And she always does better on Paper 1 than Paper 2 (and really didn't like the transactional options in Paper 2 in the exam).

Interesting that each question is potentially marked by a different examiner. I didn't know that.

I wish I could swap around Dds results for her. She got her worst result in her best subject, which she'd wanted to do as a degree and even maybe teach. She got a 6, 1 mark off a 7 when mock and classwork were an 8. She did so much work for it doing lots of extra essays the teacher kindly marked. History which she hated, got a 5 in mocks, did just last minute revision, got a 7 and 7s and 8s in science subjects she's not keen on continuing. 9s in art and english language she's not carrying on either. So we've put in for a review as she hates the idea of having the worst mark in the A level class. So although she did well the shine has come off the results due to this one 6 in her favourite subject.

It's just so stressful now.

I was at a super-selective grammar and it was incredibly laid back in comparison.

DD is at a very high performing comp, with a high tariff ask to stay in the 6th form so I suspect there have been a huge number of requests in. Very few parents will be leaving anything to chance given the competition.

Good luck to your DD - I hope her reviews are all in that 22%!

There has to be a better way than this.

I've seen so many stories of kids having to change A level options, or not getting places.

No other country does it this way, where kids who have just missed an A grade are made to feel stupid and told that subject isn't for them.

Surely there is a way to devise a system that allows universities to cherry pick without all this misery and stress?

Yes well that's actually more concerning - that Paper 1 is normally much better for her. Although I will say about how she felt the exams went, that sometimes students have an exam and they think it's bad and it's their best one and vice versa. Not always but I found that to be the case for loads of people. Get the teacher to look through the script, see what they think and go from there.

Well other countries do, do this - you need a certain GPA for a course or you won't get in, you need to get a certain amount of credits etc. I used to live in Ireland, it's similar there. Again countries in Europe do the same, countries in Africa, it's the same for my family in Nigeria and other countries. In some places it's more competitive than here.

They shouldn't be made to feel stupid, and should be encouraged to play to their strengths. However, they need certain grades to access a course and be able to keep up, otherwise it's a disservice to them (when maybe if they did something else they'd thrive). The universities and 6th forms (to a lesser extent) have to have a standard to keep them competitive, getting the best facilities, research grants etc, rankings and also to make sure its fair to those who apply and get the grades/want to know they'll be a certain level of intellectual ability in that subject. Sometimes it's for the better for a student, and they'll be ways to get through it, obviously things happen - extenuating circumstances, life, stress etc but there needs to be lines and cut offs drawn somewhere.

Fortunately in her school she can still do the A level with a 6. It's just hard for her when all her classwork and mocks were an 8 and this seems at odds so as others mention her self esteem has taken a hit. It doesn't help she has had diabetes since turning 13 and had very high blood sugar in this exam which makes it really difficult to focus. We applied for special consideration for which on return of the paper we can see has given her a whole 2 marks.

Yes special consideration is actually not very high at all. Typically 2-6 marks for a whole subject across 2 or 3 papers. Which isn't very helpful for the kids who deserve it, most people get 2 or 3% of special consideration which boils down to not a lot. It's a shame that she only recieved 2 marks when she should likely get more for her situation.

I went to a family bbq today with all my sil's. They are sympathetic re my schools bad handling of ds 's results and see it as a lack of child centric to not congratulate a child on a reasonable set of results, rather than go focusing on needed grades.

I'm still divided, they don't care about the child , they need to focus on whether the child gets say the 7 in maths needed for A'level science.

They stole my joie de vivre, on the day. But maybe you lovely lot will give me perspective, that they don't care about the individual child, is the college results they truely care about.

I sympathise- my DS did much better than his mocks and passed almost all of his gcse which was amazing as his mocks were awful but his school couldn't have given a sh*t they only want the pupils with higher grades at thier sixth form - so after the elation of getting in g great grades (for him) (but only a 4 in maths) he is getting his head around not being able to go to sixth form with majority of his mates!!

it's tough

I think it's quite a hard balance for schools to get right.

I knew what my class had got and I had looked at the results for my subject - but I don't know all the students in the cohort.

Generally, my approach is to ask "are you pleased? May I have a look?" Then I take my steer from the student and their parent if they're there too.

Of course I'm pleased for the ones with a shiny crop of 9s, but I don't teach the top sets... I'm way more invested in the rest.

I think it depends on the school and also maybe how prepared the child is for the switch.

DD knew she wasn’t staying on for several years - she’s really excited about her new college and simultaneously miserable about leaving school.

I went in with her to get results and she was never going to be the kid that made the newsletter or did the “jump for joy” photos. But every member of staff we met asked how she did, gave congratulations for the music and the maths/english passes and made her feel better about the geography and made jokes about Google maps.., and wished her luck for the future.

The doorman even cried saying goodbye to her.

Friend’s DD at another school had the teacher grab her results and then say “do you feel you could have done a lot better than this?”, and didn’t get the feeling anyone congratulated her.., and she got much better results than my kid!

DD’s friend who has 8x9s and a 9 in English lit but a 6 in English language has her scripts back. The examiner has underlined a couple of SPAG points as incorrect, which are correctly spelt or correctly punctuated. The girl is doing A level English, was always on track for a 9 in English language - she panicked because it was one of her favourite subjects and the school she wanted does not like the 6! If kids like her are getting a 6 then I just do not know about the rest of the kids. It really puts things into perspective.
I personally think English language GCSE is a complete shambles. People have been saying this for a while.
The resits are a piss take too. We should not have a system where 30%-40% of children are failing the supposedly critical 2 GCSEs and then only 22% are passing on resits.
We need the vast majority of kids to get to a functional level of Maths and English to access the job market and life.

For anyone, who got a lower than expected grade - remind them where they sit in percentage terms in the cohort. So eg still amongst the eg top 60% of the population. Take 10 children, you are still amongst the 6 best.

My DD has not had any GCSE results drama as she got good grades. However, she did extremely well in Biology and History, her two most hated subjects. Because she did so much revision for them (and so many pretty diagrams!) - it does make me question the value of these GCSEs.
We are having plenty of enrolment drama though. The school she wanted and has a place at won’t give the subjects she actually wants to do, because they fill their own cohort first. She is a high achiever and will likely just stay where she is. I have told her to do what she actually wants to do later on in life. The whole process can be really confusing for a lot of them, especially with friends leaving, the tight time lines etc. I really feel most for anyone though who has to do resits and go through the shenanigans again!

Thanks for the recommendation, we've heard of it, but have found it difficult to find a practitioner where we are - I'll have another go. Hope your girl is doing well now.

She is thank you. 1000% improved. Occasional wobbles and I’m always watching but such a massive improvement. DBT was recommended to me by a friend who was at the time doing a psychology PhD. It’s a 6 month course and although my DD didn’t finish it it still was a huge turnaround.

@Araminta1003 Did I understand this correctly - The examiner has underlined a couple of SPAG points as incorrect, which are correctly spelt or correctly punctuated - are you saying that when the teacher looked at it they could see the examiner was incorrect in their identification of the grammar/punctuation errors? Did they get it remarked? I read an article in Guardian from last year where it seems the examiners were way off and when remarked kids jumped grades.

My own DS in A levels a few years ago had something remarked cos he was very close to the higher grade (we didn't get scripts for some reason - I forget why) and he dropped 27 marks. Almost lost the grade he had. How can there be such inconsistency in grading?

@Slimtoddy - DD’s friends papers are going for a “Review of marking”. That will take some time. Yes, there was very clear wrong marking on a few SPAG points. However, whether the grade will change or not, we shall see. Hopefully at least her SPAG score will go up and she is only 1 mark of the boundary. But there is always a risk it could go down. DD did not show me everything, just the very obvious errors. It is rather concerning that the “system” did not pick that up.

I was completely unaware how many of these poor kids are forced into resits and still don’t pass . I know a lovely boy who hasn’t been able to pass English - but he’s a great kid , good with people and has worked for years , decent and a caring giving human being . It would have been much better for him to do functional skills and then crack on with the grown up life he’s already succeeding at . System needs a rethink