Year 11 - 2024/2025: The Results Day Thread

[QueenMabby]

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

But surely that shows the value, in the fact that she did revise really hard for Biology and History and thus go better and did very well, better than she ever had because of how hard she worked and the amount of revision and I'm sure she likely practiced lots of exam questions and built and developed her skills or writing and analysis and so on, so she's shown she now has a certain level of skill in those subjects. Some people are naturally gifted, but others like me spent hours in the night and early mornings just revising practicing and getting better, but the grades I ended up with I think showed that by the end of the year, particular for subjects I honestly put my blood, sweat and many tears into. I wouldn't have done that well a year earlier, because I hadn't fully grasped all those skills and developed them.

Super late to this thread and read most of it but just wanted to add dds results as well, she got seven 9s and two 8s. One of the 8s is in chemistry and for her future plans ideally needs to be a 9.. it was 2 marks off a 9 so we have requested the scripts for that one. Kind of crazy how an 8 is something to not be celebrated !!! We definitely did celebrate , amazing results . Bittersweet as I have lost my mum who would have been the first person I called. We did celebrate with her other set of grandparents but they were so unbothered by the whole thing , you'd think theyd make a bit more of a fuss of a grandchild who's done so well. They certainly have their favourites. But that's a whole other story for another day.

What paper was this for? And also what questions, as not all questions have SPaG marks. Did the examiner actually write or use a symbol to indicate the issue was SPaG? If so it should be easy to pick up a few marks. I'd have a look at the whole paper though as it will be judged as a whole, as to whether the marks were accurate and the band/level is right. Hopefully she gets the result she needs and it's done correctly this time.

The current grading system is really frustrating. My DS has taken three GCSEs early (one last year and two this year) and got a 9 for each. He’s now admitted that he will be disappointed if he doesn’t get all 9s next year. It’s too much pressure.

I just feel 9s are kind of unnecessary. They just put stupid pressure on high achieving kids for no valid reason.

The only benefit is for high achievers to learn the world doesn't end if they don't get straight top grades.

@TeenToTwenties I agree. All through her gcse revision period I repeated the words 'a 9 is not an aspirational grade'. But similar to the pp, she sat a gcse in year 9 and got a 9. Which just made her own expectations from herself (and certain teachers 😡) ridiculously high.

@whostheshithead - your in laws perhaps? Ppl are so very different aren’t they? But you’d really think a g’parents would just huge congrats regardless. But I’ve a mum friend who has no clue what subjects her DD did for GCSE’s. She knows it’ll be maths & English and some sciences but didn’t realise there were 2 English. Just not remotely interested.

I can’t believe this thread is nearly full already! It’s only a week or so until the start of the new school/college year for most so I’ve moved is over to “Further Education” (aren’t we grown up! 🤣) and here’s the link to the new thread for when this one is done.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/further_education/5398406-year-12-20252026-here-we-go-again?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=app_share

I think remind him that it's much harder doing many at the same time, revision, more exams, more content. So if he doesn't get 9s he can't compare it from the years when he did 1 at a time and then 2. Because next year he may be doing 8 or more and that's a lot harder, so actually managing to get through them all is a lot by itself.

@NotDonna yes my in laws .. they pointedly commented every single time she missed a family get together when it was exam period - but didn't bother acknowledging that her sacrifices paid off and she worked super hard and it was well deserved. I just know though that if it had been favourite sons' kids there would have made a massive fuss !

@waitingquietly i agree on the resits, I really feel for those who are expected to keep resitting something they are unlikely to pass, it must be soul destroying. They should be an alternative they can do to demonstrate basic skills (I know functional maths exists but that doesn’t seem to stop them having to sit and resit first)

@TeenToTwenties i agree on the grade 9s too, I feel it makes an 8 seem disappointing when it shouldn’t be, and adds a lot of pressure at the top end.

For those in the know on marking, I presume it’s unlikely that a whole page or something could get missed? DS is still struggling to get his head round how he did so much worse on one physics paper than the other and how he expected to do and felt it went, I just wondered if this was any possibility. His teacher did say he’d have a look but it wasn’t one we filled in the form for at the time as they’d flagged two other subjects for review.

@Eccle80 it's possible but not likely.

If it's going to bug you, ask for the script.

You can always email the school's exam officer to ask to get that script back and ask his teacher to also have a look. Every piece of paper is scanned even if they haven't written anything but anything on one pages where they're told not to write won't be scanned or checked, and there are clear borders which also indicate that stuff on the edges won't be seen by the examiners.

The examiners have to go through all the pages for that question. They won't be able to move on otherwise and it's highly unlikely they'd miss a sheet, it's more likely that the questions threw him off. He had a busier week with more exams so more content. Still take a look though.

Please can I just check, those that their dc are staying on at their old school, for 6th form. Those that have been given bridging work :

please advise, the bridging work that is supposed to be done, for the first day back in a week or so, are we all back on sept 4th?

my ds 2 has been given . 2 x A'level past papers, per subject.

But how are they supposed to do that, when they haven't been taught the syllabus?

anything on one pages where they're told not to write won't be scanned or checked, and there are clear borders which also indicate that stuff on the edges won't be seen by the examiners.

For AQA Englishes, this is absolutely not the case.

And given that AQA examiners all use the same marking platforms, I cannot believe it's the case in those subjects either.

Yes bridging work should be done for the first day back - both for the students staying at that school and people coming from different schools, it's the same for everyone. I'd check the instructions they've been given, is it to just look through them to know how it's structured and works or actually do every question (is it just one?).

If not I'd be asking the school about it or emailing the head of department or class teachers.

What other work have they been given? And for what subjects?

As in like double checked in the same way as the pages for writing and working out (theres extra pages they can ask for but shouldn't use the blank ones), the warehouses I've seen have the machines scan everything and then they ignore those ones in terms of making. For physics and other sciences, I've heard they're scanned and then skipped out for the examiners. I think it's highly unlikely they missed a page of work, all the numbers of the pages go through the system so the computer should flag it.

As I've said, everything is scanned for the papers I mark.

I'll check with my physics colleague but I don't believe it would be any different.

@Eccle80DD has asked her teacher to look at her Physics AQA Paper 2 script as she achieved a grade lower than that she was consistently achieving.

@MrsHamlet and @TheLivelyViper thank you both very much, I thought it was probably unlikely but just wondered if anything could have gone wrong. He’s generally a good judge of how things have gone especially in maths and science. We’ve asked if he can see the paper if nothing else to see where he went wrong as it’s one of his subjects.

@TheyNotLikeUs he had a 9 on paper 2 and a 6 on paper 1 - he’s never not had a 9 in any assessment in physics and had been happy with how it went at the time.

PE
Biology
Chemistry
Psychology

2 x past A'level papers for all 4 subjects, so 8 old papers.

Sorry thank you @TheLivelyViper for answering. I'll check with him what the instructions say. And email school if necessary.

Anyone who knows a lot about remarks by the way? I feel greedy even asking, but DD is ONE mark off a 9 in English language, 2 marks off in Drama and 3 in Combined Science.

Are those worth re-looking at? The Eng Lang is particularly irritating - honestly I considered not telling her but she wanted to know.

@TheLivelyViper are you a teacher or an examiner? I don’t think you have a child doing GCSEs do you?

@Oblomov25 that’s insane! Past A level papers? What’s the point? Who cares how they’re set out. What help is that at this stage. Surely he’s not expected to answer any of the questions? Is this for all of his 3 subjects or the one they’re less keen on him taking (biology)? Are they trying to scare the living daylights out of them? DD is changing schools and had bringing work for all 4 subjects. Sociology & psychology had to be submitted a few weeks ago for judgement prior to enrolment next Monday. Her other two she takes in on the day. her bridging work for business studies was a LOT of pages, likely due to them teaching gcse there. It took her days and days. I’m sure the DC who studied it for GCSE will have sailed through it. I think she still has to do the politics but none of them are A level past papers! 🤯

also @Oblomov25 that is absolutely bonkers. Why would you set A-Level papers at this stage!