GCSE English Lit and Language review of marking

[SomersetBrie]

There is lots of chat about review of marking on the GCSEs threads but I am interested specifically in anyone who is reviewing English (Lang or Lit) and whether the review provides an increase in grade.
DS, predicted a 7, got a 6 in both. He is not very close to the grade boundary (4 marks away) but the difference in marks between Paper 1 and Paper 2 have encouraged me to request access to the papers and see if it's worth a review.

Is anyone else asking for a review? I am curious to know how many marks people go up/down and if it results in a change of grade for many people.
(DS does not need a 7 but he was expecting a 7 out of 1 or other at least.)
This is AQA.

Well aren’t you a ray of sunshine?

it isn’t a waste of time. My daughter has Autism, had her heart set on biology and needs a 7 to do it. She was 1 mark off an 8 in multiple subjects and she put her heart and soul into some of them. She is very passionate about English Lit, she said she included everything she could have was tutored for months beforehand on what constitutes an 8/9. Must have written multiple papers at grade 8 before the exam. She’s quite demoralised she put in so much effort for that subject and got the same mark as all of her other GCSE’s. She wanted her hard work and her passion for that subject recognised.

just for reference - my daughter was getting 3s and 4s last year. She’s had as much as 40% time off school in some years due to her conditions. She got straight A’s and shocked all of us. But certain subjects she lived and breathed and being one mark away is rubbish. And being Autistic it’s bothering her.

The source was a previous poster @MrsHamlet ( if I recall correctly, (apologies if not) who seems to be knowledgeable about the whole review process. I believe they said that AI was being trialled in some capacity in the GCSE marking by being given instructions to apply the mark scheme to answers.

English teacher and GCSE examiner here. It’s definitely worth getting a remark if you’re on the border.

That's insane! I've just said yes to someone with two two grade 5s - we ask for 6 - because she loves Lit and I know she'll work hard.

It absolutely was not me! I think it might have been TheLivelyViper.

@MrsHamletmy apologies for misremembering the poster.

Having searched there are a number of TES articles showing AQA were trialling AI to ‘mark the marker’ last year and it was purely at the research stage. Unsure this year exactly how AI is being trialled in exams but exam boards are definitely working on how to incorporate it into marking.

There are some fascinating articles on the impact of AI (not just in secondary assessments) and where future assessments may be heading. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/aug/22/a-levels-and-gcses-need-overhaul-to-keep-pace-with-generative-ai-experts-say

AI has significantly upped the pace and need for educational reform.

One thing is for sure, our children’s children won’t be all sitting in a hall, pen in hand, with a nail/biting wait for teachers to mark their papers.

@Examinetheexams all of the boards are trialling it, and certainly exams with multiple choice components already use it to do those parts.

I don't know of any board using AI on large scale live exams though. It's coming but it's not there yet.

It really does seem that nobody has trust in the exam process. Reading what some of the experts on here have described and what parents with normally high performing kids have experienced it feels like it's a game of chance.

Those of you with experience of being an exam marker where you see inadequacies in the system, have you ever considered whistleblowing to Dept of Education? Or would that be pointless?

@12DaisiesTwit I would personally pay for a review in those circumstances. The discrepancy in the two grades is big enough to wonder if the lang got marked wrong.

@MrsHamlet unfortunately, the school won’t help and time is of the essence so we are thinking just request a mark review but unsure whether to do one or both papers with 2 marks off.

@raisingthebarbell then do one at a time - marks can and do move either way so you don't want to have one go up but the other come down and negate that

Ah yes, that is true (it's in the big document not the key dates)

I don't know what "exceptional circumstances" would be though.

I have seen a lot of DD's work - specifically English.

Mainly because she uses a laptop and so all classwork is stored on there as well as being submitted to teachers.

She is also a dab hand at surreptitious phone use, so would photograph all her test papers and send them to me so I could see the marking as well.

I was particularly interested to see them because of the huge difference between her English essays written in class with spell check and editing software and those written under test conditions without the above, and was looking into whether she should ask to have those enabled and just sacrifice the SPaG marks from the off.

It has helped with my feelings on reviews... I know that she writes good creative essays (despite the SPaG) and is generally pretty good at the unseen text stuff. And I can see how hard a marker her teacher is from the marks allocated on mocks/tests. He's no soft touch, so getting a 3 on Paper 1 is a massive outlier given she liked the exam and felt she'd done better than any mocks or class tests.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow when did you submit for review? And what exam board?

We're Edexcel

They haven't gone in yet as far as I'm aware. I've heard back from English Lang teacher who is going to take a look at the papers, but said it may take a few days. Haven't heard back yet from Lit.

We're not in a rush though as she has her place for next year, so I specifically said to both EO and teachers to prioritise those who need things looked at for 6th form places or because they're on that 3/4 boundary, and we're happy to wait.

I am checking the requirements for all the universities DD is likely to interested in, just in case they have a 5 minimum for Language.

DS was predicted 8s for both, with 40% coursework already graded at 8/9s. He ended up with an 8 for lit and a 6 for lang.

School initially recommended putting in lit for review because he was 2 marks off a 9, which we did on Thursday. Came back on Tuesday with a 10 mark increase and upgraded to a 9.

Not sure why school didn’t say anything about lang (maybe because it required teacher looking up scores as they don’t automatically get shown on results or maybe because he was 3 marks off rather than 2?). But after reading here about how it works and seeing the big uplift he got on lit we asked his teacher about a possible review, because he must’ve done really quite poorly in the exam given the coursework grades he had already got and it seems like a big discrepancy from his literature (and other essay/analysis type exams) performance. She said to put it in, so we did that yesterday.

Our school seems to take the policy similar to that of@NorthenAdventure - academic/selective indie that doesn’t look at scripts. They send for review based on boundaries and/or a grade that what seems out of place for a particular student.

On the topic of iGCSEs and coursework - I completely agree that it isn’t fair. What is available to some should be available to all. DH and I both come from very different backgrounds to where we find ourselves now with our DCs in a private school and surrounded by very pushy parents. So, we often find ourselves feeling uncomfortable with how that privilege plays out - and this is one of those times.

It looks like the private schools are far more invested in getting the reviews done which is understandable as they have to keep customers happy and want desirable grade profiles to show to prospective customers.

Still heard nothing from my DCs exam office at state school in response to DCs request for language score and access to papers.

I really don't think so. Like I said earlier, a lot of state schools have a stupid blanket policy of sending any papers that are 1-2 marks off the next grade and paying for it if the child is PP. Private schools don't have the hell of the compare schools league tables to contend with either.

I don’t think we will bother. Someone has to be on the borderline and I think it’s a good lesson to be happy with an 8.

He had special consideration but only 1 or 2% so I might get him to check with his English teacher that it was definitely added.

Yes it’s probably a lottery across schools. Just a bit annoying that some schools and staff seem really proactive and ours presumably is closed but not even an out of office response to say so. We are just in limbo. Can’t see the papers, don’t know what their language score even was.

It'll be on the download - I can see who in the cohort got it but not what %. Exams might be the place to ask first - not everyone will have access to the results download. I know some of my colleagues don't.

Yes this is how it looked for us. You could see which exams had special con applied. If it was rejected it says so, on a couple of ours it was blank so they had to apply again and SLT had to sign off. But yh frustratingly it doesn't say what %

DC state comp head replied to my email on Thursday saying four would go for remark (don’t pounce anyone, I know it is a review) within a week due to being very close to boundary. I have no idea though if teachers are reviewing scripts first/ deciding on which papers or what the approach is (clerical check first??). I think I’ll reach out next week. DC has his sixth form place so it’s not urgent. I am not mentioning it to DS at all (checked he was happy for them to go in last week) because just trying to leave him be so he can let it settle (grades overall down quite a bit so he is still a bit shaken)

No point in a clerical check for English - the system does the adding up for us!

My son was predicted 6’s, 7’s & 8’s across the board. English language he got 6. Lit he got a 3. It was the only subject he didn’t “pass”. He was one mark away from a 4.
We requested a review, but the outcome didn’t change. I didn’t see his paper, but I know it was his least favourite subject. Annoying, but I expect he just didn’t write enough.