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.

Out of interest, why do you suspect that? Is it a very small school? I'm a HoD and I definitely used to look at well over 60 scripts for potential review post exams (before our SLT said not to pre-revire GCSE papers any more!).

In my opinion and experience it can make a big difference. Even if the teacher is used to it and labours over it, that's not to say the examiner will. The exam board I examine for has actually told us examiner not to flag any illegible or hard-to-read ones, explaining that if we can't read it, there's no reason why a senior examiner should be able to read it. We're told to crack on and give a mark based on whatever we can read, and ignore the rest 😬 No idea how many exam boards work like that, but is a bit concerning.

Another point to note is SPaG. This shouldn't happen, but sometimes very weak SPaG makes an essay hard to follow, and even though SPaG accuracy isn't explicitly assessed in every area of my exam board's papers, we have had cases where pupils have been unfairly disadvantaged and penalised because of terrible spelling or punctuation etc. Dyslexic students sometimes find this (I've had a whopper of a case with a severely dyslexic but outstanding A Level student before... she got a massive mark increase on review and a personal apology from the exam board) 👌 Shouldn't happen, but does.

@MrsHamlet i’m really sorry you’re so overloaded, I’m absolutely not frustrated with teachers themselves, and it sounds like you are doing an amazing job. Your comments here are really insightful too.

I think it’s the lack of clarity on what’s happening that’s frustrating me, we haven’t had any communication at all since results day, and it sounded like they would be in touch the following week. Plus they took DS’s email as the contact, meaning I have to nag him every day to check to make sure he doesn’t miss something. If they had said it was likely to be the second week of term or something on those lines we wouldn’t have been constantly looking for it.

@Eccle80 they can only communicate with the candidate because the exams data (including the papers) belong to them, not you. That's not them being difficult.

Yes a very small indie, with a particularly small year 11 group (no more than 40 this year). I suppose if everyone asked him to look then he’d potentially have got 60 or more scripts. I’m also sure that they were keen for her review because it would look good for them if she had an uplift.

@NorthenAdventure that's really sad to hear for pupils with diagnosed or undiagnosed dyslexia or dysgraphia.

Exactly this scenario for us @Eccle80 I feel the exams office should have had an out of office reply on or something on the website or results slip to say requests for papers or reviews would be dealt with from XXX date. Especially seeing and hearing of people getting papers back and grades reviewed on here it left us in limbo not knowing if the school had started the process or not. It may still be a couple of weeks until the exam boards deadline but if it’s decided to put in papers sequentially then it may start to get tight. Plus it would just be good to see DCs work, it may be that they just underperformed and then we can forget about the whole damn thing!

This is my big fear.

DD is severely dyslexic and clever. However if you read an essay she has written without software, it comes across as if it's written by someone who possibly isn't mother tongue English. Her spelling is entirely phonetic, some words will be spelt 3 different ways in a single paragraph and her syntax is very odd. But she will be using advanced vocabularly, grammatical constructions and is actually a very engaging story teller (once you have solved what is on the paper).

I had a lot of discussion about whether she should just sacrifice all the SPaG and have editing/spell check enabled but was told this wasn't an option as she would get some marks.

But seeing the score for that paper 1 just makes me thing the examiner(s) couldn't be bothered working things out and went with a guess.

Just add your DS's email to your outlook?

I have to have all DD's email accounts on my system as she never reads them. Then I prompt and give her a synopsis for anything important that comes in.

As mentioned up thread, our DD was 2 marks off a 6 in English Language but the review has been returned unchanged.
She's also dyslexic and bright. Refused to do the exam on a laptop.
English was one of her favourite subjects and one she generally did very well in, so we're surprised and tbh disappointed by her grade.

Is a grade 5 in English Language a problem and should she consider resitting? She wants to go to a good university, currently thinking of studying psychology.

Thank you

Well we got the lit paper 1 back and no change so our 3 remains. One mark off a 4. Not sure whether to try with the paper 2 as that had more marks on it. We were WJEC exam board.

@Ichangedmynameonce psychology teacher here - a 5 in English language is fine for undergraduate courses in psychology, it really depends if you have particularly university in mind, but they might even stay they don't consider re-sits. I would not bother in your shoes to be honest a 5 is acceptable for most good universities, having a 6 in Maths GCSE is probably more important. For example, King's College London asks for a 6 in GCSE maths but no requirement for 6 in English lang, but UCL wants a 6 in English and Maths. So as I said it depends.

I would agree with this. As a psychology lecturer I would say that we don't give heavy weight to GCSEs beyond whatever basic admissions requirements are set. For me, maths competency really is more important - I can tell the students who have struggled with GCSE maths but couldn't necessarily tell you who didn't do that well in English language. Analytical skills are much more important than 'creativity' or 'eloquence' within writing for psychology.

In all honesty though, the RG universities are focusing on getting as many bums on seats as possible from their psychology programmes right now. It is a popular course that is easy to teach in large groups, so increasing cohort size for these kinds of programmes can be used to offset loss of international student fees.

AQA:

• Got a 5 in English Lit, 3 marks off of a 6.
• 6 in mock.
• Predicted 6/7.

Awaiting re-mark, as this one grade has resulted in them not being allowed to stay at their current school, so very stressful indeed. No other “surprises” on results…only English Lit.

Thank you @mojobrojo and @thedramaQueen for your helpful advice.

DD was one mark off a grade 7 for English Lit Edexcel, got remark back yesterday and she has gone up a grade from 6 to 7😊

Has anyone tried a remark for edexcel GCSE biology?
She was 4 marks off higher grade so not sure of it's worth asking for a regrade?

@katgab which exam board was your DC’s English Lit exam?

How many marks did she go up?

Edexcel here as well... need 3 marks for a grade rise.

Excellent news! Bio seems less likely but not sure tbh…

@ThatsCute - Aqa, only had paper 1 reviewed at suggestion of teacher

She gained 3 marks in paper 2 - poetry) , paper 1 was also re marked but she got identical marks to the first time.
Fingers crossed for your DC

@Bufftailed
Thank you😊

@ThatsCute
Thats absolutely brutal, surely school could exercise discretion?! Fingers crossed for your DC.

Nope. No discretion—no 6+ in both English Lit + Lang = no entry. DC is currently at a new school, miserable because they don’t have any friends, says everyone else is in firmly established friendship groups, and we’re on tenderhooks WAITING. I’m trying to encourage making the most of it and making new friends (because chances of moving back are slim), but it’s falling on deaf ears.

Aqa English Lit review back today which was 1 mark off the boundary. Gone up 4 marks to a 7. It was submitted the day after results day.

That is so, so horrible. I really feel for her.

It's just seems so unfair for the sake of 3 marks. That's a rounding error, not whether they are capable or not.

I'm so sorry for your DD.

Yay congrats