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.

I imagine that the results of reviews are also skewed.

If some schools just automatically submit any paper within 2 marks of an upper grade boundary without looking (as some do) then you may find papers that end up going down as nobody spotted over generous marking.

I would hazard a guess that it is unlikely a paper will go down if teacher has looked it over and said they think it looks very harshly marked or inaccurate.

Yes, but I wonder if it is also from students who are closer to the bottom boundary but feel they should have got a higher mark and so send it in.

Our school do give the papers a look over if just the odd mark or two off the higher grade and say it is highly unlikely to drop by 10 marks so try your luck as the only thing you will lose is the review fee. They school have never seen marks go down (let alone whole grades) so I very curious if anyone had heard of any.

Seems the vast majority just stay the same, both in mark and grade.

Even if teachers think the examiners were being "harsh", doubt that translate into higher marks always

It's something that makes me itch to get my hands on the raw data and work out.

I'm not sure that many risk from the bottom of the grade boundary (we are - but only if teacher doesn't come back saying 'yep, she had a very bad day').

Do the extra fees for review of marking charged make them a lot of money or just cover costs? Would be interesting to know…

But they refund it if you’re awarded points. It’s probably there as a deterrent from every single pupil submitting every single exam paper to take a punt. Maybe they do make some above the admin and employment costs…

They only refund if you go up a grade. The mark increase has to result in a grade boundary change to get a refund.

I think that's why the vast majority say the same. Not enough marks "found", if any, to push over to new grade boundary. Hence why teachers advise to only do if very near the boundary.

I did see this post about a grade going down. https://www.reddit.com/r/GCSE/comments/1n0k0hv/warning_over_remarks/?sort=new

I’d be really interested to understand more of the overall data too in terms of how many were reviewed by teachers first and whether they did or didn’t change

Yes, I had seen this too.

The fact they were so shocked he had done so well should have meant they checked the paper before submitting for review to get an even higher grade. But being "close to next boundary" meant they just pinged it off.

We noticed at our school that some students who didnt normally preform well did and obviously the opposite also.

That is true, an already done better than expected is different to a surprised the grade was lower than expected. Though unfortunate in that case if the teacher suggested getting it reviewed because of being one mark off, but didn’t look at the paper - it does show that just blindly reviewing them because they are close isn’t always a good idea.

It does seem like English marking in particular is very variable though and changes seem to be bigger than in a lot of other subjects

I couldn't agree more.

Even if the teacher hasn't the time to review it, you can always get the script and review yourself or ask your child to do it.

Very unfortunate for this poor lad

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reviews-of-marking-and-moderation-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-summer-2024-exam-series

I shared this in another post, table 19 shows just how many English papers make it in the top 10 of reviews papers.

And also shines a light on the OCR board. What on earth is going on there

I would leave it @matchingmoll I wouldn’t review anything unless a next step depended on it or school suggested it. A 7 is a very good grade and it’s a shame it isn’t always perceived as such

DC came down on predictions in several subjects, but felt he had had bad run of things, and school wanted to put 4 in as 1-2 marks off boundary I would really like them back now. DC has moved on - I’d like to close it down too

So as I said DS went up 8 on P2
School said a couple had gone up 1 or 2, most stayed the same and one went down 1

Thanks for that, and many congratulations again @Hoppinggreen

Seems the jump ups are big, but most stay the same with very minimal drops in marks

@Bufftailed thanks, I think you are right. We are going to leave it. The future beckons. Thanks for advice here.

I was reflecting and if school asked now I think I would say no.

Best of luck to your DC

Just to add to the data – just got a review of marking back for DD's Eng Lit Paper 1 (Pearson), and she went up 7 marks, from an 8 to a 9. Obviously the original grade was very good but her English teacher got in touch to say it was worth having it looked at as she felt it had been marked harshly, and was 4 points off the higher grade.

Also got both papers under review for Eng Lang (also Pearson, 2 marks away from a higher grade), but no outcome yet.

english language remarked and no marks found..booo

Sorry to hear. How long to come back? Waiting on Eng lang aqa

English language remark came back unchanged so still a grade 3. He's got to go in for an assessment at college on Thursday so hoping they'll put him through for November resit as he was so close to a 4.

EDEXCEL English language papers came back!! Both went up a total of 6 marks (3 marks each) - grade 4 to a 5.

DC is over the moon and now does not want to do the resit. I feel it’s worth going for it as some degrees ask for minimum grade 6 and you don’t loose anything.
anyone gone for a resit with a 5?

Which degrees ask for a 6 in lang?? I had a little nosy and only ever saw 6 or 7 in maths. Didn’t look at many. Congrats btw

Apparently some Medicine degrees require a 6 in English Lang - I know a couple of kids who resat last year, trying to move upwards from a 5.

Oh right - I was going to say my brief trawl didn’t show it up. But not looking at medicine