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.

Just had WJEC Eng Lang back. Really quick turnaround, only submitted request on Friday and received response today. Increase of 10 marks due to “original marking being unduly strict” We had no guidance from school, in fact I would say the English teacher was quite uninterested and didn’t even look through the paper to see if it was worth putting in for review. So we only decided on the very last day this was possible. Very glad we did as resulted in a change of grade.

Wow that is fast to get there, go through multiple reviewers (if that's what WJEC do too) get back to the board, advise the school and then you! Great result too, congrats! I think the teachers are often - quite rightly - worried about people losing money in a system where there's not a great deal of change.

DD’s friend went from a 6 to a high 8 in English language (couple of marks off a 9). Both papers unreasonably marked and more than 20 points change. The 6 was way off predicted grades. Seems like predicted grades are more relevant in English than being a few marks off a boundary?

Predicted grades are only worth anything if they're honest: I've got a resit class with two kids predicted 6 who got 3.

I've looked over their papers and they were never in a month of Sundays going to get 6 judging by what they appear not to know.

@Examinetheexams Thank you, yes it was super fast service, maybe because we submitted it on the day of the deadline! Good luck to everyone still waiting 🙂

@MrsHamlet - DD’s friend had a very comfortable 9 in English literature and two grade 9 mocks in English language, from a grammar school. And had won creative writing competitions. So the 6 was bonkers and to now hear they were 24 marks out across two papers, is worrying. That seems way off to me.

I guess the question is whether it is difficult to predict for experienced English teachers what their students are likely to get in these GCSE exams? I always thought the teachers knew roughly where their students sat. I think 1 grade off due to a bad day or personal circumstances or too many exams at once (which is the case for GCSEs) is within the norm. However, how many kids do actually underachieve or overachieve against their predicted grades? If I look at my DC, they all pretty much got what was excepted in their GCSEs overall, maybe 1 grade more here or 1 grade less there, but never 3 grades out.

I wonder what they got in their mocks!

Also DD’s friends English teacher (not the same one that DD had) had been there years and went through the whole Covid teacher assessed grade fiasco so surely what she thinks and predicts is worth a lot more than a random examiner who clearly got it very wrong. To the point of negligence really, if this was my job and I was so off, there would be serious consequences. DD’s friend nearly dropped her A level English Lit off the back of this grade, other kids have missed out on Sixth Forms. It sounds to me like there needs to be some more quality control, potentially against predicted grades, at least for new examiners.

Yes. DC had to drop English Lit at 6th form, for not qualifying with a 6. The re-mark showed a strong, middle-6 mark, and DC is now allowed to study English Lit. They missed out on the opportunity to start reading the books after results day before school started, and missed the first 4 days of lessons, so is playing catch-up.

@Araminta1003 I can't see there ever being a situation where quality control would use predicted grades, not least because many of the teachers making the predictions haven't been trained to mark exams. My DC2 never really received official predictions for their GCSEs. Each report had a 'most likely grade' but they changed each term. Looking at their final pre-exam report, 5/11 of the 'most likely' grades were below the grades DC2 received on results day. All but one were a grade lower, the MFL teacher expected a 6 but DC2 got a really solid 8... which was in line with previous mocks. That particular teacher had been quite open with her opinion that DC2 wasn't really any good at MFL, and would regularly make comments to that effect. For whatever reason, she was unable to see DC2 as a student who could get anything higher than a 6.

When grade boundaries shift significantly it's likely to affect the accuracy of predictions. This year, Edexcel maths has been talked about a fair bit because of a 20 mark (8%) increase. In 2024, to get a 9 students needed 82%. This year, it was 90%. Students regularly coming away with 85% in mocks may well have been predicted a 9 but this year, it would be some way off.

If we can't trust the predicted scores, mock grades or indeed the marked GCSE exams I'm not sure quite where that leaves pupils and their parents!

One of them was given a grade 5 in the mock. I know this because I was able to look it up. The other wasn't at my school.

I think it really depends on the experience and honesty of the teacher when they mark the classwork and when they make predictions. It's very natural to mark with the benefit of the doubt when it's someone in your class, and to predict a best case scenario. And if you don't actually really understand how papers are marked, it's easy to make mistakes.

That's not to say that examiners don't get it wrong though - they very clearly do. But making a judgement on whether to go to review should be based on looking at the paper.

Surely it would be sensible for teachers to err on the side of caution when giving predicted grades and mock marks or won't they end up with parents and the SLT on their back? Are you going to mention it to the teacher at your school who predicted too high for your resit student @MrsHamlet as it's probably useful for them to bear in mind.

It is a tricky one as obviously predicted grades are not being given maliciously. For English at least I will be taking them with a pinch of salt for my next DC. I am also going to make sure they know the mark scheme criteria inside out! As a previous poster said all their other grades were pretty much spot on or a grade better for my DC just both English grades that were a bit of a nasty surprise.

The teacher is well aware, @Examinetheexams - but they tend to think MrsHamlet is mean rather than thinking "she marks hundreds of these a year and maybe she knows what's what"

I also know that there's an element of keeping parents off their back at play - the fury of the parent whose child I predicted a grade 1 was a sight to be behold at parents' evening. The 1 awarded in August was no surprise to me.

Still waiting on 3. Asked the school as they all went in by 4/9 apparently and they said they are chasing this week and hoping to tell me by end of this week.

DC has forgotten I think and moved on, so that is good. But I would like to not have this in back of mind and obviously a small part of me is hoping.

I assume no one is waiting for anything that could still affect next steps…

We are still waiting for one, but the weird IGCSE one (CIE). I'm not holding out much hope as I don't think they often change. She was one mark off a 9 in lang, and doesn't need it for anything. I'm sort of hoping she's forgotten about it.

Waiting for 2... I messaged school to check if they've gone in and had no reply... so no clue if we are actually waiting or not.

No effect on next steps but more my peace of mind.

Yeah piece of mind. @OhCrumbsWhereNow that is how I feel

I left it all with school so don’t know which papers or anything, just that four went in and so far Spanish back and up a grade. DC not mentioned anything at all so assuming he is not thinking about it.

Hope we all hear this week 🤞🏻

DD thinks I'm nuts - she no longer cares.

I just want them back so that I can stop stressing that they might go down!

After DC’s response about Spanish I realised it doesn’t mean much now. Which is good given it all felt like everything for a bit, in a bad way

Just heard back on AQA English lit paper 1 that went in last Friday. It went up 8 marks but still 2 short of the next grade.

Still here stressing over reviews with you, waiting for AQA Lit and Lang.
@newmum1976 that's a good increase and a shame it doesn't bump the grade up, did you put in paper 2 as well?
Does anyone know if we hear paper by paper or if both go in are we notified about both at the same time?

Just heard back that the review of AQA English Lit paper 1 (submitted last Wednesday 17th). It has gone up four marks and she only needed one so she has gone up a grade.