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.

It just shows how random the quality of marking appears be! Imagine if you didn’t have a head of English like this?

Reporting back as this thread might be useful for people in the same boat next year. Sadly no change to grades for my DC with AQA English Lit & Lang being their worst GCSE results. On the bright side they got 6's so it didn't impact on their next step and will meet most University course admissions criteria. It's annoying as the HOD in English thought one of DCs papers in particular had been harshly marked but c'est la vie.

This article is worth a read:
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/novice-examiners-lead-to-huge-rise-in-queries-over-grades

A spokesperson for the AQA exam board:
“Review of marking requests are down on last year, while the number of appeals for these two subjects is broadly the same. So there isn’t evidence to support the suggestion that the quality of marking has declined.”

I'm not sure that really is the case as I think what is also happening is that English teachers are reluctant to encourage parents to pay for reviews when so few grades change. We've shelled out nearly £200 to go through the review process which is both stressful and costly. My worst fear was if the mark had gone down as I would never have forgiven myself (nor would DC!)

Best of luck to anyone still waiting and to those taking resits.

A final question for@MrsHamlet- should reviewers leave a comment for a question they have reviewed? Most have and it's useful to see they have said the mark is reasonable. Rather annoyingly on Paper 2 B5A05 which is the persuasive article that the HOD and I both thought was marked quite low, there's the initial markers comments and nothing else. I'm a bit peeved as would have liked at least a single words feedback on it. Not a sausage!

If the mark has been changed, yes.
If there's questionable annotation, yes.
If there's no reason to comment because it's fine, no.

@MrsHamlet that was quick, ok thanks!

Yep, same for my exam board (except my exam board doesn't annotated- just puts a number on it). Reviewers only give a comment if they have changed the marks. If they think the original marks were 'reasonable', they don't write anything.

@Examinetheexams I'm in an examining hiatus until November so I'm awake and not marking!

Anyone still waiting for AQA English Language reviews? We requested it be sent off in early Sept but found out today that the school only sent it the day before cut-off. They’re now not responding to any of our emails, although a teacher said they had asked the EO on my DD’s behalf and was told he hadn’t heard back. It just seems like everyone is sorted, so I’m panicking that his lack of response may actually mean it wasn’t sent.

We’re also waiting for Sociology which was sent off at the same time.

@MrsHamlet - if we appeal just paper 1 could paper 2 be revisited (opening up disability-related spag risks again) or is it just paper 1 that is revisited?

And on paper 1, should we just focus on the two questions which are out of tolerance (in the school's view) or should we also provide evidence to maintain the marks that are ok?

Many thanks for any insights you can provide.

Ours went back to AQA very in early September and we only got the results 10 days ago, so I guess it might still take a while especially if there was a 'rush' of entries around the end Sept deadline.

Your appeal will be for a paper so they won't look at the other - plus they're different teams of people.

You should provide the best evidence you have for the review not having been done correctly.

Pearson have been amazing.

Got the result back this afternoon... 8 mark increase on Paper 1 English Language and a grade increase.

So, so pleased for DD.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow this is great news. I hope the school are suitably embarrassed. Well done for advocating for her.

Not sure they know yet!

The review had to all be approved by the panel at the exam board so I am incredibly grateful to them.

It was an TWO grade increase on that individual paper, which means it is now in line with all her other English papers. Definitely worth looking for those anomalies with one paper way off the others.

@OhCrumbsWhereNow - congrats to your DD (and you too!).

Our appeal of English language was successful - an extra 5 marks awarded on paper 1, building on the 4 marks added to paper 2 during the review stage. Up 9 marks from the August results overall, and now a strong grade 8. Thank you @MrsHamlet for giving me to confidence to keep pushing for a fairer mark.

For anyone considering this in the future - chatgpt gave me a very accurate assessment of each answer (now validated by the appeal) and provided great, specific evidence to go into the appeal, which meant that over-burdened english teachers didn't need to spend lots of their free time on writing the appeal.

That's interesting. We used ChatGPT hugely for revision and a review for a STEM subject but the review didn't agree with ChatGPT, and as mark schemes haven't been released, we don't understand why.