Y11 2025-26 Exams have started - chat, support & drink of choice if needed here.

[UncomfortableSilence]

New thread for all of us with lovely Y11s to support them and us through the coming weeks.

Same. I don't give any advice now.. Head down, murmur agreement with anything, anything at all, and get to school 😆

It would be a big palaver, but I do think a redo could be fairer as schools responded differently (no announcement at our school so they all just got stressed and spent lots of time on those Qs thinking they must be misunderstanding) and DC will have been affected differently as well so no way to level the playing field now …

It is on the exam board to proof read and check. And yes, that paper should have been proof read and checked!

As I said upthread, printing errors do unfortunately happen from time to time - it's life, we all make mistakes. But if errors are missed at proof reading stage and papers have already been printed and sent to exam centres, an erratum notice is then sent, with corrections included, for invigilators to read out to all students before the exam begins. This is what should have happened here but didn't. Someone at Edexcel has messed up.

It is NOT on the exam centres (ie schools/colleges) to check papers beforehand - firstly exams team members are not allowed to even open the packages of exam scripts until one hour prior to the official exam start time, secondly we are not supposed to open/look through papers, we just put them out on desks, and thirdly we frankly don't have time - especially for 'core' subjects where many schools will have 200+ papers to set out. And teachers are not allowed to see papers in advance either - they are not supposed to even set foot in an exam room once scripts have been put out on desks - so there is no way the exam centre would have been aware in advance.

It's a bit of a shit show but we'll just have to wait and see what happens. I don't look at Reddit but I'd be surprised if they got everyone to redo it. They'd need to write a whole new paper for starters.

I agree it’s an absolute shit show by the exam board. I actually think the error was exacerbated by the fact some schools notified the students during the exam and some didn’t- makes it even harder to restore a level playing field…

I guess that’s always inherent in coursework? I know someone who did a lot of her DD’s art coursework for her as she was running out of time.

I also proof-read DD’s DT coursework and picked up typos, spelling mistakes and improved punctuation.

But the result is that everyone’s grade is slightly elevated and so the grade boundaries are super high for coursework.

That was kind of inevitable though @happylittlebirdy - it would have depended on students raising the issue and invigilators then being proactive in flagging to exams offices straight away. In DS's school I think a student put their hand up and flagged the suspected mistake and the lead invigilator then contacted the exams office who in turn contacted Edexcel, then fed back. Of course that should have happened in every centre but if no student flagged anything - and many of them would have been reluctant to put their hand up in the first place of course - the invigilators would have had no idea there were any problems until the exam was over.

That's very brave of that student to put their hand up!

You’d think there’d be some sort of alert system whereby as soon as Edexcel became aware of the issue they could send an emergency notification to all schools, not just individually respond to those that raise it - it was a 2 hour exam and I think I read some schools notified pupils about 40 mins into it, which seems like it would be enough time.
if this type of system isn’t currently in place it may be something to consider for the future (for all exams)

My DD said English language (AQA) went very badly, including some mistake she made on the extract question. She would’ve been hoping for a solid 6 or 7 on a good day. One more paper to do hopefully will be better.

Can someone possibly summarise the error(s) with an exam that everyone is talking about?

Yes absolutely. Will be interesting to see what Edexcel come back with.

@ExamExamExam to quote DS’s school communication: “there were two discrepancies between the printed paper and the code files in the Edexcel computer science examination.” Essentially the printed paper had errors in two places. They did not quote exact question numbers but I think a poster upthread has referenced two specific questions 1 and 5.

Dd seemed to think English was ok.. but I think it’s always hard to tell if you answered well.

My DD doesn't talk to me much and very much wants to put this behind her. Also programming is Greek to me. However I do know it was a problem in question 1 and 5 and the school have confirmed there were errors, that they knew mid exam, and that both the CS teacher and exams officer have been in touch with the exam board.

I THINK (do not take as Gospel) that there was a difference between what was in the question and on the computer which could have wasted a lot of time (and did for DD - I think it was something that would exacerbate her particular SEND).

I think a re-do on contingency day would be the fairest thing. I know the exam board are not going to want to do it, but they messed up so they should put it right and it would be fairer because as PP have said there is no way to account for the differences in ways schools handled it - even reports of some schools not highlighting the errors at all. Is contingency day the 24th June?

DD is going to be absolutely delighted (sarcasm) if she has to do another CS exam!

Crossed post with @FlyingPandas !

DD is now on half term, not a moment too soon. She is exhausted. Hope everyone else is there or very nearly there!

I don’t really hang over my kids shoulders very much , a lot of what they do is now outside my capabilities anyway now .

Part of me thinks that kids need to achieve within their own parameters rather than being bumped up - surely otherwise the wheels just fall off at a later date ? Just a thought and not something I’ve spent a long time thinking about .. and certainly not wanting to start a fight .

I’ve personally appreciated the support and sense check I’ve had from the posters here over the last many months . Would be a shame to spoil that .

So sorry for the computer science Edexcel kids - I hope there is a satisfactory resolution for all - though I doubt any DC would want to do an exam again

If it was a subject that DD wanted to do for A-level I suspect she'd want to do the exam again.

As it is, not so much.

However, I can see for students wanting to go on to do CS at A-level and University this may feel really catastrophic.

Just a side observer. I think unlikely to use a contingency day. They didn't the year they messed up Montagues and Capulets on the English Lit question for example.
I think more likely they'll disregard the questions or something similar.
(Also, and I know some will disagree massively, it is 'only' CS, which isn't even needed to do the A level.)

DC (also hoping for solid 6, with hopes of a 7) sat this paper this morning and also felt it hasn't gone as well as hoped. Not a disaster, but they said that the extracts didn't have as much material to work with when compared to the past papers they've done. Hopefully paper 2 will go better.

Thanks everyone 🙂 - apologies, can’t tag properly as on phone.

So sorry for your DD. My DC also wasted a lot of time trying to make sense of what to do on those Qs (their school did not announce the errors to them at all), so disregarding those Qs entirely would be worse as they then ran out of time to finish others.

The students it'll matter most to are those who want to do CS but might struggle to do well in Maths. I don't know about everywhere but as far as I know Maths is actually more important than CS for A-level entry to CS but I think a really good grade in CS can maybe swing things if the Maths isn't quite where it needs to be.

Personally I think this shows that they shouldn't do actual programming exams unless they've bulletproofed it. As a PP says disregarding the questions altogether disadvantages the students who wasted time trying to make them make sense and weren't told of the errors.

DD messaged me to say Eng Lang went ok for her AQA - will see. Thank goodness for half term!!!

In her creative writing she wrote a story based on an event that was funny/stressful that occured in our family not that long ago. I can guarantee no other pupil will have done anything similar to it 🤣 So it’ll either go in her advantage for being unique or the examiner will thinks she is crackers.

It’s shocking when there are errors in an exam paper. An erratum sheet should be sent to the centre – does anyone know if this happened with CS?

Yes errors can happen (not printing errors for a mistake in the text though, not since about 1989) but ofc exam papers are extensively proof-read so really it’s not OK for this to happen. I hope it is resolved in a satisfactory way.

I had an erratum sheet for some of the set questions for one exam board’s MFL speaking exam this year. Actually I didn’t use any of the elements flagged, BUT due to a candidate choice and the randomisation grid’s choice of another task, they were actually asked virtually the identical question twice. I had to ask it (some questions cannot be varied) and kind of said (in TL), “hmm I know you have had this question already” – they gave pretty much the same answer and I apologised later. I flagged it to the exam centre so hope the candidate won’t be penalised in any way but it could have put some students off for sure.

Reminds me of the first year of new spec for Eng lit – OCR board had this question (approx.) for R&J (as reffed upthread by @TeenToTwenties)

To what extent does the play show how Tybalt hates the Capulets?

In case you don’t know the play, Tybalt is a Capulet, it’s the Montagues he hates. Apparently the exam board marked any of the following:

• “I think you mean Montagues so I am going to write that” (bold choice)
• This is how he hated the Capulets even tho he was one of them as they are not nice
• I’m going to show how he hated both families
• Actually he loved the Capulets and here is how

Thank goodness DD did AQA as it would have utterly thrown her for the whole paper. News stories at the time seemed to think it was funny but I thought it was very very poor. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-40059967