Y11 2025-26 Results Day and Next Steps

[UncomfortableSilence]

We can use this thread to continue our discussions for now.

Anxiously waiting here too. One went on Friday and one on Monday. Should be back by 10th September latest but hopefully before.

We have exactly the same! Four papers only 1 mark off a 9 and one paper 2 marks off an 8. The last paper (the grade 7) is also in French - scored well on the papers including getting full marks in writing but flunked the speaking which dragged it down to a 7. DD thought this was one of her guaranteed 9s - had never got less in a mock/previous test and didn’t think it had gone badly on the day). According to AI, such a large difference between speaking and writing doesn’t make sense as they’re mostly testing the same concepts.

Did you review your papers before sending off? And have you sent off all the papers in a subject or just the ones with lowest marks? Annoyingly DDs school are being very slow to action - not promising any papers back until Sept 9th for us to look at before submitting for a review so we’re in limbo until then. This then doesn’t give us time to submit one paper at a time if we do go for a review, as advised on here. Would love to hear how your DS gets on with the review of marking - have everything crossed for him 🤞🏻

Can I ask how quickly your schools got the scripts to you/teachers looked over them. I am worried we are not leaving enough time to put in reviews. Aqa papers here if that makes a difference. Feels like we are pulling teeth.

Same here - school said we should receive our papers by Sept 9th. But apparently teachers will not look at the papers with us so up to us to try and spot any marking errors. The different approach amongst schools and levels of support feels very unfair :(

My teen missed a grade by one mark and the school kindly paid for a review which came back yesterday with no change to grade. Would I be unreasonable to appeal based on the fact that on the day of the second exam I had been recalled to hospital urgently following tests and was then told it was likely cancer?. My appointment was at the same time as the exam start time.

I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis (sorry I don't know how to do the MN flowers).

In terms of special consideration was this applied for at the time? As I understand it it can only be applied after results day if there was an exceptional reason that meant it couldn't have been applied for sooner.

It’s so interesting reading all of the Eng Lang comments. DD heard back from the teachers on the two other subjects she was considering getting remarked by the end of last Friday. Nothing from English and we’re not sure whether to keep waiting or just request the remark. It’s really tricky as it’s a state school and the teacher only came back from mat leave at Christmas and has two older kids, one of whom is at primary school, so it’s completely understandable that she’s not looking at scripts but it’s slightly frustrating that we don’t know if she will or not and, if she will, when that might be.
I have to say that, before last week, I didn’t realise that any teachers would look at scripts so what we have had is a bonus. Quite a few of the schools near us don’t offer any post-exam support.

Thanks for your reply Littletreefrog. No we didn't apply at the time as it all happened so suddenly, being recalled and being told. I doubt we would have had time. The hospital phoned me and told me to come in but I can't remember how many days' notice I got. Maybe 2 days.

Our school have been brilliant. They had a list of children to find and speak to immediately at results day regarding reviews of marking so dd had meetings with two teachers. She also met with the head of sixth form about a change of alevel option. All of this was pre 9.30am. Her teachers both then emailed us the same afternoon with advice on which papers to send off having checked them for us. The exams officer then sent one the next day (Friday) and one on Monday.

Schools should have to follow the same protocol for this in the same way that exams have to be conducted in the same way. I think it’s appalling some schools don’t support you.

It’s great that some schools are reviewing scripts already. It’s also hard to wait, I know (I am too, for my dd). But please remember teachers are on holiday right now. They (we) might be away from home, or looking after their own kids etc, and teachers don’t actually get paid for the holidays. If they review scripts next week when back at school, they won’t miss any deadline. I’ve got up early before my kids wake up today to review some scripts, as it happens, as I know I won’t be able to give it proper attention later and I feel guilty about students having to wait. But that’s not really what I want to be doing with my holiday, and I don’t think it should be expected of me tbh. Just standing up for teachers!

@propertymug @ShowDownTime that's frustrating that the speaking mark pulled down the overall grade. Tho look at it another way – after the speaking was not successful, your DC were able to use their ability in the other skills to pull up what must have been a 5/6 or lower to a 7 and an 8. So that's a big well done to them.

Did they think the speaking went well? What does their teacher say (presuming it was carried out by their class teacher)? The MFL exams were changed this year to make them more accessible, but maybe that had more effect in the written papers? tho the read aloud was a nice way in IMHO and definitely a way to pick up some good marks.

I would say btw that AI (ahem! not always right) is wrong to suggest that speaking and writing test the same skills. Yes they are active skills rather than receptive, but very different. I have had candidates whose final written exam would have been heavily edited to achieve a good result – impossible in the speaking. I examine the speaking assessment as a freelance (in exam centres and sometimes in schools) and a candidate can collapse in the speaking, sadly. Doesn't happen that often. But looking at my notes for this year, I had a mixed bag but would not expect the weaker ones to do very much better in the written papers so these grades are a bit of an anomaly and worth looking at. I suppose you can have the speaking paper reviewed?

Btw @ShowDownTime was the speaking support from a GCSE examiner or teacher, or a native speaker? The former would be better as they would know what was needed. Tho tbh if he was looking at a grade 9 he would hardly need the level of "make sure you develop xx number of answers here".

Thank you so much for your reply @clary- I just wrote a long post but lost it 😩. Can I ask in your experience are the following results for French normal - 42/29/40/50 for listening/speaking/reading/writing respectively? DDs teacher was in the room for the speaking exam so will reach out to her when term starts to see if she recalls anything going catastrophically wrong on the day - maybe DD misunderstood one of the requirements or something? DD thought it had gone well and had scored 48/50 for speaking in her mock so this result was very much a disappointing surprise! Thanks so much for your insight on these threads - it really is appreciated to hear from teachers 🙏🏻

So sorry to read this @TheFunSponge- hope you and your teen get positive news

@propertymug No, we haven’t requested any other papers be reviewed for French. He scored 46/50 in Listening, 47/50 in Reading, 48/50 in Writing and 35/50 in Speaking. It didn’t seem likely he would pick up the missing mark in the other papers so we’ve just sent the Speaking component back for review. This is AQA. We are fortunate that our school was keen to have all this processed straight away. I do feel for students who have to wait until the start of term.

@clary The Speaking support was from a native speaker who had access to the requirements for the AQA board and experience in preparing for GCSE. I am also a French speaker (not a teacher but I did MFL at university many moons ago) so was able to practice with him and felt he was strong and well-prepared going into the test. 🤷‍♀️ I didn’t know about a reading aloud component and we hadn’t practiced that, just the picture card discussion and all the topics they could be asked about.

Thank you. I just feel so sad that my teen just missed out and now they will need to resit as well as do their coursework (and also has the worry of me having cancer). Annoyingly I can't find any paper proof that I had a hospital appointment due to them phoning me urgently.

You cannot appeal on that basis, but can ask the school to apply for retrospective special consideration,

Could you get in touch with the hospital and get something in writing that confirms your appt/details? I have no idea how it works or whether they would take it into account but if there’s nothing to lose by appealing (apart from cost obvs) then I would give it a shot if it saves them resitting - really hope it works out for you 🤞🏻🙏🏻

Thank you, I will do this 🙏

Thank you. I will see what the school suggests and then contact the hospital.

@OranginacanonlybedrunkinFrance Dd's school won't review scripts until term starts but they've sent them through to us on the day requested. I don't really know what I'm looking for so just sent the lowest paper for a review. She's one mark off in English Lan. I reckon if they don't find it on this paper, I'll send the other paper off and try that. English Lan is particularly tricky I think as it's subjective. But I do feel like she's got very few marks for the 40 marker so hoping they'll increase that a bit.

Ah Ok @ShowDownTime a native speaker with knowledge of the exam should be the best of both worlds. But the fact that they didn’t know about the read aloud task is a concern. Did they also not know about the role play element? The spec was new for this year’s exams, with a role play, no choice of topic for the discussion, and questions on the read aloud topic and then on the picture topic; also a choice of pix to describe. I wonder, if the prep focused only on one aspect, whether your DC was confused when faced with the other elements in the prep and exam? But surely your DC would have prepped all those in class while at school anyway.

There was a lot of paperwork for candidates – I decided to get them to put all their notes and cards in order before we started the test so they didn’t get confused. But again, the examiner may not have done this and they may have got frazzled by that. It’s a very short exam with not much space to faff about if that makes sense. If you spend a minute trying to think of a word of getting confused by a question, that's a lot of time lost where you could be gaining marks.

@propertymug gosh 50 on the writing is amazing – full marks. That certainly shows they can pull together some good French when needed so I wonder about the speaking. A candidate scoring 50 om writing I would expect to get 10/10 on role play, at least 13/15 on the read aloud and questions, and at least 21/25 on the photo descrip and subsequent convo (and that’s allowing for some lower marks than I would actually expect). Unless there was a question along the way which totally threw them and they were unable to answer. My suggested marks would give a total of 44/50 so 29/50 seems low. I wonder if it’s possible that an element was not marked or even missed out in the exam? I would certainly probe that a bit. This applies to @ShowDownTime's DC as well actually – not quite such a low sp mark but still lower than the rest.

All that said, there can be anomalies. I recall querying DD’s French GCSE grade as her written CW (old spec) was marked as a B which I found bizarre as her marks for other elements were much higher (and I knew what quality the piece was). But it was looked at (I didn't see it myself) and came back still a B so hey. In the grand scheme of things it really has not been in any way an issue tbh.

Thank @clary for your experienced insights. I just asked my son did he know about the real aloud and role play and he said yes, of course. So at least he wasn’t surprised by that and presumably they had prepared at school.

I’m hoping for a result this week. 🤞🏼

@clarythank you so, so much for taking the time to respond. I really hope there has been a mistake - we’ve submitted the speaking part for review (although school won’t process until start of term) so will keep everything crossed. It gives us hope at least that an experienced teacher and examiner also thinks it’s strange! I wish they’d go back to the days of modular exams or coursework so that 2 years worth of work wasn’t dependent on your performance in 2 hours on 1 day.

Wow! This is amazing. Our school don’t even order any scripts in unless asked - I can’t believe the difference between schools.

I think it’s a lot of do with how keen on improving their rating schools are . DS1s Grammar School were set up to email anyone who was 1/2 marks off a grade boundary . DS2s non selective private school were completely relaxed . For us last year neither grade moved ( DS1 eng lit / DS2 eng lang )