Anyone still waiting for GCSE marking reviews?

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Ours were submitted on results day. Heard nothing yet but I know some people have. Waiting on CIE and AQA.

We went for review on Eng Lang and Lit as DS consistently predicted 9s since year 7 and got 7 and 6. His teacher was shocked and strongly suggested review on both. Lit came back with extra 25 marks! So up to an 8. Still waiting for Lang. Really shocked that the Lit paper was so badly marked.

That is appalling. Did you submit both papers? Do you know what went up? I mean I presume at least two questions, but there are only six questions in total. Unless it was like 4 marks on each question – but even then, to go from 20/30 on Shakespeare to 24/30 is not OK. I mean it's great for your DS but really!

I really regret not sending off language now - 4 marks off a 9.

We’ve had four subjects reviewed and all have upgraded but they were all 1/2 marks off. That said, they all went up 6-13(!) marks!!

Yep, we submitted both papers and every single question went up - each time it was ‘error in marking judgement’. It has not boosted DS’s trust in the process, to say the least. Unbelievable.

In a way it’s worse that every qu went up isn’t it? I mean none of it was given the right mark? As I understand it the papers are not marked as one; instead marker A gets all the Macbeth qus, marker B gets R&J, marker C gets ACC etc.

Really undermines your faith in the process. And he went from a 6 to an 8?

Really? God, I had no idea they were marked like that. So there are lots of terrible markers. Not just one having an off day. Brilliant.

And yes, 6 to 8. He’s doing Eng Lit at A level and hopes to study it at uni, so getting a 6 really knocked his confidence. Luckily his teacher sent him an amazing email saying he should still be totally confident in his choices.

Yeh @MrsHamlet who may or may not be on this thread (sorry I have lost track a bit!) is an Eng lit marker and has said this. And I think I have seen similar from a maths examiner as well.

I only mark (some boards) for MFL speaking and for those obviously you mark the whole speaking exam at once.

Nope - not me. We do whole lit papers.

Oh sorry I seem to have got it round my neck as usual.

IS that not the case then? Is the whole paper marked by one person? If so then that's a bit better.

ETA: Googled and it looks as tho AQA scripts are marked by one person per paper; Edexcel is marked with the questions split as I first said. Was this AQA @snailhunter ? Let's hope so tbh.

@clary - imagine you not knowing the details of all of the specs you don't teach ;)

haha yes, or mark! I am sorry I thought you had said papers were split up. It must have been a Pearson/Edexcel marker as I am sure I have read this somewhere on MN.

Yep, it was AQA and thanks for the clarification re the marker!

One school near us sent out an email to parents saying that 75% of AQA Eng Lang papers sent for review came back with an increased mark compared to 20% across all other subjects. Absolutely disgraceful.

Day 25 for Lang here. I really wish sh they would get on with it: it’s horrible for DS to have to do the wait all over again. Solidarity with fellow waiters!

Heard back this morning (AQA, English Lang paper 2, day 15). DD got the upgrade! She needed 3 additional marks and got an additional 4. She is obviously absolutely delighted

That’s shocking and appaulling

Congratulations to your Dd Kwells! I accidentally pressed the ‘thanks’ emoji…

Yep, it is a disgrace. We have the money to not have to worry but what about those who haven’t? Makes me furious.

anyway, still waiting here…

Thank you so much @snailhunter! She’s so pleased, but the system is a farce. Her best friend was predicted an 8 but got a 6…not close enough to the grade boundary for it to be reviewed, but she was consistently an 8…so I can’t help but thinking something has gone wrong for her.

DS's came back with extra marks but it's still massively under the grade where his teacher thinks it should be which seems to unfair. The mark scheme doesn't seem to have been applied correctly or at least not in line with how the school thought it worked.

Does anyone know if you can see the actual marking criteria for the 2026 papers? And the actual 2026 papers themselves?

Does anyone know anything about the appeal process?

The mark schemes are embargoed, but the generic bits have barely changed since the spec came in.

The school will be able to advise about an appeal - there are specific grounds on which you can appeal, and it's expensive.

Well, we got our English Lang review back - no change at all to anything, still a 7. So it could well be that DS just had an off-day, or was over-confident, which is entirely possible! I have reassured him that a 7 is absolutely fine and very unlikely to make any difference to his uni application or his life in general. At least now we can put this to bed and move on - he's loving sixth form and hopefully will have learned something. (Of course, the main lesson he is taking from going up two grades in English Lit is 'the exam markers are idiots and don't know what theyr'e doing', but it would be nice if he also learned about overconfidence...)

Combined science AQA back today. Needed 3 marks for the next grade boundary (was 17 over the lower one). Teacher thought there were 5-6 marks across 4 papers. Well, she got 2 so now 1 below the grade boundary and £180 down! Oh well, we said we'd give it a go as it was so close.

I wasn't going to come back and report, but I feel it's important as this thread seems to have a disproportionate number of successes. I'm not daft, I'd read the stats and knew how few grades actually change, but I also think we were influenced by all the success stories being reported here.

30 reviews in AQA English Language at my daughter's school and none changed. Not one.

Around 10 reviews of science and none have changed.

Good luck to those still waiting!

Does anyone know if there has been this level of marking error at alevel? Dd is doing two AQA and one OCR alevel subjects. I can’t bare the thought of this again on alevel results day!!

My school governor friend says yes!

Yep, I thought it was important to report that our Eng Lang didn’t change - I think someone said up thread that people are less likely to report no change and I am all for giving anyone who chances on this thread in the future the clearest picture possible.

We also had English Lang back unchanged (1 mark away from a 9). French speaking was also unchanged. However, Maths and Chemistry did go up by the 1 mark each required so we were happy about that - especially maths as thats what DD would like to study at uni.

I currently have another thread going re her Geography. One of the papers came back unchanged but we are considering appealing as it looks as if a whole page has not been marked! If anyone has time to take a look and can advise/give us their thoughts we would massively appreciate it. A review is a lot of money but I really do feel like we've been shortchanged - if there was one annotation on that page to show it had been seen I'd feel better and accept it but that page is so out of line with the rest of the script that I can't help but question it. This process is so frustrating!