Help with AQA English literature GCSE from teachers or examiners please

[honeyhelps]

DS is 1 mark off a 7 in English lit and 2 grades below his predicted grade and 3 grades below all his other GCSEs.

School had agreed to look at the papers but they have still not done so, they are not happy he has moved schools so I am not sure if they actually will. We have obviously now lost too much time to mark one paper first and then the 2nd and I am keen to get a decision made asap.

Would anyone be happy to review the papers for payment in absence of having a school to help. Likely paper is Inspector Calls and war poems. The other paper where he scored more highly is Macbeth and Christmas Carol.

Thank you so much.

All enquiries after results are handled through exams offices normally.

Hey - I totally see your dilemma and we are in a similar boat - our school is being less than helpful and we've not even received our papers back yet! School have already said it is not their policy to look at the papers so we'll be on our own once we do get them in trying to figure out how to proceed. Also running out of time if we do want to submit one at a time.

I'm not sure if you've tried this already or how good it will be but have you tried putting the scripts into AI? If there isn't an obvious problem I might try that out of curiosity. I hope you find someone to help - it really isn't fair how much the level of support differs between schools. Best of luck and I hope your DC gets the results he wants - please let us know how you get on.

AI is notoriously unhelpful with English I'm
afraid.

What exam board?

AQA. I typed the 8 mark question and put it into 3 different ai and got 3 different results so am not sure ai would be much help!

Yep. AI isn't thinking about what it's doing - it's just churning out likely answers based on patterns. It's why it is not reliable for this sort of thing.

Examiners are trained to think about the questions they're marking and to apply the mark scheme according to the standard for that paper.

It's rare that I recommend reviewing without someone who knows what they're doing looking at it first, but in this case I think you'll have to.

I have read in X/Twitter about huge disparity in marks that even seasoned examiners were shocked. I think it is worth it.
we use WJEC but I have followed these teachers on Twitter for years.

I have read the same about huge disparity in marks and people going up 30 marks, just didnt want it to go down 30 marks which is why I requested help as DS was too traumatized to look at the papers again.

Hi @honeyhelps have a look at the figures from Ofqual here. Reviews of marking and moderation for GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2025 exam series - GOV.UK The most likely outcome is that the grade will be unchanged. The second most likely is that it will increase by a grade. It is rare for grades to go down and especially in your DCs case where they routinely perform at a higher level it would be incredibly unlikely.

In 2025, 5.3% of English Lit grades were challenged but only 1.3% changed.
Reviews of marking and moderation for GCSE, AS and A level: summer 2025 exam series - GOV.UK

I remember feeling sick putting my DCs in for review, worrying that it might turn out even worse (even if that is incredibly unlikely). It's a horrible process, you have my sympathy. If it helps, a year later it is a non-issue here and can help high achieving DCs process that a blip isn't the end of the world

Thank you. It would just be easier if DS felt able to look at the papers and have his own teacher recommend next steps. I didnt want to make a decision for him without advice even though he wants it remarked. He didnt want to choose which paper or if both!

Definitely a risk sending both papers at the same time. Daughter was 1 mark off a 7 in Biology. Our school is also extremely unhelpful, so I stupidly relied on Copilot (which to be fair is often helpful) when deciding which paper to send off for review first. We sent off Paper 2 and it went down by 1 mark. Have now sent off Paper 1. If it comes back with 1 mark up I will be totally kicking myself 😭