Remark frustration

[arghbadday]

I’m so annoyed right now and really need to let off steam but also ask for advice.
DC got an unexpected 4 for Eng Lit. Was predicted a 6 but not too confident after the exam so expected a 5.
Papers requested, his teacher reviewed them and said that that the annotations on paper 1 had been incorrectly added to the mark scheme, that they’re made an administrative error and once corrected that would give us the two marks needed to move to grade 5. She also felt paper 2 had been under marked. She’s an experienced examiner/ marker btw.
Both papers sent for remarking, came back today as unchanged. No marks added, still grade 4.
it’s blindsided me a bit as I was so confident it would go up purely due to the apparent administrative error. I’m feeling upset on DCs behalf and quite powerless. I know that sounds really dramatic! But I just want to be able to say “what about the administrative error? You d made a mistake!” But I can’t.
Ive emailed the English teacher again to ask her advice but I think this is it now. Appeal is so expensive and is it going to make a difference?

In terms of DC’s future plans etc it won’t make a difference, they got what they needed for next steps plus they got a 7 in Eng Lang so future English GCSE requirements are fulfilled.

im just pissed off and annoyed and disappointed and quite likely hormonal so just needed to vent!

Anyone? 😊

Similar situation here and sadly I have no advice. We also received an unexpected 4 when she was expecting a 6 (she got a 6 in English Lit). We've not had the remark back yet (submitted 17 days ago), but I'm not hopeful. So many students at our school received grades a couple lower than expected.

My DD is considering a resit as this one was so far out from her other results. We'll make a decision once the result of the remark comes back. However, more money as we'd had to pay for a resit as she's passed English....

Fingers crossed for the upgrade @cherrywhite. It’s so bloody frustrating. How many marks was your DD from a 5?

An examiner is not a reviewer and may not understand the very strict rules under which marks can be changed.

Reviewers look at the annotations but it's possible for those to be out of whack with the correct mark.

You can appeal but there are specific grounds. The school can advise you.

No advice but similar here. DD solid grade 9 student, always excelled in English and performed consistently, felt exams went really well. Came out with a Grade 6, she was so shocked on result’s day. Got papers back, Paper 1 she did really well in. Paper 2 there were parts that looked like they hadn’t been marked, she had been awarded exactly half marks for each question. HOD reviewed and said it needs to go back, I also asked one of my colleagues at work who is also a senior AQA examiner to look and he agreed it definitely wasn’t right and could see at least another 10 marks just on the first question and it’s come back unchanged. She’s quite rightly gutted, she’s taking Lit for A Level so it matters to her even though her Language paper was a 9 so doesn’t affect anything going forward.

She said she just wants to forget about it now and she’s made a fantastic start to sixth form but I understand how you feel OP.

Which exam board? My school has submitted about 12 review of marking for both Eng and Eng lit , all cases are just 1-2 marks off the next grade, unfortunately, no one succeed.
If there is an admin error, exam board must easily spot it in Review of making. Did you request a post remark script to confirm admin error is not fixed?

According to a group for examining teachers I’m in, significant numbers of examiners have been disinvited to mark again next year for the biggest exam board. Cynically, this feels like AI is going to take the work with human “checkers” overseeing. It could also be that the type of examiner who is in it for the money, rather than the CpD can rush through huge volumes of papers which are then sent back for reviews. The system knows who marked which sections so the less accurate examiners are weeded out. This doesn’t help you I know but remember that “tolerance” is three marks so on Lit paper 2 where there are three essays that’s 9 marks from one examiner to the next on the same paper. Even if 2 marks has been added the conversion of marks might not have bumped up the grade. The exam board are the ones not winners of course, as they only refund the fees if marks change.

My DCs grade has gone up by two grades due to incorrectly written down marks. Clerical review came back unchanged, teacher was furious and sent it for full remark (school did not make us pay as they were so cross) and it has been changed. It wasn’t near a boundary so it was only the unexpectedness and huge difference between the papers that made us check.

A clerical check only checks that the relevant questions have a mark and that the marks have been totalled correctly. It's not looking at whether the marks are reasonable.

We didn’t but I don’t recall it being an option when we filled in the form. Should it have been?

His teacher was adamant that there was an error and the annotations didn’t match the sheet. Would that have been checked as part of the review of marking?

So from what you say, would they not check that the annotations correctly match those added to the marking sheet which is the issue our teacher identified? Or have I misunderstood that?

Not sure if you have seen my thread but we are appealing our 'review'. We identified a whole page that appeared unmarked and were equally surprised/disappointed when it came back unchanged but resigned ourselves to the fact that that page must not have had any valid points on it. However, we did then get the reviewed paper back and having looked at it, that page was still untouched! We have gone back to our exam officer and she is going to query it with them and appeal if necessary.

Can you get someone to give you a second opinion on whether it has been mismarked? Go back to your English teacher/head of English? Or even post the relevant pages here - I did that on my thread and it was reassuring getting feedback from examiners/reviewers on whether I had a case to appeal. Good luck - I've lost a lot of faith in the system unfortunately. We've had two other papers go up a grade because of mismarking and that was in Maths and Chemistry - so two stem subjects where you would think there would be less subjectivity. If you could somehow get a copy of your reviewed script that could be helpful too, although I don't know if you needed to ask for it at the time? Maybe someone else can advise on that.

The annotations might not match the mark but that doesn't mean that the mark isn't reasonable. Some people write rubbish annotations!

Excellent! SLTs around the country now investigating how to teach to the test to get AI giving the best marks.

Roll on retirement!

Just popping back to update. We got the review back today (day 19!) and it's stayed exactly the same. The exams officer told DD that none of the (30+) reviews the school have submitted for this subject had resulted in a grade change.

What an utterly frustrating process. I knew the odds are stacked against an upgrade - I've read the stats and so few are successful. I guess it's not helped by the stories of people receiving huge mark increases!

But isn't the other interpretation of your "frustration" that the original marking is largely accurate? I think it is a god sign that the vast majority (I think I read it is usually over 80%) of papers submitted for a review of marking come back unchanged.

Sorry it didn’t increase. Had the school reviewed all the papers before submitting for review to assess if they thought they were marks not given? I know some schools just submit all that are close to the boundary without checking them, and I appreciate why given the time it takes teachers to look at papers, but that presumably increases the chances that they are submitting papers that were fairly marked and just happened to fall close to a boundary, and therefore won’t change.