GCSE remark advice

onlyroz

I wouldn't bother *unless* this was the only A grade out of a whole set of A* grades.

[Deleted User]

If this was a coursework module which was internally marked then moderated it cannot be 're-marked' as such as it has already been re-marked through the moderation process. It sounds like it was an externally marked assessment and all the marks have been much lower than expected. When this happens the school need to submit a certain size sample to the exam board to be re-marked. If they are significantly changed then the exam board may agree to review the marks of the whole group. It sounds like the school are trying to get permission from enough student/parents to collect a substantial enough sample to force the hand of the exam board.

It is extremely unlikely that your daughter's mark will go up by 7 marks to get an A* but also extremely unlikely that it will go down enough for her to get a B. I would hope the teacher concerned would not suggest a re-mark unless her marks were well clear of the B grade border.

What parents don't often know is that grade boundaries are only set after exam papers are marked. The exam boards then go through a process of deciding where to set the grade boundaries based on the results of the students (standardising) in order to ensure that they don't all end up with a grade A or B. Some children will always have to get C, D E etc if the exam is at a similar difficulty to previous papers. So teachers may think all their students have done really well but if students across the country have done relatively better then the students in your daughter's school could end up being marked lower than expected

(Hope that makes sense - I know its quite complicated!)

Poppy9

If you know the exam body you can check grade boundaries on line and see how many marks you need to go up/down a grade.

My DD did Spanish GCSE a couple of years ago. I don't remember her doing course work as part of it though. If I remember rightly there was an oral which the teacher recorded and was then assessed, a written exam and a listening exam. DD achieved an A* by scoring 197 marks over all 3 exams out of a possible 200.

I wouldn't pay for a remark for the sake of the star. If the school feels strongly they should address the matter.

pollypenny

wantnomoneyworries wrote: »

Thanks everyone - I have no idea about boundaries etc and really I am only going off what teacher has said (he said there were 22 pupils that they were contacting about being marked down ) so probably prohibitive for school to pay!
I have discussed it with my daughter, and we did say that in the grand scheme of things it would not really matter as she got great results and has not gone on to study French anyway!
Thanks again

If the coursework has been marked down by the external moderator, and the school dispute this, they are the ones who should be asking for a remark.

However, the original mark is very unlikely to be restored.

silvercar

DS2 had 5 A level papers remarked this summer, across 2 subjects. 3 went up and 2 went down. Overall one grade changed so we got the costs refunded on 3 of the papers. 1 paper went up 12 points. I was flabbergasted that every single paper had been incorrectly mark. We had made the decision to remark as much as we thought possible without the risk of a grade dropping because he needed one more grade to secure his uni place.

Would I do this for a gcse from A to A*? We did that too, just because we were confident that he wouldn't drop below an A and felt he should have got the *. We were right

Counting_Pennies_2

All I remember in the news was that the people marking the papers were reminded to closely following the marking guidelines, to ensure strict marking was adhered to.

Not that the news is renowned for its accuracy, but I gathered marking was much tougher this year.

TopQuark

I wouldn't bother - what use will it be ultimately? I got an A* at GCSE in French back in 1998 and found that, despite getting the highest possible grade, when it came to trying to communicate in France, my skills were woefully inadequate.

It was only a few years later when I met my OH (who is French), that my language skills started to properly develop.

Languages are a nice bonus skill to have, but unless you are practically a linguist, or can speak several useful languages with fluency, they are unlikely to get you a job in their own right. I live close to Geneva currently and I got my job based on my academic qualifications. My ability in French helped, but on it's own, it would have been useless.

krlyr

I got an A in French and in the 11 years since leaving school, it's never been of any particular relevance. My CVs for jobs have always been semi-vague about GCSEs simply because I got fairly good scores so always simplified it to "11 GCSEs A*-C grade" or however many it was, and as I've got most jobs I've applied for, I can't see that having an A* in French would have made one jot of difference to my life at all!

Personally, unless she's going to a college/Uni that will require higher grades all round, or she wants to specialise in something related to languages, I doubt it will really have much of an impact on her and just gives her more time to worry about her GCSE results as they'd then be liable to change (even if they're unlikely to go down, it's still a worry for her)

Poppy9

silvercar wrote: »

DS2 had 5 A level papers remarked this summer, across 2 subjects. 3 went up and 2 went down. Overall one grade changed so we got the costs refunded on 3 of the papers. 1 paper went up 12 points. I was flabbergasted that every single paper had been incorrectly mark. We had made the decision to remark as much as we thought possible without the risk of a grade dropping because he needed one more grade to secure his uni place.

Would I do this for a gcse from A to A*? We did that too, just because we were confident that he wouldn't drop below an A and felt he should have got the *. We were right

I've heard this too often from people who get papers remarked.

My DD missed her Uni offer by 1 grade after she had a low grade in her final physics exam. Luckily DD checked Track before picking up results so knew the uni had accepted her. If they hadn't we would have gone for a remark as she was only a couple marks off the top grade. In TSR some people had the same physics paper remarked and went up 2 grades, one because they said only half the paper had been marked!

As she is in Uni though we didn't think it worth the stress of a remark.

silvercar

Poppy9 wrote: »

I've heard this too often from people who get papers remarked.

My DD missed her Uni offer by 1 grade after she had a low grade in her final physics exam. Luckily DD checked Track before picking up results so knew the uni had accepted her. If they hadn't we would have gone for a remark as she was only a couple marks off the top grade. In TSR some people had the same physics paper remarked and went up 2 grades, one because they said only half the paper had been marked!

As she is in Uni though we didn't think it worth the stress of a remark.

We put in for a priority remark because initially DS1 was rejected because of dropping by one grade below his offer. By the time the remark came back 4 days later, he had managed to convince the uni department to accept him.

We then had to persuade the accommodation office that his place was his original place, not one through clearing ( which is where the place went that he managed to scrape back) in order to get his first choice accommodation! By then we had the remark, so could say he met the offer, so it had to be the original place, though technically it wasn't. All because the marking system is slapdash.