GCSE results 2011

[DIY Mum]

With 1 mark away from a higher grade, it's worth trying it. I know my Dh, a physics teacher, recommends remarking papers as exam boards are known to make errors.

Happened to my niece, last year. She had 3 of her papers re-marked as she was 1 mark away from an A*. It made a difference to 2 of her papers but the third one, stayed the same. You'll get refunded for changes.

[tubby]

Thanks all for the posts very reassuring, will definitely go for the remark, DS really wants it, so more for him than anything else

Thanks

[lastminute]

Good results here - 2 A*s and As and thanks to these posts just realized that DD missing A* in another subject by 1 mark. She is quite chilled about it and my impression from the student room forum ( although hard work wading through the site; not like here) is that unless you want Oxford/Cambridge or medicine, which she doesn't, the number of A*s does not matter too much. Views please
Here is the AQA uniform mark scale link
http://web.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_ums.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Looking for help]

Thanks all for the posts very reassuring, will definitely go for the remark, DS really wants it, so more for him than anything else

Thanks

My son had his dual science GCSE award remarked, this would have been in 2007.....three science papers making up 2 grades, AA, BB, CC etc. On results day he was awarded BB, and was absolutely gutted, on return to school it transpired he was very close to the grade AA boundary. We ordered the remark, and the result was AA by a large number of marks missed from the original marking.

If you are very close to the higher grade boundary it is definitely worth the risk, but there is always a risk that the mark can come down, and therefore you drop to a lower grade. In our case, listening to our son, who felt he had done better, and discovering how close he was to the boundary, we felt it was good to go ahead, and we were glad we did.

[lastminute]

Not sure I understand why there is a risk. Just wading through OCR, AQA and Edexcel grade boundaries and there are 20 or so marks between grades for example in Edexcel and OCR. Surely they couldn't suddenly loose that many marks?
http://www.edexcel.com/iwantto/I%20want ... daries.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/admin/oc ... n_2011.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Looking for help]

My son gained something like 24 marks (in 2 GCSEs ) so you just never know. That's why you have to sign something to say you understand the risk. Just trying to help

Edited to say after all this time I've no idea how many actual marks he got but it was a lot and to have dropped the same amount, I recall, would have made the grades go down.....it can be quite scary

[hermanmunster]

Not sure I understand why there is a risk. Just wading through OCR, AQA and Edexcel grade boundaries and there are 20 or so marks between grades for example in Edexcel and OCR. Surely they couldn't suddenly loose that many marks?
http://www.edexcel.com/iwantto/I%20want ... daries.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/admin/oc ... n_2011.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

there is someone on student room at present who seems to have lost 50 marks in an A level remark! Not sure if they have got to the bottom of it yet - suspect there will be questions about BOTH markers...

[lastminute]

Yes thank you for info. Will contact the school tomorrow to discuss. We haven't had any information from the school about checking grade boundaries, perhaps they don't want to be deluged by picky parents which I would understand. But as mistakes are made it must be worthwhile sometimes - the risk of downgrading must act as a deterrent, putting off anyone who can't afford to loose 15 or so marks ( or 50 at A level.. ). The grade boundaries, terminal rule, uniform mark scale make it a science in itself so many thanks for improving my understanding.

[solimum]

Sometimes (especially with coursework-heavy subjects) the school can request a "block" remark for a whole group - my DD's grade for English (Lang or Lit? Can't remember) increased from a very unexpected C last August to a B by the time she had her certificates in November - the whole group had been marked very low for one piece of coursework. I have heard of others whose A grades turned magically into A* for languages without them even knowing! It can all seem rather a lottery...

[Fran17]

The same thing happened to one of my sons last year. He got a B in music and then a couple of weeks later we had a phone call from his school to say the exam board had contacted them to say some marks had been missed off his paper and he now had an A. We didn't look into it, just grabbed the A and made a run for it. We wondered if it was the result of some sort of enquiry into a particular 'marker'. The advice given to exercise caution when getting papers remarked is very sensible, as I know of a boy at my sons school who dropped 13 marks after having a paper remarked. Thank goodness it didn't affect his grade as he had been near the top of the grade boundary. We were told by a teacher at the school that if the papers are one mark short of a higher grade they are automatically checked over. I am not sure how accurate this information is but I have no reason to doubt her knowledge. Others of you on here may be able to shed some light on this.