English Language Marking Shambles

[mystery]

So perhaps WJEC marked all your school's papers badly because they knew your school was defecting to Edexcel? Amber have your WJEC schools experienced the marking problem this year? It does sound rubbish.

[Amber]

Amber have your WJEC schools experienced the marking problem this year? It does sound rubbish.

I think ours were pretty much what we were expecting. Every year there are 'problems' with marking of exams, and every exam board receives complaints and requests for papers to be re-marked. As a general rule (to which there are of course exceptions), the more pupils in a school who receive marks lower than they had expected, the higher the chance that the school itself has mucked up in some way - either through poor teaching or, more usually, through not actually delivering the syllabus of the exam thoroughly. With so much modular examining and so much chopping and changing of material, the risks of this obviously increase - teachers have to constantly check and cross-refer to ensure that they are covering the material required for a particular exam.

In the case of a school being responsible, it is most unlikely that parents will get some kind of penitent letter admitting fault; more likely some mention will be made of the need/option to re-sit, in light of 'disappointing' results. I personally know of 2 schools where this has happened.

Anecdotally, it is easier to get grades raised on re-mark in English and History, which are subjectively marked, than in Maths and Science, in which there should generally be a right and a wrong answer to every question. Actually this is not always the case, especially in some Science modules, where credit can be given thus: 'if no other mark scored on question x, then give one mark for this (not quite right) answer' - shocking imho but the way it is, nonetheless. And only yesterday I heard of an A grade being raised to an A* in an Edexcel linear Maths paper, only the 3rd time the experienced head of department had heard of such an outcome.

[Hairless]

Amber, I wonder if you could help.
My daughter took her English Language GCSE (WJEC) in the summer. She received a c grade - no marks appeared on the results paper -it just said 40 points. All her course work had been B grade, she had been tutored privately for sometime and the tutor thought she was at B standard. She came out of the exam feeling very positive. Is it possible to know how far away she was from a B from the 40 points. I have been on various websites trying to work out results, but I find it very confusing. As you are a teacher perhaps you can work it out. After reading the above info I'm wondering wether it is worth getting her paper remarked. It was a big disappointment for her. Any advice greatly appreciated.

[Guest55]

Hairless - 40 points is just the equivalent of a grade C it is not her mark.

You need to ask the school for the breakdown of marks on each paper and how close she was to a grade B. However I think it is now too late to ask for papers to be marked again.

[Amber]

Hairless - the 40 points are 'GCSE points' which are used in Government league tables to rank schools. They are calibrated as follows:

A*=58 points
A=52
B=46
C=40
D=34
E=28
F=22
G=16

So all you can tell from the 40 is that your daughter got a 'C' - it is just a points version of a C. To find out what she actually scored on the paper you would need to ask the school, as Guest55 says. Some schools give this information as a matter of course, and some teachers will tell the students informally what they got. Very often, the results sheet issued by the school will show a UMS score - the Universal Mark Scheme discussed elsewhere on this forum; which is a way of standardising the marks from different modules into something measurable and therefore able to be turned into a grade. UMS converters are usually available on exam board websites so you can find out what your child actually scored and how close to the UMS (and therefore grade) boundary they were. The UMS varies with each exam and each year - this is supposed to iron out the effects of difficult/easy papers by issuing marks on the basis of how the entire cohort of candidates performed.

As an example, which I think is reasonably typical, my daughter's school issued UMS marks on the results paper, and then teachers told the students what their 'raw scores' were. A friend whose daughter is at another school had to go and ask and was given the UMS score, from which she worked out the raw score from the exam board (in that case AQA) website.

In terms of getting the paper re-marked, as Guest55 says, I think you have probably missed the boat on that one now (deadline at our school was 16th September); but perhaps your daughter would think of re-sitting that particular paper if she felt (and the school agreed) that she ought to have done better. It is entirely feasible that she scored a B in that particular paper but a C overall if the marks from previous modules were lower - only the school would be able to help you with that.

Of course, this being education, the WJEC syllabus is changing from this year...

[Hairless]

Thank you for the replies. Having given the matter some thought, I do not think it is worth her resitting, as she has started her A level courses, and I would rather she concentrated on those. I think it is a case of putting it behind her and moving forward. She is not a 'high flyer' so will not be applying to the top universities, so I don't think (I may be wrong) it will make much difference to her. Thanks again.