Boards face questions over exam remarks

When Aron Jacobs, 16, a pupil at JFS, received his GCSE results this summer, he was not entirely satisfied. He decided to challenge the grades he received in two subjects, English language and geography.

In both cases, his application for a remark proved successful, as his grades went up from C to B; in English, in fact, he gained an extra 14 marks, a substantial increase (marks do not always represent percentages).

"I am pleased," said his mother Samantha, "but it makes me wonder whether he was correctly marked in other subjects."

A growing number of families are now having second thoughts after their children collect their results in August and are putting in for remarks. Just over one in five of remarked GCSE and A-level exams produced a grade change this year.

The grade changes in such cases may involve only a tiny fraction of the 15 million or so exam papers taken each year - little over half a per cent - but they clearly make a difference to pupils.

Challenging your results

● Remarks generally have to be applied for through the school or exam centre
● Applications usually need to be submitted within a few weeks of the exam - there is a priority service for A-level students who are waiting to hear about a university place
● Each remark request costs around from £24 to £40 per paper but may amount to more. But the fee will be refunded if the remark results in a higher grade.

Rabbi David Meyer, executive head teacher of the Hasmonean High School in London, said: "The exam boards have a moral and legal obligation to ensure the accuracy of the grades. Sadly, there is a growing conviction among school leaders that they are failing to meet these obligations."

At Hasmonean, 21 per cent of remarked papers resulted in a higher grade than was originally awarded this year, while 11 per went down.

Paul Doherty, acting head of King High Solomon School in Essex, while believing that most exam boards generally do a "very good job", acknowledged that there was "considerable unrest in schools about the way exams were marked".

According to Ofqual, the number of queries about results has been steadily rising over the past four years: overall, 2.8 per cent of A-level and GCSE scripts were questioned this year, up from 2.3 per cent in 2013 and 1.9 per cent in 2012.

Dissatisfied pupils have a number of options: they can request a check to see whether all the questions answered had actually been marked and the marks totted up correctly; or a full remark of a paper; or a review of a coursework assessment.

But there is a catch - it costs. For each individual paper for which a remark is requested, there is a fee of around £24 to £40, although it may come to more. Your fee is refunded, however, if your grade goes up.

JFS says it will advise a challenge usually only when pupils are on the borderline of a higher grade and that it will support families where cost is a problem. A spokesman said the school "hadn't noticed anything different to previous years. There was no particular spike in successful remarks."

But Immanuel College head teacher Charles Dormer said that this year had been "one of the worst ever for needing exams to be remarked". Over 100 papers taken by pupils at the school were remarked and not a single remark ended in a lower grade; in 3.6 per cent of all exam subjects, a pupil's grade went up.

Mr Dormer recalls that, in the case of one A-level student, she fell a grade short of what she required to secure her place at her preferred university. The university was unwilling to hold on to the place while she sought a remark; although the remark earned a higher grade and came minutes before the deadline expired on the offer of her university place, she chose to go elsewhere, he said, "out of sheer disgust".

In general, however, he said, "at A-level, the effect of exam board error has been muted by universities trying to fill their places and regularly accepting pupils who have dropped a grade compared to their offer."

But the most eye-opening case at Immanuel this year involved GCSE drama. All 15 students who took the subject had their written papers remarked free of charge –- when the exam board, AQA, said that queries from other schools had led to concerns about a particular examiner. In the event, seven of the 15 achieved higher grades and, in three instances, the scores went up by 20 marks or more.

"I think it is scandalous," Mr Dormer said, "if 47 per cent of results are wrong by a whole grade boundary. Examiners are supposed to check results near grade boundaries with extra care to ensure that justice is done."

The Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents exam boards, says that most remark changes "are relatively small and between one and two marks. There are, however, a small proportion of larger mark changes and awarding bodies share the disappointment and frustration they cause and are focused on doing everything they can to minimise the chances of such events happening."

Exam watchdog Ofqual, which is due to publish a report on regrading next month, said that it was looking at ways to improve marking. Little more than one in 200 exam papers contained an error or inconsistency, it pointed out, assuming that all unchallenged grades were correct.

But its chief examiner Glenys Stacey said, "In our view, there is not enough evidence available at the moment about the quality of marking."

A wrong mark, she recognised, could have a "significant impact on a student… One mistake undermines faith for quite some time, and understandably so".