Despite our school "bucking the trend" and gaining a record number of As and A*s this year, the number of students (or their parents) who have applied for a re-mark has increased dramatically.
In the last couple of weeks I've been updating a spreadsheet in school recording the results of re-marks. Despite costing £35 or £45 a time, parents with cash are willing to splash out to boost their offspring's grades. Some of them are spending well over £100.
And do you know what - hardly any of them have gained as a result. If you've got a B, then no amount of re-marking is going to make you an A* student. Most of them stay absolutely the same, or maybe they gain one or two extra marks which makes no difference to the grade.
But the worst one of all I heard about was a mother who absolutely insisted that one of her daughter's 'A' level papers was re-marked because she only had an A. It was re-marked and dropped to a 'B'.
As a result she has now lost her place at medical school.
Well it is nice to know we are getting it right. I am not surprised, there are quite a few checks nowadays.
ReplyDeleteWe had a few re-marks, but only when a student had missed a grade by a mark or two and it was felt they really should have got it. If the school had recommended it, we also picked up the cost of it.
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