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Appeals and Remarks 2024

Appeals: Reviews of Marking / Moderation & what you need to know

This advice applies specifically to JCQ exams (AQA, OCR, Edexcel, WJEC etc). Other types of qualifications and other exam boards will vary.

Super important things to remember are in bold :yy:

Understand your results
Start by taking a close look at your results. Make sure you understand the grades you've received, how they compare to your expectations, and what this means for your next steps. Speak with your teachers or advisors at your school or college if you are not sure. If you are holding university offer(s), make sure you understand what the conditions of these are.

You can sometimes miss these conditions and the university will still offer you a place. Universities have your results days before results day to process all of this and make these decisions.

A basic outline of the appeals process

If you are unhappy with your grade(s), speak to your school / college

Schools & colleges have a number of different options to follow. Here they are:

Review of marking

This is where the exam board asks an examiner to check that the work has been marked correctly.
The examiner does not mark it again - it is therefore not a remark. But it checks that the work has been marked correctly the first time.

The school is charged for this service, this fee will only be waived if the grade changes as a result of the review of marking.
If the marks change but the grade does not, then the charge still applies.
The school may charge you if you are asking them to request a review of marking.

Reviews of marking can cause grades or marks to go up or down. Therefore, the school will ask for your explicit consent before requesting this service.

See below for how you can get a priority review of marking (section called "Impact on your next steps")

Review of moderation

Your school can request a review of moderation if they feel an internal assessment has been moderated unfairly. This will mean an examiner checks that the person who moderated externally has done this properly. Your consent is not required for this, as lots of candidates grades may be affected. Your grade cannot go down from this process, only go up. The school are only likely to request this service from an exam board if they see several students lower than expected at internal assessments.

Further appeals

There are three further steps that your school / college could take if reviews of marking / moderation do not go the way they want.

Appeal 1 - An appeal document is submitted from the school to the exam board, outlining why they think an error has still occurred. Exam board will consider this and reply, potentially changing the outcome for the candidates affected if they agree that an error has taken place. Exam boards will each have separate criteria for this.

Appeal 2 - If the school has gone through appeal 1 and been unsuccessful, they can request an appeal hearing. The exam board will have an appeals panel (again, details depend on the board) who will hear the case and make a judgement.

EPRS - Ofqual offer an Exam Procedures Review Service. This is where Ofqual simply check that the exam board have followed their policies and procedures in the handling of the papers, distribution of grades and appeal process. Ofqual will not mark anyone's paper for them.

Schools will usually be very unwilling to go into appeal 1, 2 or the EPRS. It's a complicated and lengthy process.

Request the script
Separate to the above, schools / colleges can request that your exam paper is sent back to them - allowing them to review your answers and decide whether or not to submit a review of marking. For priority reviews, and where your scores not close to the next boundary, this may not be worth waiting for. But less urgent queries it might be what your school decide to do first.

Impact on your next steps

If your place at uni depends on your grade changing, you need to make sure school request a priority review of marking. Priority reviews of marking are only for those who need the outcome of an appeal for their higher education place. Everyone else must do a non-priority appeal.

Ring up the universit(ies) whose offers this may affect - firm and insurance if it affects both. Inform them that your exams are undergoing a review of marking and ask them to honour their original offer if you meet your original offer conditions. UCAS recommend universities give you a deadline of 4th September to meet your offer conditions. However, universities do not have to follow this and can set different deadlines, so ring them to check.

Priority reviews of marking will have a response within 15 calendar days. So if these are submitted on A Level results day (15th August) then you should have an outcome by 30th August - within the 4th September deadline recommended by UCAS.

Always prepare a plan B: you cannot rely on reviews of marking going your way. At The Student Room we recommend planning for every outcome. You can still ring up universities in clearing, accept a clearing offer and if the review of marking goes your way then press "decline my place" and re-connect with your original university provided that they have agreed to this. Make sure you inform your firm or insurance university of your plans to check they will agree. Note down the name and role of the person you speak to on the phone from universities

Important Dates

The deadline for *priority* appeals is 22nd August

The deadline for non-priority appeals is 26th August

UCAS recommend universities give you a deadline of 4th September to meet your offer conditions

Retake Information
If you wish to resit your exams, that depends on which exams they are. If you want to retake GCSE English or Maths - there is opportunity to do that in the November 2024 exam series - speak to your exams officer at school if you want to do this.

If you wish to retake a different qualification this will probably mean taking it in Summer 2025. You must retake the whole qualification. This is a big decision, think carefully and speak to family/loved ones before deciding to do this. Or ask us for help.

Other helpful links
Getting out of an unconditional offer and applying through Clearing
A Level Didn't do as well as you hoped thread
Universities in Clearing thread 2024
Clearing Vacancy Threads on TSR 2024
Medicine clearing thread
University Transfer FAQ

Ask a question about A Levels
Ask a question about Universities

(edited 1 month ago)

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Reply 40

X.243llie

Original post by 04MR17

Then get in touch with the school's exams officer and request access to your scripts. :wink:

I get told to ask my teachers so i gave up in the end. Its a literal back and forth thing that i gave up. Personally i dont get why the exam board cant just release them to you like it wouldnt hurt them

Reply 41

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

Original post by X.243llie

A lot more data processing would be needed to make that happen.
I would reply to the exams officer explaining that no members of staff have been able to access your scripts (which is true), so you're asking them.

Reply 42

Primmy2465

I got a singular paper remarked and it went up by 11 marks!

It's definitely worth doing it. Even if it hadn't gone up at least I could've said that was the grade I probably deserved, then. 11 marks is insane though and I'm super glad my grade was changed. Really makes you question the system itself though.

Reply 43

Thomas2007

Original post by Primmy2465

I got a singular paper remarked and it went up by 11 marks!
It's definitely worth doing it. Even if it hadn't gone up at least I could've said that was the grade I probably deserved, then. 11 marks is insane though and I'm super glad my grade was changed. Really makes you question the system itself though.

What subject was it brotha and does it tell you what the marks went up for. Like did they all come from the same question.

Reply 44

Primmy2465

Original post by Thomas2007

What subject was it brotha and does it tell you what the marks went up for. Like did they all come from the same question.

It was English Literature. Every single question was put into band 3, got it remarked and more senior examiner believed that every answer should be band 4. Two questions went up by 4 marks and one went up by 3 marks. Making it an 11 mark increase in total.

Reply 45

BarryScott2022

Know someone who got GCSE AQA English Lit paper 1 reviewed. Found out today it went up by 11 marks (6 marks on one qu and 5 marks in another), so went up a whole grade. Now they’re at the top of the next grade boundary, so seeking advice about putting paper 2 in for review too.

Reply 46

Reeeeeeeee1818

Can you get away with not telling unis or putting on ur application that u resat a gcse (biology) and what would happen if u dont please some one answer asap

Reply 47

04MR17

Volunteer Section Leader

Original post by Reeeeeeeee1818

Can you get away with not telling unis or putting on ur application that u resat a gcse (biology) and what would happen if u dont please some one answer asap

No, you must declare full education history on your UCAS application.
Only very competitive courses and universities will be picky about GCSE resits, which courses are you interested in applying for?