Issues for centres arising from appeals
Issues for centres
These are issues which have arisen from cases heard by the EAB. They are therefore likely to be of interest to all centres. If you would find it helpful to discuss any of them, please contact the EAB's office: telephone 020 7509 5995..
Centres should
- familiarise themselves with the procedures for enquiries and appeals, the tightening up of deadlines and the need to comply with them. They share responsibility for the process with the awarding bodies and should avoid delays in dealing with their part of it.
- recognise their responsibilities to candidates and parents over enquiries and appeals and have in place procedures to ensure that all parties are properly advised and informed with regard to deadlines and the implications of grades possibly going down on re-mark and appeal.
- appreciate that the only way of obtaining an investigation of their candidates' results is to instigate correctly an enquiry about results, possibly followed by an appeal, with the awarding body. Writing letters of concern, about question papers, marking or any aspect of the examination or results, does not log a centre into the process by which candidates' scripts will be re-marked.
- recognise the importance of understanding the examining process, including the role in it of forecast grades and the need for them to be accurate.
- where they are concerned about the marking of their scripts, take the opportunity to see the scripts and so be better informed about the actual performance of their candidates on the day of the examination.
- be aware of the nature of a re-mark, the service they are buying when they apply for an enquiry about results service. A re-mark is an assessment of each externally assessed component against the approved mark scheme for the component by a senior examiner, who will confirm or amend the original marks. The service does not involve the re-marking of scripts from which original marks and comments have been removed.
- where an awarding body offers a service to advise on the suitability of centre-set tasks and performance indicators, make use of it from time to time, not only when there are changes to a syllabus specification.