Dear Parent/Carer 

I hope you and your family are well. I would like to share with you some updates regarding this summer’s exam results day and the appeals process that will be in place, should you wish to place an appeal. 

Students are invited into school to collect your results on Tuesday 10th August. Please see the table below for the time slot in which students should attend: 

Entry Time	Legal Surname begins with…
9.00am	A to F
9.20am	G to M
9.40am	N to W

On the day, you should access the site via the pedestrian access from College Road and enter the building via the ‘Green Toilets’ and make your way to the Large Dining Hall, where you will collect your results. There will be staff available to talk with, if you need any help and support with next steps. If results are not collected by the end of the last time slot, they will be posted to the address we hold on our system. If you receive your child’s results via the post and would like to talk with someone regarding them, please contact Miss Cruse via e-mail, in the first instance.  

I am sure you will agree that our staff and students have worked exceptionally hard this year and as such, staff may not be available to respond to your emails during the summer break. However, the ‘appeals email’ as described below should be used to place an appeal or to request supporting documentation and Miss Cruse and I will be available via email, from 10th August.  

The Appeals Process for Summer 2021 

How were my child’s grades arrived at this year? 

Grades this summer were based on Teacher Assessed Grades (TAGs). TAGs were submitted to the exam boards by us as a holistic assessment of students’ performance in a subject, following a rigorous process of assessment, moderation and quality assurance. 

These grades will be approved by the relevant exam board, following external quality assurance checks. 

What do I do if I’m not happy with my child’s grade? 

All students have the opportunity to appeal their grade if they meet the eligibility criteria (see below). It is important to note that an appeal may result in a grade being lowered, staying the same, or going up. So, if a student puts in an appeal and their grade is lowered, they will receive the lower mark. 

There is also the option to resit GCSEs, A levels and some AS levels in the autumn, which may be preferrable to some students. The design, content and assessment of these papers will be the same as in a normal year. 

What are the grounds for appeal? 

There are five main grounds for appeal, as dictated by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ). They are: 

• You think we have made an administrative error: an example of this would be putting the wrong information into a spreadsheet. 

• You think we have made a procedural error: this means we haven’t properly followed our own process, as approved by the exam board. An example of this would be where you’ve been told you should have received extra time for assessments but this wasn’t given in a certain subject. 

• You think the academic judgement on the selection of evidence was unreasonable: you think the evidence used to grade you was not reasonable. 

• You think the academic judgement on the grade you were given was unreasonable. 

What does ‘unreasonable’ mean? 

‘Unreasonable’ is a technical term in this context and means that no educational professional acting reasonably could have selected the same evidence or come up with the same grade. 

This means that just because other forms of evidence may have been equally valid to use, the selection of evidence is not unreasonable. Because of the flexibility of the approach this year, every school and college will have used different forms of evidence. 

It also means that the independent reviewers will not remark or grade students’ evidence. Instead, they will look to see whether any teacher acting reasonably could have arrived at the same grade. 

Supporting documentation available on request 

Students will be able to request the following documentation in order to help them to decide if to make an appeal: 

• Our Centre Policy 

• The Assessment Record Template for any given subject 

• Any grades or marks associated with the evidence used to inform their overall grade for any given subject 

Please use the following email to request the above information if you feel it would help in your decision making: 

examappeals@buxton.derbyshire.sch.uk 

What will be the outcome of an appeal? 

At either stage of the appeals process (see ‘What are the two stages of an appeal?’ below), a student’s grade may go up, stay the stay, or go down. When placing an appeal, the student will have to sign a declaration saying that they accept the fact their grade may go down and they may get a lower grade than their original TAG. 

What’s a priority appeal? 

Priority appeals will be handled more quickly than other appeals, where possible before UCAS’s advisory deadline of 8 September. 

Priority appeals are only open to A level students starting university this autumn, who have missed out on the conditions of their firm offer. 

JCQ cannot offer priority appeals for GCSE students, unfortunately.  

When making a priority appeal, students will have to include their UCAS number so it can be confirmed that it is a genuine priority appeal. 

What should I do if I don’t get into my first choice of university? 

First, don’t panic. Speak to Miss Cruse about your options. You may wish to go through clearing, or sit the autumn exams or summer exams next year to try to improve your grade. 

If you are going to appeal your grade, you must let your university know you are appealing. They will then let you know whether they will hold a place for you pending the outcome of an appeal (note that universities are not obliged to hold a place for you; this is at their discretion). 

What should I do before appealing? 

Students must read the JCQ Student and Parent guide before appealing, which you will be able to access by following the link below: 

https://www.jcq.org.uk/summer-2021-arrangements/ 

What are the two stages of an appeal? 

All appeals, on any of the grounds above, must first go through a centre review. At this stage, we will check for any administrative errors, and check that our policies and procedures were followed correctly. Our policy has already been approved by the exam boards, so we are only ensuring that we followed this properly. 

The outcome of the centre review will be communicated to students when made. 

At the centre review stage, if we find that a grade should go up or down, we will ask the exam board to change it. They will then consider this request.  

Following the outcome of a centre review, students may still choose to pursue an awarding organisation appeal; which we will then send on their behalf to the exam boards. Students and parents cannot send appeals directly to the exam board themselves – it must come from us. 

The outcome of the awarding organisation appeal will be communicated to students when made. 

How do I make an appeal? 

Following results days, students should fill in the first section of the JCQ form here and send it to examappeals@buxton.derbyshire.sch.uk 

What are the deadlines for priority appeals? 

The suggested deadline for requesting a priority appeal is 16 August (students cannot appeal before results day on 10 August). 

We will attempt to complete the centre review by 20th August. If students wish to progress this to an awarding organisation appeal, they must send the completed form to us by 23 August for priority appeals. 

What are the deadlines for non-priority appeals? 

Non-priority appeals are any A levels, GCSEs or vocational qualifications, where a firm university place is not pending. 

The deadline for submitting a centre review is 3 September; and the deadline for submitting an awarding organisation appeal is 10 September. 

You know my child’s grades. Why can’t you tell us? What if you know we haven’t met our university conditional offer? 

We are forbidden from disclosing the Teacher Assessed Grades to any third party, including students and parents, until results days. Any teacher or member of staff who does this is committing exam malpractice. 

Although students may have been given marks or grades on single pieces of evidence, we cannot disclose the final submitted TAG.  

During the external quality assurance process taking place in June or July, our submitted TAGs may be moved up or down (although this will always be done through human agency, not by an algorithm). 

We only know what a student’s conditional offer is if they have chosen to share that information with us. It has not formed part of our objective grading of students. Where we do know this information, we must not let students know their submitted TAGs, even if they haven’t met the conditions of their offer. 

This letter will also be available on our website for ease of reference. Finally, I hope you and your family have a lovely summer and I wish our Year 13 students every success with their next adventure. 

Kind Regards

Sam Jones - Deputy Headteacher