Write-Place

In the light of newspaper and online reports yesterday and my previous blog "Gaining marks for obscenities" I am posting AQA's response, in it's entirety as verified by them is appropriate and welcome. "If a candidate’s script contains obscenities, examiners are instructed to contact AQA’s offices who will advise them in accordance with JCQ (Joint Council for Qualifications) guidelines. As a result, an obscenity should either be disregarded, or action will be taken against the candidate, depending on the seriousness of the case. "The example cited was unique in the experience of the senior examiner concerned and was used in a pre-training session to emphasise the importance of adhering to the mark scheme: i.e. if a candidate makes any sort of response to a question then it must be at least given consideration to be awarded a mark. "We do not condone the use of obscenities in scripts: in the light of this incident we will be reviewing our instructions t...

Pupils are gaining marks for writing obscenities in their GCSE English exams even it has nothing to do with the question. A pupil who wrote “f*** off” has been given marks for correct spelling and successfully conveying meaning. More marks would have been given if he had put an exclamation mark after it, as this shows a grasp of very basic grammar.Peter Buckroyd, the chief examiner of English for the AQA - Assessment and Qualifications Alliance - is responsible for standards in exams taken by 780,000 candidates and for training for 3,000 examiners. He has instructed other examiners to mark in the same way adhering strictly to the mark scheme, to the extent that pupils who write only expletives on their papers should be awarded marks. 2 marks, out of a possible 27, where given for the 2- word expletive. As a marker of English papers myself, I do understand the idiosyncrasies of working to the criteria of a mark scheme and the difficulties of finding the "best fit" to mark posi...