Certainly, as a recent piece for Tes noted, an exam mark can be changed only if a challenge is made - and the fact that so many are not challenged means the scale of the issue is unclear.

But even the process of requesting a script to see how and why a grade was given opens up another overlooked aspect of exams - the lack of a clear expectation for markers to annotate students’ exam papers.

To annotate or not to annotate

This may surprise some - after all, you’d expect an exam paper to be filled with references to levels in the mark scheme that provide evidence of why certain marks were given and a final grade chosen.

This, in turn, would help decide if the mark was fair and given with good reason - or perhaps indicate that the examiner had misunderstood something a student wrote or was arguing. Either way, the thought process would be on display.

Currently, though, there is no explicit requirement on awarding bodies (ABs) to provide annotations, which means there is a variation in what teachers can expect back when requesting reviews or appeals.

Some do require this but others do not - a point that one AB is happy to warn teachers about if considering a review of a script: “As exams are summative rather than formative assessments, scripts do not generally have examiner annotation on them.”

A lack of insight

Without a standard expectation of annotations being provided, though - especially in subjects with the widest outcome space, like English literature, where candidates write long essays worth 40 marks or more - it makes it extremely difficult to identify where credit has been given (or not).

How can teachers identify consistent undervaluing? Or blips in consistent marking? They do not have the experience or training that moderators seem to need when evaluating schools’ marking. The evidence is not just obscure, it’s virtually non-existent.

Teachers could undertake the lengthy exercise of judging their student against extracts from exemplars that some exam boards provide - but how useful is this when the AB doesn’t show how the specific individual student’s paper has been marked by the examiner on the day?

Annotations would help in another way too, by enabling teachers to see what sections of an answer were praised or which fell short, in order to hone future classroom practice. How can skills gaps be identified without annotations to indicate students’ achievements against the mark scheme?

A lopsided situation

It’s worth comparing all this with instructions given to teachers by the Joint Council for Qualifications with regard to how non-examined assessment (NEA) should be marked.

It states: “Insert annotations at the appropriate point in the work - in the margin or in the text - or write comments on the cover sheet to show clearly how credit has been awarded.”

So teachers are required to insert an evidence trail for their decision making so that qualified moderators can identify how marks have been awarded.

It’s time-consuming and stressful for teachers and schools to have their processes so closely scrutinised by ABs and Ofqual.

It’s even more uncomfortable when students challenge their NEA mark and a qualified assessor changes it before it is submitted. After all, teachers do not have the luxury of distance that ABs have, so must live with the fallout this causes in school.

Show your working

It is right that such challenges are allowed - and there is a need for clear annotations to allow those changes to be conducted fairly. Coursework is usually worth a maximum of 30 per cent of the total mark for a grade, so it has to be held to a high standard.

But surely then all the awarding bodies - who employ professional examiners to mark external examinations, which provide at least 70 per cent of that total mark - should be providing annotations as evidence for marking decisions too?

After all, don’t we always say to students that it’s important to “show your working”?

Yvonne Williams has taught for more than 30 years and was a member of the Department for Education Marking Policy Review Group, which looked at teacher workload in 2015-16

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