This year’s public exam results have largely brought disappointment to many schools and parents who were hopeful that the awarding bodies would be more sympathetic to their needs in the wake of Covid-19. Dr Helen Wright, is an experienced non-executive director with a particular expertise in supporting UK and international education companies. She is regularly

For several years now, Mark My Papers has worked closely with a leading exam centre for private candidates in Birmingham, and we are delighted to say that this centre, ARC (formerly the Academic Enrichment Centre), is now able to offer A Level science practicals. This is fantastic news. With the growth in online and home-learning,

An article by our Senior Moderator- a Lead Examiner of 25 years As Results Day is upon us and the papers will soon be in the public domain it is probably acceptable to make some comment on student responses to one of the English Language papers. The Writing section of Paper 2 asked students to

Emma White talks with Eleanor Marker of ‘Education Matters’ about her own journey towards securing places at the very best Universities…. Last month I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by Eleanor Marker of Home Education Matters. Eleanor is well-known in home-education circles and has faced 15 GCSE subject alone as a home-educating parent (something

MMP’s Founder and our Commercial Director are proud parents whose son was home educated from Y7 through to A Levels, is the current JCR President of Christ’s College at Cambridge University and is working really hard to make admission more straightforward for home educated students. The link below provides lots of helpful information for anyone

A personal perspective by our Senior Moderator Are we fostering a need for neediness? When schools sprayed the desks, re-opened their doors after Covid and the students returned, there was rightly some concern about how they might have been affected by the pandemic and their mixed feelings about re-joining the classroom culture. In the intervening

At Mark My Papers (MMP) we are regularly approached by home-educators who are aiming for a place at Oxford or Cambridge or hoping to study Medicine at a UK university.  For those who have adopted a self-educating approach, attempting to reach these goals comes with an extra layer of challenge because the entire process of

Emma White writes about recent changes in attitudes to home education which are a very real worry. It has struck me recently that there has been a bit of a change in home-education since the lock down. Covid served as a catalyst for many parents to continue with the pandemic induced shift to home schooling

Ofqual are eager to see GCSE exam grades return to pre-pandemic levels. In the wake of CAG-TAG self-administered grade inflation (2020-2021) some schools have been determined to justify their often over generous marking. A member of the MMP English Language team who has been a Senior Examiner with AQA for over 20 years talks of

On behalf of the team at MMP, sincere congratulations to Ernie Visick for his superb A’ Level results. Educated at home since Year 5, Ernie has worked with immense determination throughout the Pandemic, putting his time to great use to ensure he was ‘match-fit’ for his public exams this summer. An offer from Pembroke College,

Emma White explores why she believes it is so important for A-level and GCSE grades to be ‘reset’ after Covid More than 20 years ago whilst working for a large London insurance company, a CV landed on my desk for a marketing product manager role. Nothing unusual, we received them all the time, and mostly

Facing up to exams early makes all the difference It’s a busy time for us right now at Mark My Papers. With CAIE exams underway and the main GCSEs and A levels starting next week, we have been busy supporting home educators, direct students and schools in the run up to their exams. Every year

Ernie Visick’s parents are the Founder and the Commercial Director of Mark My Papers and are immensely proud that Ernie (pictured right) has been offered a place at Cambridge University where he will join his brother Ossie (pictured left) following a complete reliance on the superb team of Examiners at MMP for assessment and mock

A hybrid system where students are awarded a predicted grade and a real-life grade could be a solution to exams this year, writes Emma White It is less than five months until GCSEs and A-levels take place. An Easter holiday and two half terms stuffed into the mix means time will soon be running out

If universities start to set more of their own tests in order to tell candidates apart, the burden will fall on sixth forms, writes Emma White. After this year’s A-level grade inflation dramas, there have been rumblings that  universities will start to introduce a wider range of admissions tests, in order tell one triple A* student from

Time to come up with a different plan perhaps? With July now upon us we are almost (but not quite) at the end of the Centre or Teacher Assessed Grade process. I say not quite because we are still working with schools in the Far East who had a special extended deadline due to their political situation and

This year’s grading process has been unfair and stores up problems for later – but it needn’t be that way next year, writes Emma White… Anyone involved in the run up to the Summer 2021 Centre/Teacher Assessed Grade debacle will remember this year for its confusion, chaos and voluminous workload. For  my company Mark My Papers,

Using Centre Assessed Grades for GCSE and A-level will fail the most disadvantaged, writes Emma White in her latest article to be published in Independent School Management Plus. There is something almost comedic about this year’s Centre Assessed Grades. Comedic perhaps, if it were not for that fact that future lives, hopes and dreams of a

Emma White considers why schools often fail to nurture pupils’ love of learning Published in Independent School Management Plus Earlier this year, we received the news we had all been waiting for. My 18-year-old son had been offered a conditional place at Christ’s College, Cambridge to study history and modern languages. An immensely proud moment

Dr. Helen Wright MA(OXON), EDD, PGCE, Chair of the Mark My Papers Board of Advisors writes a fascinating piece considering if vicarious domination of a child’s aspiration leads to disappointment for school, parent and student. I could write at length – we all could – about any number of sub-groups of children and young people