Getting horribly reminded of the time my whole year group got E's in our AS English Lit exams and the teachers requested the papers back and were like "there's literally no way this is an E" so we went through appeals and everyone's grades were raised above C - mine to an A*

We'll never know for certain what happened and nobody ever admitted to anything but a "mistake" but it was made fairly clear unofficially that we were given blanket bad marks by a marker because we were a notoriously terrible school with little money for appeals and they knew it.

The school got the money back because the appeals were upheld - but if they hadn't it would have been disastrous for the school budget, and the only reason they risked it was because they were able to see a few of the marked papers and realised how bad the marking had been.

The fact they had to pay for the appeals meant they literally gambled the entire years English department budget (and then some) on our futures.

If they hadn't I wouldn't have been allowed to take the 'harder' English literature paper, and I'd have never gone to university.

I'll never forget my English teacher running out to stop me before I reached the desk with the results envelopes on it, going "There's been a mistake! There's been a mistake! This isn't on you!" or the look on her face. I'll never forget the feeling of seeing that result either.

Anyway, I feel absolutely fucking awful for the kids right now.