son had his mobile phone in GCSE biology

No, it is not easily done. At my school and all schools I know of the entrance doors are sraffed and phones taken and stored in boxes. It is simply not possible to NOT be aware you shoull hand your phone in.

He will be disqualified form that exam at the very least.

Evil It is possible to have empathy for the other children in the exam room and the boy who made a mistake. And his Mum of course.

Well I would hope you can still have sympathy for someone who has made a stupid mistake, even if it does inconvenience your child.

He has been an idiot, but the rules are clear. Sadly sanctions have to applied otherwise kids would never take rules seriously. You cannot have empty threats. I imagine that the GCSE paper will be cancelled. At least it was a biology exam today and not maths. I doubt that other papers will be cancelled as the boy did not diliberately cheat.

Exam invigilators so have no power and work within a rigid framework. Everything is controlled centrally so that the conditions a child takes GCSE biology under is the same in Manchester as London or Devon. Late comers are allowed in provided they are not too late. The cut off is specified in some huge and really boring book.

In most schools exam invigilators are instructed to called SMT if there is a violation of the rules.

PS I'm joining in this slightly bonkers debate while marking year 11 mock papers. So they can all do their best next week. So sorry for typos.

Applecheeks your son has been caught up in the rules that have to apply to prevent cheating. Phones are banned from the exam room for very good reason. He knows that and just forgot. But discretion is not allowed by school (if an assessor turned up and saw it lots of people would lose jobs and the whole year group would fail their exams).
I will be keeping fingers crossed that he is treated fairly . I have been known to frisk some of my less reliable students !!

Hi Applecheeks. I have no doubt your son made a genuine mistake. And I'm sure the school will put in report that he has an exemplary record. This will help and I hope he gets a warning. No one wants him to lose any marks. I will keep fingers crossed he just gets a rap on the knuckles.

As to Bodeca. Oh dear. I have had a very long five weeks running revision clinics for students and at everyone I have reiterated the phones policy. Most kids have had it bored into them since year 7. I wish I could apply discretion but I can't. And I had a little laugh at the idea that the independents apply different rules. They don't. They can't. It's not allowed. Or they risk fines and loss of exam status.o know this because I've worked at some very posh ones of these too. And same rules apply.

Oh, and the cinema comparison is utterly ridiculous. To a 16 year old sitting GCSEs, this is incredibly important. A phone going off in a film is irritating but nothing on this scale.

BakeOff'- I have far more empathy for the other students in the exam, also tired after a week of exams, also sitting in a hit exam hall, who had their exam disturbed by one child who did not adhere to the rules.

I have no sympathy for the child who disturbed the exam.

Ffs we're talking about a 16 year old taking a GCSE exam here, have a bit of empathy. Some of you are calling him a liar and a cheat. His mum has already said he's pretty chaotic.
He may have had other exams this week, it's a hot Friday afternoon, it may have just slipped his mind that the phone was in his pocket. I've done it in the cinema, despite the long warnings at the beginning of a film.

We're not all perfect

I really hope the board are sympathetic to your son OP.

I like mumsnet, generally. However , "it's easily done" is utter rubbish. Every school Exams officer primes every year 11 on the finer detail. mobile phones posters are huge and displayed outside every exam room. It's hardly like its the first exam we've only a few left so I am in the "he messed up the rules camp". Exams are part and parcel about learning about life. Yes SEN behavioural conditions do mean there is some need for understanding. If there is no SEN situation being "chaotic" isn't a sound defence. If anything it is a great time to address this. Pity the poor kids who understood the rules and were disrupted in the exam room. I might not have read the post that hopefully didn't say it was Mum or Dad calling. why on earth did any teenager have the volume on their phone? Most have them on silent or vibrate most of the time as they never stop flashing with whatsapp Twitter and the rest updates. I'd suggest the exam board follows its rules and the sanction is as explained on the rules sheet. If not a precedent will be set and the perpetrator will dine out on " yeah my phone went off but mummy got me off on a technicality because I am disorganised, it's not my fault". rules are rules. We seem to have forgotten this and waste time thinking up excuses rather than saying "man up you messed up".

My view when I was invigilating was that the students who couldn't turn up on time should have been disqualified but hey we were inner London and underprivileged and allowances had to be made. I did at least manage to get management to agree that we would allow the latecomers in in 10 minute intervals up to 30 mins after the start of the exam to minimise the disturbance to the students who were on time and make it easier to administer the extra time.

The system always seems to have been skewed to me in favour of the miscreant rather than the young person who has genuinely done something a bit daft. My heart still hopes that grown ups can exercise some common sense. Mind you, the fact that those in education can't is why we moved our youngest to the indy sector rather than put up with lack of sense, lack of boundaries and lack of moral fibre.

I am just surprised your school let you bend the rules. And a bit disgusted they let you. Teachers spend hours getting students ready for exams and want a level playing field. Rules apply to All. I've worked in rough PRUs and I would never have excused a phone. Ever. So It's more annoyance at the thought that the very strict rules are not being universally applied than anything personal. I have been in school very late all week helping year 11s and 13s and the thought of others cheating drives me insane.

mumsneedwine I really have been an invigilator, albeit 11/12 years ago. I have not been untruthful about this in any way. I'm rather aghast that you are accusing me of not having done this to be honest.

Errol, fire alarms are given extra time to make up for disturbance. And report made to exam board and consideration given. The exams people do try and be fair. We escort to loos, check loos, watch kids like Hawks. It's not fair on the thousands of kids who have worked their butts off if people cheat. So rules are non negotiable, and drummed into kids from very early on.

It doesn't matter Boudecia. Intent doesn't come into it. Phone goes off - all marks lost. The kids are told this at the start of every single exam paper. Every time. No exemptions.

I can see how a kid who is stressed about exams and who has done the correct one for all the previous ones could just think he'd dealt with it already.

As to the disturbance caused by a ringing phone - not as bad as a fire alarm (someone's kid on the GCSE support thread had this due to it really going off in a food tech class).

Erm, if it had been a deliberate, planned attempt to cheat, surely he'd have had it on silent?!

Hope it gets resolved quickly for him, OP.

To OP. Chin up, wine and lots of cuddles. It is not the end of the world. Years ago this happened to one of my very bright students. Come UCAS time he used it as an example of how he had overcome adversity and learned the hard way. He impressed many a university and is now a very rich consultant in the oil industry. I drag him back every few years to read the riot act to the kids - his words carry more impact than me.

Linerunner - you said earlier I've submitted reports as an invigilator and have always stressed chaos when it's clearly that...
Is chaos a thing? An actual recognisable thing that can be clearly defined from deliberate attempts to break the rules; and as such deserving of special consideration? Wow.
I wonder how much of a defence scattyness and "chaos" would be if you were to push your trolley out of Tescos without paying?

OP I really feel for you and your DS.

Surely it is not just an issue of the phone ringing and disturbing others, but also that he could have been using it to cheat? I'm sure that's what DD has been told at her school when they are told to hand them in.

But Beaufort Belle, it's not up to the school staff. I wish we could make the decisions,but we can't. The exam boards would remove the schools right to admisinstsr exams and that would penalise 1000s of students.If you really had been an invigilator you would know this - there is no flexibility . The rules are rigid and the same for every institution, and you are very naive if you think 'good' kids won't try and cheat.

Those of us who work in schools do know our kids well. We are also not arrogant enough to assume that we are above the law. If we were found to be failing to apply JCQ's rules we, as a centre, would be in huge trouble. During exam season we can be inspected at any point with no notice at all to ensure that we are complying with their requirements.

Anybody who thinks that it's not really that important and a bit of common sense is all that's required clearly has no idea how it works these days.

Beaufort - I am incredibly fond of my students - particularly my yr 11s. That does not mean I would break the rules, encourage anyone else to break the rules, enable rule breaking or look the other way.

Rules are there for a reason. No invigilator has the right to decide to whom they apply.