Transcribe for GCSEs

?d had an oral scribe for her exams she had the option of a laptop bet her wrists hurt after a while with her standard grades (scottish gcses) she did some exams written then scribed others orally. Her highers (A levels) they were orally scribed i think she had to spell out some words speak to the senco teacher and see what the preferred option is.

Is it a CA or coursework due next week? You won't be able to demonstrate a scribe or transcribe is the normal mode of working in that time frame if he has hitherto used a laptop. Did the school recall the Science scripts and assess whether a remark was appropriate or why he had underperformed. If he simply didn't put his answers down on paper fully then a transcribe is of no benefit.

popuptent

goinggetstough and LIZS are quite right. Science exam answers can be word processed - the typescript is attached to the question&answer booklet, with question numbers indicated in the margin.

Remind us which year group the pupil is in now, and how long before exams, or any remaining controlled assessments.

You really have to insist on completion of the touch-typing program - with carrot rather than stick. If he/she can't do this, it suggests DCD - is there other evidence of that?

As I understand it, from this year, JCQ will not deal with parents' queries, they have to be channelled through the Examination Centre (ie the school).

So you'll need to speak to the SENCo, and ask for the results of handwriting and spelling tests. Then come back to us.

If using the big keys helps him to avoid making errors that sounds like it's linked to his fine motor skills. Presumably school could ask their specialist assessor to assess his writing skills using the 2 different keyboards as evidence of need.

You need to check with exams officer/senco but ime the equipment needs to be provided by the school or at least checked for compliance and compatibility. How old is dc ? Is there time to learn to touch type to a reasonable speed ( not too quick or it could be assessed as advantageous).

We have had pupils that have used a laptop in science exams. All their typed answers are well labelled and they also answer in the exam paper if graphs or similar need to be completed.

I know typing does not cure all the issues but OP can your DC touch type properly? The reason I ask is that typing can promote some finger memory for spellings. On a basic level if the word you want to spell ends in - ion your fingers seem to remember it is ion and not oin. I hope that makes sense.

At our school we are trying to identify those pupils that might need a scribe in external exams due to slow writing or poor writing in year 7/8. Then in addition to helping them with their handwriting they are following a touch typing programme. This helps them develop into independent learners. This obviously is only possible if there aren't any other issues.

Fairly sure there are no SPaG marks for science.

And they're only worth 5% in subjects like history.

It's only English which SPaG forms a significant part of the mark.

My DS used a combination of typing, scribe and transcriber for his exams...we're in Scotland so the qualifying bit is different and it may well all be different, but...

Anything typed went as is, he typed it, it was done.

With a scribe, they only ask for spelling clarification if it's part of the question, otherwise they write the word that's been said correctly spelled. They do only put in what punctuation they're told to though.

Transcription he used for maths, so not a huge amount of spelling anyway, but his handwriting is bad enough that it's hard to spot spelling errors anyway, so some will have been corrected during transcription.

Then You need to talk to the SENCO. It's her job to interpret the access arrangements and implement them.

You have no idea what magic she can pull out of the hat.

She might be able to find a defn of 'regular way of working' that she can make happen.

I'd certainly be wanting a scribe from what you've said.

Can she not use a normal keyboard supplied by school? You need to weigh up whether the potential loss of SpAG marks is less of a risk to the grade than other options.

Would an actual scribe be better then?

How does your dc usually present their work op?

Actually I'd go further than that. If your spelling is so bad as to be incomprehensible a spell checker is unlikely to help.

It won't be able to guess which word you meant, nor will you be able to choose the right one from its suggested list.

Thanks.

I agree you can be below 84% and your writing is still comprehensible.

I think the OP is asking about a scribe as opposed to a transcript.

I'm not sure about having a scribe and a laptop, I would assume it's one or the other. Potentially a laptop for things like English, but a scribe for science papers where the questions have spaces for the answers in them. I know that you can have a reader and a laptop though, so that might be a possibility.

I think the key part about the spelling is that the standardised score not only has to be 84 below but that it also has to render the writing incomprehensible. The last part can be difficult to define. I am always surprised that the standardised score required is not lower, but thats just my view.