Distracting invigilators during A level paper today - any advice please?

I hope they throw the book at the invigilators. It's appalling to think of all the work that has been put in by students and teachers, only for their performance to be spoiled by

Throughout the exam the invigilators whisper chatted to each other. To add to this, one of the invigilators' mobile phone went off and was not silenced and allowed to ring through.
Just in case this couldnt get worse another invigilator came into the room 20 minutes before the end and joined in the whisper chatter.

Am not understanding why ANY school would be unable to find classrooms for students needing scribes - given that an entire year group are on study leave one thing we are not short of is empty classrooms!

posters'

oops

I'm sick of usernames derailing genuine posters threads. Happened a lot yesterday.

this is in fact far more likely to be breaking the rules. Are the offices emptied of all written material? Are the correct number of exam notices displayed on the walls and in the corridor outside? Are the correct number of supervisors deployed outside each room? Are the scribes being correctly invigilated themselves?
My school does this for scribes.Roving invigilator between rooms (as per JCQ regs).
Readers are buffered by shelving in the library (again in the yellow book) which works surprisingly well. There's a general hum but you can't hear what people are saying.
All signs are up at each room and material covered or removed.

"
I didn't say 6, I said 6 scribes, in a room with OTHER candidates as well, such as those requiring readers, or candidates"

So did you or didn't you say 6? It's all very confusing and self-contradictory

@user1497480444, I've been a teacher for ten years. Believe me, I understand exams. In every school I've worked in - state, not private - every pupil who needed a scribe had their own, in their own room where, as noble quite rightly said, the scribe acted as the invigilator.

I have worked as a senior invigilator in university's (but not schools) for many years and I have heard a lot of excuses for students feeling agitated during exams. I have to agree with a lot of what user has said.

However general chatting (if that what it was, not discussing something to do with the exam/paper/other related problem) and having a mobile not switched to silent I agree is not on. Invigilators should know the routine.

Invigilators sometimes do have to talk in whispers as a candidate may have brought up a question/query with the paper and it has to be sorted maybe thats why another person entered the room later on maybe to clarify a query. Or someone may of appeared to try and cheat and discussions followed between invigilators.

Having up to 350 students doing multiple exams in sports halls some finishing before others, is a distraction for some others just get on with it and accept this is what happens. But also a class room with 10 can also cause distractions, someone who huffs and puffs or the pen twitches, the list goes on.

Did your daughter hear what was being said if they were so close to her? that is the question. Speak to the Exam Officer and please come back and let us know

@user1497480444 you will find if you scroll down that Noble has quoted from the guidance.
Back to the point though. This was unacceptable of the invigilators and I hope the exams officer can reassure your daughter tomorrow. C3 is the one my students all moan about too.

User - of course all confidential material is removed and the right posters are up. Don't try and make out I don't know what I'm doing either. We are a very successful school with an excellent exams officer and a highly experienced chief invigilator. We use mainly the gym, hall and drama studio but other rooms are used as well (set up appropriately). Sometimes this means room changes for timetables lessons. This is how most schools manage it.
Yours is the exception. And yes, we have had some of the old unannounced checks on how the exams are being run. Have you?

I am afraid, user, that your centre is an example of bad practice. All our pupils who have scribes are in separate rooms, SMT give up their offices for the core subject exams. Noble is, once again, correct. I worry that you see yourself as an expert in these matters.

it's breaking the rules.

no it isn't, again that is just ignorance.

Its not breaking the rules, you just don't understand what the rules are, or what normal practice is

And if it's not possible then the school isn't fit to be an exam centre

so that would be most of the schools in the country then......

As I said, we find rooms. Even if it means people thrown out of their offices for a while

this is in fact far more likely to be breaking the rules. Are the offices emptied of all written material? Are the correct number of exam notices displayed on the walls and in the corridor outside? Are the correct number of supervisors deployed outside each room? Are the scribes being correctly invigilated themselves?

As is your suggestion that only SEN students need special access arrangements

requirement of special access arrangements is BY DEFINITION a SEN

I'm absolutely horrified at the claim that there may be up to six children - WITH SCRIBES - in one room. This is such a gross violation of academic integrity - what is to stop the students from listening to, and copying from, each other?

as many other posters on here, you simply don't understand the reality of exams.

I didn't say 6, I said 6 scribes, in a room with OTHER candidates as well, such as those requiring readers, or candidates that are too distracted or distracting for the main hall, etc.

I am just trying to explain to the OP that her DDs complaints are entirely unreasonable, she is trying to say she will lose marks because of the invigilators whispering about the temperature in the room.

i expect most invigilators in the country were whispering about the temperature in the room yesterday, and I expect that in the same school as the OPs dd, and in all schools, there were candidates who both wanted more talk and action about it, and who wanted less.

It is a total nothing, as far as exam conditions go, invigilators have to talk bout all sorts of things during exams. And there will be plenty of other noises as well. I haven't even mentioned noises from outside the room, or even outside the school, completely out of the control of the people running the exams, and everybody will have them at some stage or another.

I did say earlier the invigilators should be spoke to, but that was before I read that they were only discussing and sorting out the temperature. How are they going to discuss and monitor and sort out the temperature without whispering????

Your DD just has to get on with it and concentrate on what she is supposed to be concentrating on.

Indeed @CharlesBakerHarris. User's school could and should be in serious trouble.
As I said, we find rooms. Even if it means people thrown out of their offices for a while. And if it's not possible then the school isn't fit to be an exam centre - it's breaking the rules.

I'm absolutely horrified at the claim that there may be up to six children - WITH SCRIBES - in one room. This is such a gross violation of academic integrity - what is to stop the students from listening to, and copying from, each other?

In our school rooms are found for students with scribes. Word processors are positioned in a way to minimise disruption in the exam room. To suggest noble doesn't know what she's talking about is ridiculous.
As is your suggestion that only SEN students need special access arrangements. That's just wrongZ

ah I do love it when a #manynumbereduser comes onto a thread, spouts bollocks about "their experience" and is put in their place by established non numbered posters....

nobody has "put me in my place" at all what weirdly bizarre thing to say.

And it is clear that i am the person here with the most experience of running exams, by a very long chalk.

For example, there are people here claiming scribes have a room each and don't need to be invigilated! Maybe in private schools, with the parents paying for the privilege, or in a few selective schools, or schools with abnormally vast resources or low levels of SEN

otherwise no, sorry.

The OP is saying the heat was the issue, yes maybe there were complaints about the heat and candidates reacting badly to it, maybe the room temperature was being monitored and causing concern.

Invigilators whispering about conditions in the exam room and monitoring and adjusting it - absolutely not a cause for complaint.

I'm sorry your daughter felt distracted, but that is up to her to manage, it isn't possible to provide a completely silent environment ever, and some situations will require more noise than others. Sorry, but she is not A* material, if a whispered discussion about the temperature in the room is going to make her lose marks. Unless she has some form of persistent dis tractability, in which case she should have applied for extra time

Given the heat , and the content of the conversation, it is likely that there were others in the same room who will have wanted this discussed more, and more adjustments tried, and the invigilators to have made more noise about it.

What difference does it make that the exam was in a class room, rather than a hall? Most schools have only one hall, or two at most, and will be using many classrooms for exams, this is normal practice.

Where the candidate and scribe are accommodated in another room, on a one to one basis, the invigilator may additionally act as the scribe.

1. The scribe still needs to be invigilated.

1. many schools, academy chains, local authorities ban any adult sitting alone in a room with a students.

1. There aren't enough rooms. there are not enough rooms to have two scribes or readers in a room. there aren't enough rooms to have three scribes or readers in a room. There are normally enough rooms to have around 6.

Gnome invigilators are temporary school staff. Teachers no longer are expected to do it. thank goodness Heck! DS1 did it last year at the school where I teach , but he would be very unhappy about what you/your DD have described, whether taking the exam or being an invigilator

A phone going off is listed as something that won't get special consideration because it's momentary.

At a local school (not my dc's) there were two classrooms sitting a language paper, I'm told. In one, one of the invigilator's phones went off.

The other class came out furious because the class was apparently told that if that happened they all automatically got an A*.

I think it may count as a small distraction, so may get an extra mark if they're lucky.