AS Level - poor results - what next??

Please do!

The thing is, you can be diagnosed, but the level of support available will be dependent upon the impact is has on performance.

As a straight A student in school, as you describe your colleague, it would be deemed that the impact on performance was not meeting criteria for intervention. Since you can't be higher than A, or A* if we're talking public exams as they were before the GCSE reform, then there is no reason to intervene.

Criteria used to be that the deficits had to be considerable before intervention could take place, in terms of what was previously School Action, Action Plus and Statement. Of course, now it's an EHCP and I'm sure that changes have been made, but the principle applies that there must be a deficit in relation to age related expectations.

I often hear of students being offered support at university, when they hadn't previously at school. The financial aspect may well play a part. Schools are stretched more and more financially and tough decisions take place every day. As a SENCo, I had constant battles to get the support to which my students were entitled. It also takes ages to gather the evidence required to move from one stage to the next and the amount of outside agency support necessary to support each case is difficult because those services are reduced.

I hope you are able to come to an agreement that supports your son and is practical and achievable.

I was a SENCo and spent 25 years of my career working in the SEND field, with postgraduate qualifications in specific learning dopifficulties, ASD and behaviour management.

If this debate has clarified your thoughts, then hopefully it has been useful. Ultimately though, your son has to find the ways in which he works best and ameliorates the difficulties he experiences. If/when he goes to higher education, he will be expected to be an independent learner and later, in the workplace the same will hold.

I am a severely dyslexic and dyspraxic education professional.

I do think you are being a little unrealistic.

talk to us parents about his areas of weaknesses as identified by the assessment

your child is 17, not 7! at 7 these things re discussed with parents at length, at 17, not, unless intellectually incompetent.

• share the assessment so we are better informed

you say you already have a copy of an old assessment, ask for a copy of the recent one, it will be a lot shorter.

• assess his learning difficulties and strengths

This will happen in class, as with all students in the class, to an extent, although he is at the age where everyone is expected to be able to do that for themselves. No one is going to go through all of someones strengths and weaknesses in the kind of detail you seem to think you can expect.

ensure the way he is being taught takes account of his difficulties

what ways do you think he should be being taught that he isn't at the moment? Again, I think you think there is some sort of magic formula that should be being applied, there isn't. He has some problems with reading and writing, he needs to work longer and harder to over come them, that's it really, and use any little strategy that he finds helpful.

-have an action plan and share with parents

Again, plan what? What plan do you think you want? and as to share it with parents, again he is 17, so that is entirely at the discretion of the school, and depends on time and manpower available, plus full permission from your son.

review impact of various strategies and try different strategies if not working

again, he is 17, you are talking as if he were 7, he needs to find his own best ways of working, as do ALL students.

engage with him regularly and be aware the impact on his mental health.

do you think teachers are not engaging with him every day? in what way is his mental health more vulnerable than that of any other student? Does he have mental health issues too? That is a totally separate thing, and likely to be recorded and monitored by pastoral, not SEN.

I hope your DS does well, but I do think you are not being very realistic with your demands. Dyslexia is not a condition that automatically qualifies for any support at all, it depends on the extent, and the type, etc. In fact, dyslexia isn't even a clearly defined condition at all. There are no "plans" and " strategies" for dyslexic students, they have weaknesses in some areas, as does every student, except theirs are likely to be more pronounced, however, as every student, they need to work on their weaknesses, and find out what ways of working most helps them.

As a concerned parent, which is how you come across, I wonder why you haven't researched over the years, how his particular form of specific difficulty affects him. If it was ten years ago that the assessment took place, were there not recommendations as to how best to ameliorate the difficulties?

Does he struggle to read the questions, have poor speed of writing, misunderstand what the question is asking, slow processing speed etc.

If he has already been granted extra time, then the school or SENCo will have had quite a lot of input. Exam boards require extensive information before granting any additional arrangements.

I'm not sure what other things you want/expect from the SENCo. I think that training in exam techniques is useful, but am not sure why you feel that a course of four lessons or sessions isn't enough. Many techniques that benefit students with a specific difficulty will benefit NT children. Mind mapping is a very useful tool. Post it notes or cards with key points, using different colours for different topics etc, etc.

What do you want to achieve from a meeting with the SENCo? Having been given additional arrangements, exam techniques training and so on, I'm not clear what else you expect.

I think that your son has sufficient self awareness to understand that the distractions played some part in his results and that taking encouraging him to take the responsibility he has already started, will stand him in good stead for next year and longer term.

These are not disastrous AS level results! For most subjects they won't count for the A level as most subjects are marked on the year 13 results only (there are some exceptions for next year still eg Maths). If either of the Ds are under the old system, I would suggest resitting the weakest papers. Where in the D grade was your DC? This could affect predicted grades (eg a high D with one paper being B could lead to a B prediction). I would suggest looking at a mix of Unis and firming a highe offer A/B and having a B/C uni as insurance. After results Unis often take students with grades the offer and schools often predict a bit higher than AS. Unis do make higher offers than predicted grades. Having a strong, relevant personal statement is important.

Sorry, Jewel No, her teachers thought she could do better and gave her higher predictions. I'm not sure what they were but she had offers of ABB and AAB from the universities she chose.

I'm not sure which subjects your son is doing but I think part of DD's improvement was due to developing a much more mature writing style. The subjects in which she showed the greatest improvement were essay subjects.

When he was much younger he had a very detailed assessment

Its different for a young child, but by his age, he needs to be taking responsibility for his own education

On your original question, my DD got BCDD in her AS exams and A*AB in her A levels, so it is possible to make a significant improvement. She dropped the 'C' subject so went into Yr13 with BDD.

She was offered her first choice on results day but went through Adjustment and chose a more challenging course. The university guaranteed accommodation for adjustment candidates so she was not disadvantaged in any way in the end.

Colour paper doesn’t work for every dyslexic and I have no idea if it would make any difference to him.

but he would know, there is no reason why he cannot try out different colours for himself he can start just by changing the back ground and font colour on his lap top and seeing what he likes.

There is no professional input required, he just needs to find his own work arounds, and yes, work harder and longer, as he will be slower.

"dyslexia" doesn't have a specific definition, you know, it is just difficulty in processing or expressing some formats of information, compared to others, so there is no "experts" as such, every brain is different.

she has all manner of tools to help her from coloured paper

I don't really understand your complaint, he can use any colour paper he wants, surely

what specialist provision do you think is available that you want him to have for dyslexia?

I think he has hit the nail on the head himself, the extra provision required to mitigate dyslexia at his age is lock away the PS4 and work harder!

using a lap top is ok, but has its limits, over reliance prevents development of organisational skills, and of course hand writing deteriorates very fast.

If he is misreading questions he might be entitled to a reader, otherwise dyslexia isn't so much an issue in exams as it is in learning, and for that he will need to spend more time on learning than his peers.

When he was given his extra time, was he given help with how to use it?

Some students who need extra time have previously run out of time so use the extra time to finish the paper. Others previously rushed to finish so need to use the extra time to slow down and take their time to plan/think through responses rather than just dashing them off or skipping out questions.

What about using a highlighter on key words or underlining? Using a ruler to keep his place when reading long texts?
You can get software that scans text and reads it to you which might be useful for revision?

I'm not a SENCO, I'm just throwing out some things that my students have found useful.

I think I would ask for an urgent meeting with the SENDCO at the school. This information should be known by all teachers and it is a failing of the school if they do not understand his difficulties and make provison for them which is more than a lap top and extra time. I would talk to them about how his exam technique can be improved and see if there is someone in school who can advise on this. Or maybe engage time with a Dyslexia specialist to help him organise his thoughts and then put them down on paper. I would look at getting the maximum marks from the least writing but not sure if that is possible. Trying to organise revision and fill in the gaps will not be easy without experienced help and I hope you get it.