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Original poster

Daughter is being refused extra time even though she has ADHD

55 replies

YourAzureJoker · 09/11/2025 13:23

I understand having adhd does not automatically guarantee extra time!

My daughter finished her A levels and is currently resitting at her old school. She’s expressed a need for extra time since she joined the sixth form. She was tested and it took ten months to tell her that she did not qualify for extra time. At that time, she was being assessed for ADHD and hadn’t been diagnosed yet, so she couldn’t refute it.

However, now we have done research and discovered that she could get extra time through the Form 9 as she has all the necessary evidence, as she trialed rest breaks during her exams, she had mocks with extra time, and her teacher was the person who even suggested she should be tested in the first place. We told the school about this, but they have refused, stating that her scores show that she can’t get extra time according to the JCQ guideline, but in the JCQ guideline for a Form 9, it states that those scores should not be taken into account for ADHD.

We’ve sent countless emails, which have been ignored. Am I right to believe she should be able to get extra time? She’s always finished tests last in school, and she would even come back at break time to finish them. I don’t get how her teachers were not advocating for this for her?
She ended up running out of time in her A level exams, which is one of the reasons why she’s retaking. I would appreciate some advice. Am I being reasonable? Is it truly impossible for her to get that extra time, and should we drop it as she’s not in the school anymore and is just sitting her exams there?

I’m going to call the access arrangement officer next week as I find it concerning that they’ve stated that my daughter can only get rest breaks again, but they’ve not asked why she did not find the rest breaks helpful and how they could accommodate her needs, as she complained that the invigilators kept asking her questions about the exams and were discussing topics that were not relevant to her during her rest break, which she found very distracting as she couldn’t refocus when she went back to the exam hall. She also expressed that she would want to be in a smaller room as she finds it distracting having to walk out of the exam hall just to be sat outside watching everyone write away and maybe ear muffs to create a quieter zone for focus.

Are these reasonable requests even if she doesn’t get extra time? Sorry for the rant

OP posts:
Original poster
YourAzureJoker · 09/11/2025 14:15

i completely agree as they didn’t even believe she could have adhd in the first place because she’s been quiet and well behaved the whole time there. It took less than a year for my daughter to be diagnosed less than a year perhaps you could go through the right to choose route? My daughter is the exact same she focuses on one question for too long while forgetting she skipped 4 other questions and then she struggles understanding what the questions are asking her so she has to re read it multiple times and struggles to remember the method to do a calculation and gets muddled up. She told me she has never had the time to even reread her answers or sometimes she can’t even think for one second before writing since she has no time and we looked at her script and she made so many silly mistakes because she didn’t read the question right. You still have plenty of time If she’s still in school. If teachers can see she’s struggling then they should be able to advocate for her to get extra time x

OP posts:
gruffaloaddict · 09/11/2025 14:12

As it stands, it is given when it is proven to be their normal way of working - it sounds like in your daughters case that would be accurate. But, as PP says, there is clamping down on extra time, simply because too many qualify for it.
You cannot request a smaller room, the school would need to deploy another exam invigilator which they most likely won’t do as its money… students with medical reasons sometimes qualify for this, such as diabetic, need to have their phone on them to check levels etc. If you could freely request things like this, all students would have their own room for exams!
The exams officer is best placed to discuss these things, or the school SENCO.

arethereanyleftatall · 09/11/2025 14:09

GladiatorsFan · 09/11/2025 14:04

As of this year the JCQ are clamping down on additional time - significantly less students will be eligible for this.

Ah, that’s interesting. It seems my dd has missed the boat then. I guess this was always going to happen as we found ourselves in a situation where more and more people were getting extra time. What it has resulted in is exam results which no longer reflect the calibre of a student as some got extra time and thus completed more questions, and some didn’t.

GladiatorsFan · 09/11/2025 14:04

As of this year the JCQ are clamping down on additional time - significantly less students will be eligible for this.

arethereanyleftatall · 09/11/2025 13:32

My dd is in the same position. Hasn’t ever finished an exam and her gcse results are 1/ 2 grades lower than if she was allowed extra time. On the nhs pathway for adhd but it’s years. Needing more time isn’t because she’s slow, she’s the opposite, but because she can’t leave a question alone to get to the next question. She’ll go over and over it, especially if she’s written a perfect answer, she’ll stop to get excited. It seems to be that if she throws chairs around, she’ll get extra time.

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