Pronouns in maths exams

Well clearly suggestions thinks that children with learning difficulties, disabilities or slight impairments should not be accommodated based on what has been said. Whether it's Irlens, autism, dyslexia, language processing disorder etc they've expressed the view that these children don't deserve GCSEs if they can't access the paper without any provisions made.
A view that would get you sacked if you expressed it the way suggestions had and would marr a reputation in education so you'd never worn again.
So I can conclude either they are lying about their job, or they keep quiet about their disgusting views at work or else it'll only be a matter of time before a student, parent or staff member calls them out and ends their career.
Although there are toxic environments in education, so I guess they could be in one of them.
This type of view was certainly around 20 years ago but is virtually non existent now thank goodness.
Anf they call us the dinosaurs.

In the example I linked above of the coloured map causing issues to colour blind students, should the response be 1) I don't believe it causes a problem 2) the school should prepare them better for exams 3) this qualification clearly doesn't suit them they should be entered for an alternative or 4) change the map so that everyone can make sense of it?

Examining boards should use language that reflects the variety of lived experiences of the times, and schools, colleges etc should prepare their students adequately.

Why? why is that purpose of examining boards, to reflect lived experience, and not to test students' skills and knowledge? Sure, try to keep them vaguely relevant, fine. But not as the main purpose.

People have said that this particular use of language has caused problems, despite you saying that it "shouldn't".

Either you don't believe the people saying that it does

or

You think that there is such a need for representation of non-binary people in maths exams that it should over-ride any difficulties that language-impaired students have.

Can you explain further which of these is your position, and why? Why would you ignore lots of people saying that there is a problem, even if your students don't have this issue? Or if you do believe it's an issue, but you think that the rights of non-binary students to be represented in maths problems in a way that has to include pronouns takes precedence over anything else - can you explain why? What harm is being done to them by not having this? if it's not harm to them, what other reason is there that you want so badly to have neutral pronouns included? Is it so that they will be more accepted in other circumstances? Is it so that she/he become seen as old-fashioned or irrelevant more generally? Or is it specifically about the students taking the papers? I don't really see why you are so dead-set on having them despite the problems.

I suppose we might all get higher grades in maths if the correct answer could be 3,4, or 5

AQA sciences.

Exam board AQA has apologised for including an unanswerable question in its A-level Chemistry paper. Pupils sitting the exam this afternoon were told to leave out one of the questions in the paper.Schools were contacted about the mistake before today's exam to ensure students could be told, AQA has said.But some pupils on social media claimed that they were only notified in the middle of the exam - and some say they were not told at all.As reported by the Times Educational Supplement

Given my disabilities and processing difficulties, I feel really angry and distressed at what a poster continues to argue. My suggestions (as per their username) are empathy training, removal of gender ideologically coloured lenses, and to fuck off with the offensive and insulting crap - please.

That physics paper came up on here. Several mothers were really pissed off about it and their children were massively stressed. Some people told them they'd misunderstood and were basically telling them they were wrong.

I'm glad AQA has fessed up but it really showed how blindly people are convinced that there's no way that an exam board could get it wrong.

It's good that they're doing that. Unfortunately, giving everyone full marks for that question won't undo the ramifications of nervous students being totally put off their stride. I'm fairly certain sitting an exam with questions that I hadn't covered used to be one of my recurring nightmares. I'm not sure how I would have dealt with it if I'd experienced it for real.

Perhaps AQA should have focused more on checking their science questions against the course specification than on sticking imaginary enbies into the maths papers.

I’m going to go with she’s unemployable, unemployed, and generally very angry at the world.

Thought this was interesting too - a coloured map and key in Geography that was inaccessible to colour blind students:
schoolsweek.co.uk/aqa-geography-gcse-question-inaccessible-to-colour-blind-pupils/

Yes Potholes "circuits-gate" was a bit of a thing. They gave everybody 9 marks for that question and apologised for the fuck-up.
They haven't admitted it, but it looks a lot like they mixed up the lists for advanced information for Foundation and Higher.

Not quite as bad perhaps as WJEC board leaving out 4 pages from the A level English lit paper.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61737300

Okay. A few posts ago, I commented that screw ups happened with GCSE exam questions all the time. I said that after we were assured that if a question was on a paper, qualified people had made sure it was clear.

Suggestions said, Why do you think an examining body would provide an ambiguous question? These papers are proofread multiple times by multiple people to ensure clarity before being approved.

I've now gone and done a little bit of googling to see what other issues might have come up in this year's session with AQA specifically, because that's the board the OP mentioned.

Crikey. This is what happened last Friday. They fucked up one of the GCSE Physics papers, so it assessed subject content that teachers and candidates had been told wouldn't be covered.

AQA's public statement follows: An update on GCSE Physics Higher Tier Paper 1

The final question on our GCSE Physics (8463) Higher Tier Paper 1 on Thursday 9 June 2022 was about energy transfers and circuits.

Energy transfers were listed in the advance information (178.1 KB) as being assessed – but circuits were unfortunately listed as not being assessed.

To make sure students aren’t disadvantaged, we’ll be awarding everyone full marks for all parts of the question, which were worth a total of 9 marks.

We’re really sorry and we’re looking at why our checks didn’t pick this up. We’re also doing extra checks on the advance information and question papers for future exams.

AQA statement' on Physics paper 1

Once again, we are being shown that a faith in gender identity theory is incompatible with recognising the needs of pupils with disadvantages unrelated to gender. Instead of exam questions being written with the aim to provide thousands of teenagers (and mature students) the chance to prove their mathematical attainment under as fair conditions as possible, the aim becomes to prove that the question setter is 'down with the kidz'.

We don't want mathematical exam questions to reflect 'lived experiences'; they should be the mental equivalent of magnolia paint. We do not want 16 year old Paige, aspiring doctor, to lose marks because something about question 9 triggered emotional distress. We do not want hardworking 16 year old Andy, who has dyscalculia and maths anxiety but has been managing to get grade 4s on all past papers, to do worse than he deserves on the day, because he was confused by how many people were filling the bath in question 5.

This kind of stuff about reflecting lived experiences sounds like it's been regurgitated without examination, from a discussion of what poetry should be covered in English literature courses. That's not a debate I really want to get into, but what poems children should study in class over a two year period is wholly and completely different from how we should phrase questions in an unseen exam under test conditions.

We're not trying to get them interested in maths at the very last minute! It's too late for that. They've either decided they want to study it at higher levels or that they never want to see any maths again. Now the focus is, or should be, on giving them the opportunity to demonstrate their understanding to the best of their ability so they can get their target grades. So they can do what they want to with their lives, from college to apprenticeships. The exam candidates are real people, whose ambitions matter.

reflects the lived reality of chosen expression and pronoun identifier

I must say that I'm impressed at how you can use so many words and not actually say anything.

Standards are falling all over society. Sub editors are now a rare breed and simple errors routinely get published.

Given the compelled speech we are being told that we must accept, I guess we might as well go full-on Orwellian and just agree that sometimes two and two "are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane."

Oh and can add to the question-
some people say that “they” isn’t or shouldn’t be confusing. As this is maths, not about grammar or language we would like to be cautious and assume it might be a problem. What do you think?

Maybe we should just ask some transgender students/NB-
We’d like to use “they” in some questions in sone exam questions as we know that some students use that pronoun referring to themselves.

Some people will find the word “they” confusing in a maths questions if there is only one name. This could be due to Additional Needs or because English is their second language and the student expects there to be more than one person. That doesn’t happen all the time but on some questions.

What do you think about the maths exams just using he/she and only “they” if there is more than one person?

We’ll also be thinking about other such as philosophy, politics and English exams and talk to teachers and lots of students including you about that as well.

I'm going to go out on a limb and hazard a guess that suggestions doesn't teach primary/secondary but is possibly in academia so doesn't have the practical insight of younger children with language challenges.

This.
There's a lot of self identifying as an expert on this thread (Maths, SEN), much of which has turned out to be in a classroom support role. Nothing wrong with that as long as you're clear about your professional boundaries and don't claim an expertise that turns out to be nothing of the sort.

I write maths exam questions (lower than gcse) for an international audience (lots of ESL).

We spend an insane amount of time on each question trying to ensure that it can only be interpreted in one way. We have a list of allowable names, and a list of topics to avoid (alcohol being the obvious). When we set a question involving the price of something it has to be plausible. I will quit on the spot if anyone suggests I use they instead of he/she - there is no way it will add to the understandability of a question.

we are supposed to be writing questions to test their maths skills not their English.

I'm now frantically adding "preparation for gender neutral pronouns" to our scheme of work so that our students are prepared properly for next year.

Looking forward to seeing their lived experiences included. Most of the contexts used are far removed from anyone's reality. Don't think I've ever seen a lawn and pond in the shapes they are in maths exams.

Examining boards should use language that reflects the variety of lived experiences of the times, and schools, colleges etc should prepare their students adequately.

It's only become our lived experience because the TRAs have taken every opportunity to cram it down our throats, and people have been silenced by the screams of Transphobe.

Now at last we are fighting back. What was wrong with "A student has...... How much did this student receive?"

Love that, made me giggle anyway.

Just to say I'm pretty good with words, not so good with math, but the use of "they" as a possible pronoun or its original meaning (and no way to tell, as in no explanation that this time it's a pronoun, in the next q it's a plural) in an exam would send me spinning. I know cos of my age that exam papers can be mis printed etc. As a teen taking o then a levels I didnt know that exam papers could even be wrong. I would have spent far too long wondering , probably put two answers and then worried until the results what I might have done differently.
If it's not made absolutely clear, theres not much point including it. And im going to assume making it clear will be oh I dunno transphobic or summat.

Ella lives with her mum and two brothers. She and her brothers get free school meals. Her mum budgets for 50p each to feed the family a day during the week and 75p at weekends which works out at £16 a week during term time.

Ella's school breaks up for the summer holidays on Tuesday and her brothers' school breaks up on Wednesday. How much money will it cost her mum to feed the family this week compared to term time? How much will it cost next week?