Will DD likely be penalised for this

[curiousitygotthebetterofme]

DD(15) sat a GCSE exam yesterday, which she prepared so well and worked hard for.

She is aware of all the exam hall rules including that you can’t bring mobile phones in with you.

Yesterday, she had her phone with her but forgot to leave it at the school reception until after the exam was finished.

She was not using her mobile phone during the exam nor did she attempt to. The phone was also switched off.

It was in her pocket and it fell out onto the floor and invigilator seen it happen.

Her head of year rang me yesterday to inform
that they are obliged to report it to the exam board and that they could very well take marks off her or disqualify her.

I feel sorry for DD as she worked so hard for these exams and she has been quite distressed over it all and the possibility of being penalised. It just slipped her mind but she knows to be more aware for future exams.

I get that exam boards have to follow procedures, but surely the fact she wasn't actually using the phone will work in her favour?

At the end of the day you don’t need good grades to be successful, I got bad gcse grades and I’m hopefully off to the army soon (I’m a few years older than ur DD, so I understand the stress). Big hug off me

That doesn't matter. They are specifically told to hand in their phones or be disqualified. Those are the exam board rules and are the same in every examination centre in the country.

Your dd doesn't need to cheat/use the phone sadly to be punished here, so whether or not she cheated is irrelevant in that sense. She broke the rules, that's enough. I don't know any student who hasn't been disqualified from the exam and the board in these circumstances - I'm sorry.

How did it just happen to fall out of her pocket whilst she was sat still mid exam? 🤨

No. There are plenty of reminders, posters, verbal warnings, you name it.

She should of course turn up for exams. Have a look at this (pg 50 ish) - it looks as if disqualification from a unit has happened in the past but obv every case is different.

www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Malpractice_21-22_FINAL.pdf

I go back to the school:

1. Are they happy to let her sit the remaining exams - I'd expect they would be but I'd want to rule out any barriers to that happening.

2. Do they have a view how likely it is to be that exam or all the exams with that exam board.

3. What are her options going forward.
   Can she resit in November/Jan. She's 15 is she Y11 or is she sitting some papers in Y10 - (as DS is currently doing and some subjects it 50% of the exams) - so will she need to retake a year -or two - are they likely to allow that with them or will she need to go elsewhere.

I think she will be penalised - but how bad that ends up being you need to talk to the school about - and they may not know yet but only have guesses.

It's not the school that has the final say.

This is from The Ofwual blog about mobile phones in exams;

ofqual.blog.gov.uk/2019/01/11/behind-the-malpractice-stats-mobile-phones-in-exams/

Interesting reading

*Ofqual

Happened to DDs friend - phone rang at the end of the exam so they knew he had it.
He was disqualified from his maths exam - in which he received the results - A*

It happens - he could’ve been disqualified from all other exams but that was the final one.

Stark reminder to all students.

'However I feel a bit embarrassed for you thinking the school should not report it'

Again; I agree. Would you have been happy for it to have been reported if a phone had slipped from the pocket of the class dimbo who - unlike your daughter, apparently - might have been cheating?

Nope- if its a rule that you dont have mobile phones then you dont have a mobile phone. Merely having the phone is breaking the rule for this exact reason. By your rationale, kids could take a course text book in and merely say "hey- I didnt use it- prove it!".

Not read all the replies but senior invigilator here. The exam boards can and have cancelled the paper for our students that had exactly that situation happen to them this year.

I can't say for sure what will happen but it is very likely she will be penalised.

Jesus fuck.

Currently a teacher in in England so may be a bit different here, but legally invigilators are required here to do a final phone check (call a reminder) before the exam starts and most schools will have been hammering this point home via teachers daily as well so from there point of view they don't really need to prove anything as they were very clear. It is frustrating and my heart goes out to her but there is little she can do other than wait for verdict and appeal. A few years back a student sat his whole paper and his phone went off. He didn't touch it or answer it but thay paper was written off (a GCSE English paper so 50% of final grade). There was not much that could be done by the school as examining body had the final say and they were very black and white...the upside the rest of his papers from that examining body were allowed, the downside was it was impossible to pass English with one paper.

I do hope you get a good outcome and please stress to her it is not the end of the world. I have seen students "fail" GCSE, get good references and be allowed to still do college or A Level regardless, or some even do them and resit the GCSE unit the following year. It is not the end of the world and I have not seen a student excluded over it as it is it would be hard to swing that by governors and the local councils here at least as exclusion is a rare last resort not an immediate sanction and I have seen kids do far worse and not be kicked out!

THE 👏UK 👏 IS 👏 NOT 👏 JUST 👏 ENGLAND

What a fuck up op. I'm sorry.

Whether she sat an exam on a bank holiday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday, whether she thought she left her phone in the car or forgot to hand it in to the office and how it fell out of her pocket is neither here nor there.

She made a silly mistake and at the age of 15 the consequences of that feel enormous. We all know that gcse results are not the end of the world but when you're 15 or 16 it really does feel like they are. We've all made silly mistakes and lived to tell the tale but I guess she's not ready to find that comforting yet.

She needs to carry on and do the rest of her exams, unless she's told she can't. She has nothing to lose by doing them. I hope she can get herself into the right headspace to do a good job with the exams that are left.

And good luck to you too trying to keep her calm and focused.

Not relevant to post but there have definitely been exams this week as different exam boards schedule at different times.

Poor DD. Mistakes happen OP. She has to know that it's recoverable
Get onto the school and make recovery from this their problem too. Of course students get stressed and forgetful - they're preoccupied. Did the invigilator not remind them? They need to support her with questions about what happens next, resits etc

I understand she was in NI - but I thought that most exams boards still typically used the same dates for the major exams, and left out the week in the middle in case they were used by schools in other places. I guess the NI boards are really only used there then? I think that's the reason that summer half term in England is pretty standardised in terms of dates, unlike the other half terms (and i think Wales follows that as well as they have a mix of exam boards, including some English ones). I knew Scotland was different as they didn't do GCSEs. So I too was surprised to know that NI had exams this week - not because I don't know that the UK is more than just England, but because I thought that GCSEs meant that for once, the holidays were relatively consistent.

The fact that the phone was off sounds suspicious to me - not that she was using it, but that it would be harder to prove it was a mistake, because if you'd forgotten about your phone, you'd not have switched it fully off in advance.

You need to encourage her to sit the other exams - otherwise she'll look as if she was relying on the phone to get her through them. If the papers are cancelled, she'll still benefit from the experience if she can stop catastrophising. Teach her that terrible things can happen and she can come out stronger. I'd avoid "fighting" this - you can be clear with her that you know she wasn't cheating, but the rule was broken. It's not one rule for her and another for less able and well behaved children. There's no slur on her in accepting any necessary penalty and moving on.

Just wanted to say I can very easily believe that this was a genuine accident. DD probably thought she had removed her phone or even falsely remembered removing her phone rather than forgetting about it. So any reminder would have been useless unless she checked her pockets because zjed have thought yes I know I've already removed it.

It's the kind of thing I would do.

I don't have any other info or experience but op I can totally believe that your daughter didn't mean to cheat and I wish her all the best. Hope the outcome won't be too harsh. Good luck!!

Well you need to impress on her that not turning up for other exams is going to LOOK like she needed her phone to pass them.

plus it may affect whether they DQ the exams she's already sat or not.

she NEEDS to put even more effort into the remainder, not less.

there are a few things that are making her sound less & less 'innocent' in all of this. Maybe she felt more pressure to do well for you than you realised?

She's 15, really what are the chances of her choosing to leave her phone in her Dads car? They usually want them the second the exam is over! Secondly, how likely is it she would have turned it off to leave it in the car? Or turned it off & not left it in the car? They don't usually turn them off until the very last second possible!!

Sorry it's starting to look like a Swiss cheese story.

The only thing which is certain is that if she doesn’t sit her future exams she will definitely score 0 for those papers.

what has happened has happened and you need to park it and move on.

I can’t believe those saying maybe the school won’t report it! You do know it is malpractice not to do so and JCQ have a clear whistle blowing policy- the school could lose its right to be an examination centre by not reporting!

Having been a lead invigilator for many many exams I feel certain that students would have been told outside of the exam room to make sure they didn’t have phones on them. There would also have been posters inside and outside the exam room advising students to do this. Most importantly it is vital that students actually listen to what the lead invigilator says to them inside the hall - before they write their name on the paper they are told to check their pockets for unauthorised items (there is a list of examples of which mobile phones are one). If only students would actually listen to the instructions they are give this situation would be entirely preventable 😒