To encourage DD to fake a sporting injury during her GCSEs so as she can use a computer?

[BigSandyBalls2015]

DD(16) took her first set of mock GCSEs last Dec - she had injured her hand during a football match and had two fingers taped up on her writing hand. So she was put in a separate room with a computer to type her mocks and did better than she expected.

Currently doing a second set of mocks, with everyone else in the main hall, writing instead of a computer and has found it much harder.

So would I be unreasonable to encourage a fake injury in May?

phoenixtherabbit It is cheating because she would by feigning an injury to get preferential treatment.

The laptop has to be the usual way of working and there has to be a need- however you don't have to apply to the exam board or collect any evidence. Therefore it can easily be allowed by the senco if a student has shown to perform much better with one that without.

A smaller room is just planning by the exams officer- no need for an access arrangement to be put in place.

Page 54 of the guidance-

Word processor"
"There is not a requirement to process an application using Access arrangements online or to record the use of the arrangement. No evidence is needed to support the arrangement. (This also applies where a candidate is using a word processor on a temporary basis as a consequence of a temporary injury.)
Centres are allowed to provide a word processor with the spelling and grammar check facility/predictive text disabled (switched off) to a candidate where it is their normal way of working within the centre and is appropriate to their needS".

A little unsure of why this thread is inspiring so much venom? The op's daughter did much better with a laptop. This would suggest to me that there could be a legitimate case to be made for her requiring one - perhaps undiagnosed SEN?

Also, the op's daughter having a laptop would not deprive another pupil of their special arrangements, what hysteria!

In your shoes op I would speak to the school. They will want her to do her best.

Most pupils would do better with a laptop and in a quiet room by themselves, I don't think that points to undiagnosed Sen just off that alone

Use of a laptop isn't an applied for access arrangement, it can be used 'on demand' if it is their 'normal way of working'. It comes under 'reasonable adjustments'. Have a word with the HoY/SENCo , I'm afraid schools are all about results and if use of a laptop ups your daughters grades they will let her use one.

www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/access-arrangements-and-special-consideration

Ds1 has recently been allowed to use a laptop for A levels following an assessment by an educational psychologist

Better late than never in his case

But as other posters have said it would be useful to know whether it was the smaller room or the laptop that made the difference

My kid needs a keyboard due to complex SN but the criteria is so strict due to goady, selfish twats like you, he may not get one.

Why is it cheating?
I use a computer for typing at work, I barely write these days
Shouldn't all exams be on computer by now?
It is 2017 after all !!

Undiagnosed SN? Really?
It is so depressing on here these days

Things like this are why people with genuine medical conditions aren't believed

Still - no they won't. Unless they lie to make themselves look better. Which brings us back to overly strict criteria due to lying schools and goady selfish twats.

It's cheating other children by using a false injury to claim an advantage.
She's cheating herself because for the rest of her life she'll wonder whether she really deserved her grades.
You're cheating her by your lack of belief and failure to accept her as she is - even if that's a 'B' instead of an 'A'.
There is a risk they would ask for medical report and she'd look pretty silly saying she wasn't really injured - which potentially could result in excluding her from further exams and discounting the exams already sat.

I can see the majority's POV but I do think it is ridiculous that students are expected to handwrite exams like its still 1984, when as soon as they leave school they will type pretty much everything and barely pick up a pen again.

I remember I had history and english lit A levels in the same day = 6 hours of writing. By the end I still had lots more to say but my hand was like a crab and I physically couldn't write anymore. Exams are supposed to show how much a student knows, not a test of how much, and how legibly they can write.

keep

Sorry i don't understand this bit

I know the OP is taking the piss with the 'whole fake an injury ' thing but some children do have undiagnosed learning difficulties as i am sure you know

Or have I misinterpreted in which case I apologise profusely

Agree once

The key here is "usual way of working". PP are right there is no requirement to apply through JCQ, but there still needs to be a history of need (not just the last couple of months). The small room thing is down to the school, but each "small room" will require an invigilator which will have a cost implication for the school. I work in a school and only students with documented need (CAMHS, etc) are allowed to have individual rooms.

I think schools do differ so it might be worth checking

The school my youngest two are at and the 6th form ds1is in dont seem as strict when it comes to small room as the one fifi refers to

Sorry

Exactly as fifi just said

Apologies fifi i didn't read it properly

Don't fake an injury just speak to the school and see if they can arrange it. I doubt it will make much difference to be totally honest, her previous results could have been better for any number of reasons, most likely revision.

To the small minority of posters who are asking why is it cheating, the point is that regardless of whether exams should all allow for computers to be used, they currently do not. The OP wants her daughter to gain something which many of her peers would also like to have but are not allowed, because they are not willing to lie. (Although in fairness we don't know whether the OP's DD would be prepared to go along with this plan).

Yanbu! My daughter is one of the students who has to use a computer for her GCSEs this summer, because she has dyspraxia and physically can't handwrite, she'd love to be able to! To put an NT child in with students like her would be so unfair

Exempting genuine injuries of course...

Most students feel anxious about exams. It's part of the fight or flight response.

Unless they have an anxiety disorder, I think it's ridiculous to expect a school to put your child in a room on their own so that they can work better. That is most definitely giving them an unfair advantage. What about the kids who don't have parents marching in to school and telling them to give their precious bundles an extra special room just for them? Most people feel a lot of nerves before exams and they just quietly deal with it.

I can guarantee you won't be doing your kid a favour if everytime they have to face something on their own, you interfere with special requests. They can't have that when they go for job interviews, and you can't go in to uni and ask them to give your grown up adult children special rooms either.

What if every child wanted their own room? How would school handle that? They couldn't. It would be the kids of the parents who shout the loudest that get the special treatment.

As other PPs have pointed out, it's hard enough to get schools to recognise the genuine need of children with SENs.

(Just to reiterate nothing in my post above is aimed at people whose children have an anxiety disorder).

Ds1 hasnt been formally diagnosed with an anxiety disorder

He is seeing a therapist

We asked the school about extra time and they offered the room and supervised rest breaks

He isnt in the room by himself

That wasnt directed at you show

I understand what you are saying