AIBU that the government policies are unlawful with GCSE and A Level exams this year?

[22examsquestion]

NC as I realise this could be picked up and for once would like a rigorous debate.

‘Today the government policies were shown to be unlawful as documents failed to take into account the risk to elderly and vulnerable residents from non-symptomatic transmission of covid.’
This was in relation to carehomes.

Next month hundreds of thousands of children will be in exam halls doing GCSE and A Level exams. Some of the children will be extremely medically vulnerable or medically vulnerable.

The government have said children taking exams are not to take a lateral flow test unless told to by a health professional. They are supposed to take exams, untested, with coughs, sore throats etc and should only not go in if they have a high temperature.

If they do get the go-ahead by a doctor to test and are covid positive, they are to go back to exam halls after 3 days, even if still positive on tests.

In the local large comp, the exam hall will have various combinations of years doing different exams. There are at least half a dozen medically vulnerable children (on chemo/severe asthma/neurological conditions etc) in my child’s year. Then there’s the invigilators who are mostly elderly ex teachers etc.

How can this be lawful of the government to impose an exam policy that results in medically vulnerable children sitting exams with knowingly covid-positive children (plus symptomatic yet untested children), if todays ruling for vulnerable adults was unlawful?

Oh for goodness sake. I'm an exam invigilator. We did GCSE mocks fine. We did A Level mocks fine.

Request that your child gets a separate room for medical reasons.

I'm sorry she is so poorly and that covid is such a threat.

This year is pretty much business as usual when it comes to exams.

Herc thankyou I hope you didn’t think I was having a go at you or anyone. Unless you have a medically vulnerable child it is very easy to forget covid is a problem, especially if you have had it and not suffered. However, unfortunately our daughters health dominates at the moment and she has put a superhuman effort into her A Levels. I don’t want her, or any other vulnerable person to fall at the final hurdle as she is close to knowingly positive people for the first time, in order to do her exams, and the government is condoning it.

I've had it and suffered.

I think you're being unrealistic in your expectations but I understand why you want more clarity.

Based on the testing rate in my school she wouldn't be next to anyone knowingly positive. I can't remember the last certified positive case, once tests weren't free, people stopped testing. She could have always been next to someone unknowingly positive. Her risk level hasn't really changed.

What did she do for mock exams?

I think all the pupils know their predicted grades and what they would roughly ‘get’ from the 3 sets of mocks

This is irrelevant. None of these will be taken into account.

If they've been fantastic then why not speak to them about it? I'm sure it's not out of the realm of the possible to have her in a separate room or something.

Exactly @Seeline mocks and previous assessments count for nothing this year ( as they did every other year bar 2020/21)
if kids don’t sit any exams in a particular subject this year they get nothing, no grade, end of story

There’s actually been a bit of an upturn on cases at her school since Easter (which ironically will give her a bit of herd immunity for a while).

It is the legalities I was interested in really, as the moral side, as there will be children and parents facing difficult choices. Todays news got me thinking as the PM said he’d like to learn from it (words to that effect). And I thought it was legally dubious to be apologising for putting asymptomatic elderly adults in with vulnerable elderly adults when they are going to be actively putting positive children in with vulnerable children. Remember some of these children have done a lot of shielding so it’s not going to be great for their anxiety to hear all the coughing round them.

Remember some of these children have done a lot of shielding so it’s not going to be great for their anxiety to hear all the coughing round them.

Do you mean generally or covid coughing?

It's unlikely there will be halls full of kids covid coughing. This hasn't happened in the mocks or classrooms yet this year.

I think you're perhaps projecting a bit with worry over something that hasn't changed your daughters risk level much at all. People can legally come to school with covid anyway.

Students have been mixing wildly in and out of the classroom for months now. At the same time, tests are no longer free and most schools have run out of supplies.

My sixth form students are desperate to do their exams come what may, however nerve wracking it might be, as they didn't do their GCSEs. They want to prove themselves and get it all done and take themselves off to Uni.

Given that exam season has already started (with MFL orals in which student and teacher are in a small room talking at each other), don't you think you've missed the boat a bit with these concerns, OP?

Or is this a last-ditched attempt to get a child out of an exam?

It is the legalities I was interested in really

I think if you want to look into legalities, as I said upthread, the issue of threatening to fine families for not sending in CEV children into schools where covid was running riot is probably a better bet.

I don't think your DD is any more at risk in an exam hall than she has been in school up till now - she will have been in closer contact with many cases of covid; the 'knowing' bit is less relevant than the 'having covid'.

I do understand that it must be very stressful when the stakes are so high, both in terms of the exams and in terms of trying not to catch covid. I hope the school can come to some arrangement re a smaller room to alleviate fears.

No not an attempt to get her out of an exam. She’s worked so hard for them. Just a query about how the government can have this policy without thinking of the vulnerable.
I failed in keeping it ‘ideological’ rather than personal didn’t ?!

Yes exams have already started so the biggest risk is the last few weeks of her going into school when everyone is mixing more between years (nor 1600), not testing and not isolating, not wearing masks and coming into school knowingly/unknowingly positive for exams.

Her risk is far lower during exams though than it has been throughout the last year.

Noble pm’d you

Maybe you've already explained this but how is the risk during exam time any greater than in normal school time?

Vulnerable students get separate rooms, windows are open anyway, if people wish to wear masks then they can, most of the year group are on study leave so there are fewer members of the cohort in at once and everyone faces the same way in an exam hall and isn't allowed to talk.

So from where I'm sitting, it actually seems safer?

Just a query about how the government can have this policy without thinking of the vulnerable.

I wouldn't put the exams policy anywhere near the top of the list of 'polices that are awful for vulnerable people'.

Even ideologically the exam policy isn't that bad.

Titchy I disagree. Two teachers off and several in her class - I think catching it in planes/on holiday. And the big exam hall has multiple exams with different year groups in.

A few months back the years weren’t mixing, people had masks on, they weren’t coming to school positive if they tested positive, there was hand sanitiser (!), the teachers were distancing from the children, they didn’t mix in the cooridors, windows were open in classrooms that had working windows. One classroom even had a CO2 monitor. Just the one mind 😂. Every little helps both physically and psychologically when you know you are vulnerable. When the government have a policy that actively is unsafe to the most vulnerable, it is not helpful.

Study leave starts at the very end of May. She will have taken exams before she gets study leave.

Vulnerability to illness (from Covid or otherwise), just like special learning needs for a variety of other reasons, can be accommodated fairly easily

for internal exams, yes. For external, there are strict rules on who can/can’t be separated off. Most vulnerable children will be double, potentially triple vaccinated. My son is CV and I consider an exam hall a lesser issue than the classroom. It has been awful for him, psychologically, and that’s something that those dismissing the issue really shoukdn’t dismiss.

A few months back the years weren’t mixing, people had masks on, they weren’t coming to school positive if they tested positive, there was hand sanitiser (!), the teachers were distancing from the children, they didn’t mix in the cooridors, windows were open in classrooms that had working windows.

We've had none of this since September apart from the odd couple of weeks of mask wearing.

Our halls are much bigger and better ventilated than any classrooms.

It has been awful for him, psychologically, and that’s something that those dismissing the issue really shoukdn’t dismiss.

Agreed. The effect on mental health has been wide reaching.

Just a query about how the government can have this policy without thinking of the vulnerable

schools and educational institutions and both vulnerable children and adults who work with children have been given no consideration whatsoever throughout covid.

In the nicest way possible, I would really love to not give a shite about this like a lot of you but I don’t have that luxury.
It’s only when you are in this situation, and worn out from the day-to-day battles with medication, hospital appts etc that you realise that you really have to advocate for your child and push some more. It’s bloody exhausting and I wish policies would make it easier not harder.
I need to get to sleep now. If any lawyers are about it’s not personal it’s more about if this can be right…..

It’s not that it’s not risky in schools, or risky in the exam hall, it’s that it’s not riskier than what has been going on in schools up till now. Your description of kids not mixing, not coming into school with covid, wearing masks, teachers distancing and use of hand sanitiser has been nowhere near like my experience of school this year (apart from a brief period of mask wearing).

I guess if your DD has been missing lessons where she has felt covid levels are too high up till now, but can’t opt out of exams, then it might not feel like the risk levels are unchanged, but she has probably been in close contact with multiple cases this year.

If it’s any consolation, infection rates now are way lower in secondary schools than they were e.g. last October.

Surely children weren't coming into school with covid, or only for a day or two before they tested? We have been testing twice a week all year, as requested by the dc's schools.