Making accommodations isn't always 'kind' (uni)

[Jourdain11]

I'm interested in knowing general opinions on this. I would accept that the last few years have been tough for students, and UG finalists in particular have had their full course horribly disrupted. But I am struck by how the accommodations made for students have really not helped them, in a large proportion of cases. I work in a uni (London Russell Group, competitive and highly-rated) and the number of students who have requested deferrals and so on for MH reasons is huge. In my role, I pushed back a bit and said that we shouldn't be advocating this as a way of dealing with any level of pressure and anxiety. In some cases it was absolutely necessary, but in others I felt that it was just becoming a pattern or a way of buying more time.

Ultimately, in the careers many of these graduates will go on to have, they will have to work to deadlines and deal with pressure, and part of the uni experience is providing preparation for that.

We now have students who are very upset because they cannot graduate with their peers, who are very anxious because they've deferred half their year's assessments to a one-werk resits period and feel they will not cope, or who are just disappointed that they haven't completed the year and have uncertainty as regards progression. Plus those who have now come to see assessment as an absolutely terrifying and insurmountable thing because we have agreed that they clearly weren't capable of sitting their exams, when they probably were.

Overall, I feel that we need to be encouraging coping strategies and empowering students, rather than encouraging them to opt out on the most tenuous rationale. But some of my colleagues would consider this to be virtually heresy and I'm not sure how we're going to get out of this place we have found ourselves in.

But I think increasingly universities are going to have to be more proactive in dealing with these problems.

Alternatively, schools could prepare their pupils better, by doing this sort of thing - teaching young people to manage & structure their time. Schools work more closely with groups of students on a consistent basis. I may see a cohort for 3 hours a week in one term; a school will see pupils across a timetable 9am to 3pm.

I know I said this upthread, but having been reading the WIWIKAU Facebook page I feel that there are far too many young people going to university, especially ones a long way from home, who maybe shouldn't have gone as they are entirely unsuited to higher education or just not ready. It is as if university is the default option these days.

How many of the students who request extensions are at university because they received an unconditional offer and took their foot off the pedal for A levels?

It does seem that schools are just ignoring issues and assuming/hoping that "someone else" will address them. My son's issue is pretty minor in the big scheme of things, but I can well imagine other more serious issues have been ignored for other people.

My DS's handwriting has been abysmal ever since primary school. We kept mentioning it at parent's evenings every year, but the succession of teachers just glibly said things like "Oh, he's not that bad, you should see some of the others!".

We tried to address it ourselves, giving him handwriting practice books, but he always kicked back saying it's not a problem, teachers are happy etc.

Same at secondary school, we mentioned it at parents' evenings, same glib attitude from teachers. Then in sixth form, the same.

At Uni, first year was 100% online so he did most things on word processor and just did graphs etc freehand which he scanned and uploaded. No negative feedback.

Just done his first "proper" in person exams since 2018, and he's had negative feedback from lecturers/teaching staff after the results day, saying he really needs to improve his handwriting! First time in 15 years of education that anyone at all has given him that feedback. I've refrained from telling him "I told you so!" Now, he's suddenly decided to take it on board and has started to practice being neater!

If universities would move to a post results application system, I think it would help a great deal.

Students would apply knowing their grades, eliminating the current stressful, ridiculous, predicted grades process at a stroke.

It would also put a bit more slack in the system to address students' mental health and study skill needs before they take a big step like committing to a 3 or 4 year academic course.

Maybe degree apprenticeships could be expanded and more access courses offered, with progression to year 1 or 2 of the degree dependent on results (I believe that's what the French do?)

So much of sixth form is taken up arguing with students and increasingly, their parents, about why they can't be predicted As they're nowhere near, testing and retesting, that there's barely time to teach the course, never mind do lots more study skills.

I did the most study skills with year 12 this year I've ever done (concerned anout the lack of proper GCSEs) and they moaned and moaned and moaned. It was thoroughly depressing.

Well, as a sixth form teacher, the amount of influence I have over handwriting is basically zero. If I can read it - and thanks to years of experience I can read almost anything - I have no reason to enforce handwriting improvement. What could I do? Refuse to mark something when I can read it perfectly well? I will comment on handwriting of course and students with the poorest writing get to use a computer for the real exams but I will still make them write at length in class to get the practice. But I’m not a handwriting teacher and we have no support available for that level of teaching. None. We don’t even have enough support for the students who are supposed to have 1-1s.

By GCSE level a student knows if they have bad handwriting and it’s only within their ability to improve it if they want to. Anyone with a problem that stops them from improving it can use a computer, and anyone else can do drills or buy handwriting books to help themselves get better. There are plenty of girls (and a few boys) spending a large amount of time on getting beautiful handwriting so it’s really not an abnormal thing to do.

My understanding is that schools aren't so strict on handwriting now because in the age of computers good handwriting just isn't very important.

Interestingly, handwriting is getting a lot of emphasis in primary at the moment —especially teaching them to write in “correct” cursive (and in some schools teaching cursive from the outset and bypassing print entirely…)

Is this not further extension of "student as customer"? Paying so much for a degree puts too much pressure on.

It sounds like a fad to me.

I'm in NZ where the schools are definitely more relaxed and there is a big emphasis on BYOD. My DCs were taught handwriting but I don't remember it being a particular emphasis after year 2. One of my DCs' handwriting got worse and worse and is now pretty awful but no teacher has raised it as an issue. She's now in her senior year.

I can see how it might be a problem in exams but they have 'drunk spider' interpreters for that.

I can see how it might be a problem in exams but they have 'drunk spider' interpreters for that.

Not sure what that means! I have never ever - in 30 years of university teaching in 3 countries - had an interpreter (or even been offered such assistance) for reading execrable hand writing. If I can't read an exam paper clearly, then that paper will be marked accordingly.

The bottom line for young people - which parents may want to suggest - is that if they want other people to engage with, understand and value their ideas and arguments, they need to communicate in ways which articulate their ideas and arguments clearly and in ways in which their readers or interlocutors (in speech, online, wherever) might enjoy!

I took a degree as a mature student here. One of my fellow students had the worst handwriting I ever saw and I asked him whether he was disadvantaging himself. He said no: the university gave his paper to a transcriber!

I was a bit surprised but actually it makes sense. Leaving aside resourcing issues for the university (Auckland - at the time a highly ranked one) it doesn't seem right to me that one student ought to get a better mark just because they have nicer handwriting.

It has changed. In the pasy students were told if examiners could not read their handwriting, then tough.

Yes. I remember a friend failing her degree due to her handwriting. They gave her a chance to resubmit some essays in a better state but her handwriting hadn't imrpoved and she just failed.

I think it's good that we've moved on from that time. She should have been judged on what she knew not her handwriting, but computers weren't available in those days.

When I started teaching I was unhappy with my handwriting (it hadn't been an issue in my previous career due to my good touch typing - which I taught myself after a frustrating experience at a university in North America in the 1990s - UK university expected handwritten submissions - overseas one only accepted typed).

So I bought a book recommended by the Campaign for Handwriting and some better pens.

Of all the knotty problems identified on this thread, this one is rather solvable!

Surely, legible hand writing is just good manners ie. consideration for others?

Yes, if there are no issues of hand-eye co-ordination or dyslexia or other cognitive/physical reasons for poor handwriting. I've always thought written exams are tough on people who for whatever reason can't write fast. I suppose the same applies in online exams to those who can't get the knack of typing fast either.

I write so little now with pen or pencil that I find I have to concentrate very hard on it or I miss out penstrokes.

You can get extra time if you have unusually slow handwriting. I got it for being assessed as twice as slow as average, which explained why I always ran out of time in exams before then. There isn't much room in maths for cutting corners.

Which probably feels unfair if you're slow, but not quite that slow.

I was thinking back to this thread today. We've just had exams and the issues I mentioned have continued to present themselves. We've had a lot of heavy discussion in meetings this week about whether we're supporting and preparing students adequately and fairly, and the perception seems to be that we are doing too much fire-fighting and not enough prevention, but also that students' expectations are not necessarily reasonable.

My worry is that the fact that we're constantly giving out mitigations means that the students who really need them are not being treated equitably. The fact that we've gone back to an evidenced-based system hasn't led to fewer requests and it is just NEVER ENDING. I don't think I've finished work earlier than 7pm since the start of the year - and even then I am still behind. It's a bit grim!