AIBU to ask current or former GCSE examiners what happens with illegible handwriting?

[Hadsuchahardday]

My son is currently doing his GCSEs. Although his handwriting is joined and cursive it is truly illegible and no doubt will be worse under time pressure. It is just a series of loops; letters such as a do not join at the top, tall letters are not particularly tall, r veers off at a diagonal. His spelling is also terrible which makes deciphering even harder. We’ve been told that exam papers are scanned and blown up and that different examiners mark each question. If the writing cannot be read, it is passed on to somebody more senior but what happens then? What if 4 people look at it and no one can read it? Will he be marked on what can only be read? He is a bright boy and could verbally answer the questions well, his predicted grades are generally 7-8 with a 6 and 9 for some. Answers from examiners greatly appreciated.

Teacher here, if I cannot read a students handwriting I refer them to the SEND team and they usually get a laptop for exams. If he's got all the way to the exams then they can obviously read it well enough.

His teacher mentioned passing along both to whoever teaches him in Year 6 but maybe he will only end up getting one or the other? I did get the impression that she believes he'll need both and it was an option to get both but it is possible I misunderstood.

Oh yes. I’m at a uni that believes in exams. I also do a fair amount of formative short tasks with groups that I take in and give brief feedback on. so I do read quite a lot of handwritten work

Plus I’ve worked for well over thirty years so in the early years all coursework was handwritten. Only the dissertation had to be typed.

I mark English exam papers. There is a lot of emphasis in training on reading the work however bad the handwriting. If it really is illegible I am not sure what happens but I have never come across something I literally couldn’t read at all.

My son is able to use a Chromebook for his GCSE

Same.

That's better than my son's handwriting and we have gone through the motions to make sure he has laptop to do his exams on next year.
School should of raised this earlier as normally they put forward a plan for exams.

He is doing the exams now. As I said earlier I have consistently asked teachers if they can read his writing and they all said yes. I feel reassured by most of the answers on here so thank you.

I can read some of that. I suspect that I'd manage better if the focus was a bit sharper and I could see the entire page.

I was in the secondary sector in Scotland, but sometimes had to transcribe papers for pupils.

My son’s writing was deemed not legible (I thought it was fine 🤷‍♀️) but it meant he got 25% extra time in exams - so GCSEs and now A levels which has been a godsend, not necessarily just for handwriting but for everything! Has your son been assessed?

I dropped cursive naturally in secondary. I never understood why on earth they forced us to learn that in primary because by secondary nobody gives a shit how you write! Then you go to uni and everything is typed… Cursive is just a waste of everyone’s time.

A friend"s son used a laptop as already mentioned.

I think it's in the "mere mortals struggle, teachers will be fine" category. Just make sure he spaces things out if he can - but ultimately his focus needs to be on the exams not his handwriting. They won't be worried because if they were they would have brought it up. If the thing about a known teacher deciphering is true I guess that could be worth enquiring about but I've never heard of it.

Just to add an explanation: my difficulty is because the picture is a wee bit blurred, not because of the handwriting.

It used to happen in Scotland - transcription could be put in place. It was supposed to be someone who knew the pupil's handwriting but had no interest in whether or not they passed that particular exam.

If the pupil concerned had dyslexia, then the accommodation might be transcription with correction, but that's a different scenario.

I have. But it's very very rare. Maybe one or two scripts a year out of literally hundreds.

Transcriptions were removed as an option some time ago in JCQ regulated exams

Thank you.

I know that SLTs in Scotland prefer the option of allowing the candidate to type.

I did too when I had a kid whose writing looked like knitting and I had to transcribe it before it was sent off. It was a gruesome experience!
I refer everyone with tricky handwriting for handwriting support in year ten when I start teaching them.

My writing is awful and they didn’t seem to have any issues when I was at school. I don’t have any diagnosed conditions other than my brain works faster than my hand so I am trying to get stuff on paper as fast as I can! I think like I read, at warp speed and my handwriting goes downhill

As a former examiner, this is far from the worst I’ve seen! It’s not illegible.

I am a senior examiner. I can read his writing-I’ve seen far worse. I’ll always try my best to decipher-but not all examiners will take the time.

This should have been sorted out a couple of years ago really.

Fascinating the vast majority of replies relate to boys.

They have crap handwriting because their fine motor skills develop later than girls which is later than they learn handwriting. Also girls tend to care more about presentation.