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.

School should have done an assessment on him. My sons writing is mostly illegible and typing is slow and tedious (he has dyslexia and the letters on the laptop move around) he also is ASD & ADHD. My son was assessed and got a scribe for exams along with extra time. He is also very bright and passed all his exams except french which he was down for a 2 (achieved 2) with 5-7s. Unfortunately it is too late to be doing it now but can be put in place next time he does exams in advance. My son has a form 8 with all the information for college, so college could get the same help for his college exams without reassessing.

Is typing not his NWOW?

Or using a scribe?

No they don't. Markers get their allocation and are expected to get on with it, there aren't
specialists for crap handwriting 🤣

I've been marking for over 20 years.

DS has dysgraphia and gets 25% extra time and uses a laptop. This his “normal way of working”. He always uses a laptop and has to change colour at the start of extra time for all exams and tests to prove that is his normal way of working. He’s in year 9.

You def need to pursue it yourself and ask for them to trial him with a keyboard, see if he gets higher marks in assessments when they are typed.

The school has to build up a portfolio of evidence for him to be able to use a keyboard for exams.

But you need to push the school over it for sure

I have illegible handwriting when writing at speed and was given a laptop for all exams (including maths).

I was referred to my schools senco who had to asses my writing speed Vs legibility (TBF I think my English teacher got bored of trying to read my essays). I also had a laptop available to me for all lessons for this purpose. I loved it, made taking notes miles easier. I was a straight A student (event for German) so think my other teachers just suffered through before then, though I would go back in hand written exams and ask for spare paper to rewrite paragraph or key words that I'd decided were too messy.

Just to add this was the same for a levels (attached sixth form) as well as any other qualifications I did in the time afterwards including Uni. Mine really is that bad.

My son has dyspraxia and dyslexia, he will be using a computer scribe(he will talk to the computer program) for his GCSE’s, I would have thought the school would have flagged an issue of his writing cannot be understood.

Complete fiction about your DCs poor handwriting being passed to three different people to try and decipher. I mark essay subjects for two exam boards and if I can’t read it, I don’t credit it.

Whereas in both of my papers, I can refer upwards for someone to have another go

I’m a secondary teacher and I’m surprised that this wasn’t flagged up before. These days you don’t need to have a specific learning need to type - it just needs to be your normal way of working. I’ve already switched three of my Year 10 class t typing (English teacher) and my Year 11s had about 11 out of a class of 25 typing by the end. Obviously too late now but make sure it’s in place for the next stage in his education. Re the handwriting thing for examiners - we try very hard to decipher and then pass on to team leader if not possible.

I’ve been exam marking English for 25 years too and our advice was always to pass on illegible scripts - that’s for OCR, Eduquas, CIE and Edexcel.

And I'm on the remaining exam board so we've covered them all between us:)

I have been marking for 25 years. If I can’t read a script I can refer it-but it rarely happens as I am very good at deciphering poor handwriting.

I can refer illegible scripts. I’ve been marking for 25 years.

Former marker here. I have seen a lot worse than your son’s. I did make every attempt to decipher terrible handwriting but I distinctly remember one which was a series of sloping tightly packed upward strokes that just looked like this - ////////////////// - it may have been genius but I couldn’t read or make any sense of it so they got nil points. We get paid per paper and have hundreds so you can’t treat them like the Dead Sea scrolls.

I always presumed this was how it worked too.
But its really worrying that your exam board does but others pass it to others to try and work in teams etc. Why are they different?

OK well I can only speak from my own experience marking GCSE for a very big exam board. We mark only what we can read.

I think it is the different subjects that account for the difference.

University lecturer here. Illegible scripts get nil points. You cannit mark what you cannot read. Why on earth has the school not sorted it this already? How have they been marking his work? Strange that the pp who marks for 1 exam board has been told to pass illegible scripts, why, just why?

His handwriting is by no means the worst I've seen. Some students just use a laptop instead. It's a real shame that more schools don't support students whose handwriting would mean this is the most prudent option.

Examiners are encouraged to mark scripts with difficult to read handwriting. Otherwise the poor Chief Examiner ends up with a pile of horror if they do get escalated as unmarkable. I've never heard of any script (exam paper) not being interpreted eventually. I've personally seen some truly horrible ones but I've persevered. There is an option to enlarge it on the screen and to darken it but the scripts are actual size otherwise.

I don't know if that's reassuring or not but do raise it with the school.

No they don’t! You clearly haven’t read the posts from current examiners stating that there is no option to do this. If we can’t read it then they don’t get the mark. We don’t mark full papers anymore, just individual questions.

Exactly! I can’t imagine anyone signing up for such a role either! 😂
That is why teachers constantly tell GCSE students how important legible handwriting is.
I think my team leader would block me if I escalated every question I couldn’t read! 😂The only things we are told to escalate is anything related to safeguarding.

i had/have terrible handwriting and my history teacher was concerned it would prejudice an examiner, as he worried they’d make a negative judgement of me based on it. I was a strong candidate and made A’s mainly in my highers. Had a uni professor tell me my handwriting could lead to points removed if he couldn’t read it. I tried really hard in all the exams in these classes and on the days it counted so maybe was fairly legible at times. I made good grades generally so don’t think it affected me too much other than people thinking i’m a bit thick at times 😆 I have always wondered what happened though it unreadable. Just assumed they wouldn’t mark it