Schools desperately short of exam invigilators

[noblegiraffe]

"The National Association of Exam Officers (NAEO) is set to publish advice tomorrow to help schools struggling to recruit enough trained officers. More staff are needed to oversee the first GCSE and A-level exams to be sat in two years, with a snap poll suggesting that 83 per cent of centres are still experiencing a deficiency.
But Jugjit Chima, chief executive officer of the NAEO, has warned that some schools and colleges are "stuck", having already implemented contingency plans, such as staggered starts to exams, but still not having enough staff to oversee next month's exams."

The suggestion is that admin staff and dinner ladies could be asked to invigilate.

Geoff Barton of the ASCL commented that part of the issue is that invigilators don't want to stand in exam halls packed with children who may well have covid (no requirement to isolate) and the government should reinstate free testing for schools, at least for the exam period to provide reassurance.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/gcses-2022-schools-desperate-over-exam-invigilator-shortage

There are also serious concerns that desperation will lead to unsuitable candidates being hired, and an increase in exam malpractice.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/secondary/gcses-2022-crisis-fears-over-invigilator-shortage

@Piggywaspushed did you not to mocks one the hall?

Whilst I understand the financial constraints schools are under speaking as someone who has seen an awful lot of students sit an awful lot of exams both internal / external I feel some students are definitely disadvantaged if the first time they sit an exam under formal conditions it is their actual GCSE or in the case of this years yr 13 their actual A level! Exam rooms are stressful places with a myriad of rules from where to leave your bag through to when you can write your name on the paper.

We run core subjects in the hall from year 7 (we did this as normal last summer) and all subjects in hall from year 10 and it really really helps the students. Also with Ramadan having fallen in exam season for a good few years it is further useful to have had a “practice” in this sort of environment.

^ aaarr typos! Do you not do mocks in the hall?

And this is a helpful comment in what way?

I know

-a woman with a CEV DH where neither of them are leaving the house still
-a friend who will still only socialise outdoors

• several people who are still twitchy at the first sign of someone with a snifle
• my Osteopath is still sending out the covid checks before an appointment. I told him my test is negative but I have a cold and he's cancelled

I'm generally carrying on as normal now, trying to be considerate where needed, but lots of people are still quite wary IME

On a separate issue (and probably telling you stuff you already know) but my top tip for teachers to pass onto students taking exams is if they have any query / anything at all their not sure of / a problem to out their hand up immediately and don’t just put it up tentatively put it all the way up straight. You would be amazed at the number who just put one finger up near their ear and in a full hall even with 5 invigilators standing / roaming they won’t be seen immediately.

My mil is an exam invigilator. It’s NMW, she does this to top up her pension. People leave easily as it’s as an when work in the winter. They come and go when they please. She’s been doing it for 4 years now and considering leaving, but that’s more to do with her age.

Nope, no exam hall mocks.

I agree it isn't great but we have neither space nor money.

@Piggywaspushed how does it work with mocks? Just being nosey sorry! Assuming your lessons are 60 mins long then GCSE’s would stretch over 2 periods and some A levels over 3 which would make it impossible to do them in normal lessons?

We don't do full exams - assessments. Only year 11 and 13 have mocks.

I know, I know.

Retired now, but interested in invigilation.

I have done my fair share of invigilation (we did our own in the independent sector) and have been an exams officer.

I looked at the website of the secondary school that I can see from my house, and there are no vacancies listed.

Where do 11 & 13 do mocks? Are they full length? Writing / concentrating on say Chemistry for 2.5 hours is a skill which is learnt / needs practice surely? (I’m not meaning to be antagonistic just confused).

Our school is paying c.£12ph with lunch provided (London). I know of other schools paying £13-14ph.

It's not a doddle of a job and can be quite intense.

@CraftyGin I'd give them a ring and enquire. We had to have our DBS done and it took some time to come through so you might not make the summer exams even if they had vacancies. But they constantly have people leaving so they'll just put you on the waiting list and I'm pretty sure you'll get called on quite quickly. .

Year 11 and 13 do have mocks. Just not other years. Even then we are limited to one paper in the hall so they never get the full experience.

You can't invigilate your own subject.

I'm on the update service.

I'm not desperate to invigilate, but just checking out the premise of this thread.

I wouldn't object to a bit of pin money as most of what I do right now is volunteering (which I love).

You phone your contact - reception, EO, DHT - and they come and fetch the student.

@CraftyGin you should call and ask. I generally snap peoples arm off for new invigilators.

To previous posters, yes we ran Exams through the pandemic, mainly last summer for CAGs.

We use teachers when desperate though usually LSAs, librarian or office staff. I am the EO and have stood in briefly during internal exams.

If someone needs the loo I act as the roving invigilator and go and collect and return them to the exam room. We use WhatsApp to communicate around school after many years of walkie talkies so the invigilators WhatsApp me if needed.

Yes EOs walk miles around school during the summer period. I wear trainers.

this exam season will be my last, luckily my school doesn’t seem to have any issues with recruitment

they also pay between 10 and 11 pounds and you come in half an hour before the exams and are paid til the exam hall is closed down

Our small rooms only have 1 invigilator. As others have said, for toilet breaks they can phone the exams office and if they can't come themselves, they will find so done who can, maybe main office staff, a teacher from a nearby team room, SLT, anyone who is available. No way do we have enough invigilators for 2 per room. Our biggest gcse mock used 19 rooms.

Mainly because our hall and gym aren't big enough. Our yr11 is 350 students. With 100 each in the hall and gym, that still leaves 150 more students to seat, so we have to use classrooms which can't take more than 20 for exams. Then add your scribes who need room alone and a few others than need very small rooms. We were up to 25/30 invigilators just for that 1 exam. No way could we have put 2 invigilators in a room for 15/20 students. In the summer, we may well have A-levels running at the same time so need even more.

We have lost quite a few seasoned invigilators over the past 2 years for the reasons others have stated. And due to more access arrangements, we need more now than we've ever had before. We pay £11 ish and pay for the exam time plus 40 mins to allow for set up/pack up. We have recruited more for this summer but for the big exam days I think it's going to be very very tight and certainly for the first few weeks many of them will be inexperienced.

We do the same.

And yes, everyone is thoroughly trained. I run a training session before each set of mocks and then a session for all incl LSAs before summer exams.

Also there is a copy of the rules in each exam room for reference.

@xyzandabc agree that for the maths English and science exams it's very tight every year, inevitably one of the invigilators needs a day off on those days!

Gosh so you have year 13’s who will only have sat in an exam hall 3 times ever before they sit their A levels - that’s tough (on students and teachers).

out of interest how do you find behaviour with so little exposure to the exam hall? We find behaviour definitely improves with time / practice (and we are not a school with behaviour issues) but it normally takes a couple of rounds of mocks (and maybe a few stern words from SLT) to iron out problems.

Gosh so you have year 13’s who will only have sat in an exam hall 3 times ever before they sit their A levels - that’s tough (on students and teachers).

Of my my current y13 subjects did a whole paper in the hall in year 12 and another this year. The other did a whole one in year 12 and half this year.

No concerns about them at all.

My y11 did part of one of 4 papers in the hall in early y11 and part of one of 4 in the hall in January. It's far from ideal - but we can never do full paper mocks in the hall so that's not unusual