Does your child use a laptop at school due to bad handwriting? How did you get the school to agree?

[Zenyattadottir]

Ds is 16 and has terrible handwriting. I've been advised to try and get him to be allowed to use a laptop in exams - AS levels - rather than teach him to write better at this late stage.

Any ideas on how to achieve this would be gratefully received!

I've got another thread running on WISC tests, which I thought was the way to go, but now maybe it isn't. Getting a private OT seems to be the main suggestion, but I don't know if an assessment by an OT could also lead to him being allowed to use a laptop.

The WISC test thread...

OT recommended to school that my son be allowed to use a computer (he's in primary not secondary) and they were fine with that.

If you are going to go to a private OT (which I think is a good idea) when you book the appointment ask if a recommendation from her will count.

Alternatively, you need to ring the SENCO and find out why your son can't use a laptop and under what circumstances he would be able to...

(She might prefer an Ed Psych report to an OT - but I can't think why)

It's possible the SENCO will take a recommendation from an OT - but only if they are on a list of 'approved' OTs or something like that.

If you google 'access arrangments' for exams you will find that children are allowed to use either word processors or transcribers in exams.

So if your SENCO knows what she is doing there is no reason for him to write in his exams either

(Providing his handwriting is really bad, illegible, slow, causing him physical pain....)

You need to speak to the school SENCO as s/he will know the procedure for applying. Poor handwriting in itself won't be enough though, there will need to be a recognised reason for it if that makes sense.

DS1 gets special provisions (we're in Oz so different terminology) for exams. He is dyslexic and his handwriting is pretty shocking but he still wasn't allowed a laptop which was what he wanted - he got a scribe instead which you may argue serves the same purpose but is a very different process in an exam situation. We had to provide an Ed Psych report as well as reports from the school with examples of his work in our application. From what I remember of my conversations with schools when we were in the UK I think it's a fairly similar procedure.

What constitutes a 'recognised reason', SunnyD? His handwriting really is hard to read, and it's caused by an incorrect pencil grip. I don't think he can re-learn pencil grip on his own without help.

Thanks for that tip, IndigoBell, I'm reading the info now - there's tons of it!

It looks as if he should at the very least have a transcriber.

I am daunted by all this (which is partly why I have pursued it before) and I don't want to get the school's back up. I did raise the issue of ds' handwriting problems when he was 11!

I'm worried that the school will not want to give themselves extra bother. I think it's the SENCO - she is certainly head of English - I've been discussing his handwriting with, already, and she certainly hasn't suggested laptop or transcriber use, even though she agrees he lost marks in his GCSEs because of his handwriting.

Email her to say you think he would benefit from a transcriber, and cut and paste the relevant documentation you have found, and ask her if you could have a meeting to discuss it.

This gives her time to respond without putting her on the spot. So if she doesn't know all the rules she can look them up before your meeting and not 'lose face'.

But she can hardly turn down a request for a meeting. And if your research is correct, she'll have no grounds to turn down your very reasonable request either.

Good luck

Thanks, Indigo. I'm just going to check out the mum of another boy in his year with illegible handwriting this weekend, to see what hoops they've gone through. Then I should be fully armed for an assault on the bastions of power. Good idea to email so as to be non-threatening. I have every sympathy, it's a massive state school, they don't sit around twiddling their thumbs. Bad handwriting is the least of their worries.

You will need to speak to the SENCO. He will have to be asesed to see if he neds to use a laptop, DD3 had a scribe and extra time in her GCSE's.

an ed psych and a pediactric physiotherapist found my ds had handwriting difficulties, and after a battery of tests an occupational therapist has suggested that my son starts to learn to type so that he can use a laptop and in the meantime have a scribe.

Your SENCO either has to test your son herself or have recent test data from an occupational therapist. It is one of her duties as a SENCO to assess for any requirement for access arrangements.You should visit your GP as soon as possible to have him referred to an OT (it can take a very long time. You could perhaps pay for a private assesement.

However, be warned, that the impairment really needs to be quite significant. Average is not 50th centile and anyone below that is below average. For example, as I understand it, with fine motor skills the 16th centile (ie where 84% of children the same age would have better skills)is considered in the 'average' range!

What I am saying is that many many children lose marks due to bad handwriting - this is 'normal' so it is necessary for the level of difficulty to be objectively tested.

My son was assessed by the SENCO at school and qualifies for using a laptop in exams. School does not recommend using laptop unless the child can touch type. Son's handwriting is just legible but he is well below average in the speed he can write and writing simply hinders what he can get down. They have very straight forward tests for this which can all be done within school. Not sure that illegibility on its own is going to count. They look at what they can achieve on a lap top compared to what on paper with set ammount of time. She also tested his general comprehension etc and the fact that this was way beyond what was going down on paper affected the assessment.

All this CAN be done within the school. You ahouldn't need an outside assessment. There is also someone at each school in charge of extra time/laptop use/special consideration etc in exams.

Ds (10) is being trained to use a laptop in school because writing by hand causes him significant pain, risks damaging his joints and is something he can not simply be trained out of by being shown a better pencil grip. Our first port of call would have been to have seen if teaching pencil grip would make a difference.

How easy would it be for a 16 year old to learn to use a better pencil grip? He would also have to learn to form his letters in a different way, because his "r"s and "n"s are indistinguishable, and also he has learnt to write very small to disguise the fact that his writing is so awful.

Thanks, Riven. As you say, I'm sure examiners just can't be *rsed to try to work it all out. Why should they, when they've got a ton of other papers to mark?

Could I interrupt to ask a related question?

My DC has recently been assessed as dyslexic, and one of the recommendations is a move to laptop idc. He is starting to learn to touch type properly. What sort of typing speed should he have to be ready?

No idea, myself, Onimolap, but hopefully someone else may know?

Adequate speed depends on child's age.

20 wpm is about average for a 16 year-old - or 16 wpm with 25% extra time. (See reply to Zenyadottir's other thread on WISC)

School seemed desperate to get dyslexic Children usig laptops, very encouraging. Even when the children didn't necessarily want to! I think it ticked some boxes for catering for a certain type of need, and so always got recommended every time a child had a report.

If you'd asked me ten years ago whether children would still be required to write exams by hand in 2010 I would have laughed and said, "Of course not! This is the 21st century!"

It seems almost barbaric that many children's exam results are affected by how well they can practice a skill which is rapidly becoming almost irrelevant to higher education and most jobs.

Sorry, I'm probably preaching to the choir here!

onimolap - I really recommend the Mavis Beacon touch typing software. DS2 used it - it's user-friendly and gets the results. There are little games - the faster you type, the faster the car moves, that sort of thing.

Zenyattadottir - I think your problem might be the lack of a diagnosis of any sort of specific issue - bad handwriting on its own might not sound like enough. I think you should ask your GP for a referral to an Occupational Therapist and see if they'll assess him, say you're worried about his fine motor control. A report from them saying "X is on a worryingly low centile etc" will help your case.
I have a 12 year old who's allowed a laptop and 25% additional exam time, but I think that's only because he has a diagnosis of Dyspraxia. In his case a Primary School head applied to a County Council fund for the laptop and sorted the extra time.

We've just had an Ed Psych report to substantiate need for extra time and/or laptop use for ds (12) in 13+ entrance exams and it may be enough to last for GCSEs. SENCO then needs to put together a summary report to get arrangements in place. Part of the issue is his laborious and untidy handwriting (he's Dyspraxic and has been seen by OT in the past) the other part is slow processing speeds (ie. very low Working Memory assessment by EP). ds has been on a Touch Typing programme for at least 3 years now but has only used a laptop in class this past year.

laptops don't need any access arrangements any more, but they are supposed to be the pupil's normal way of working within school. The requirement for using laptops was changed in Sept 2009 - before that an assessment had to be carried out.
SENCO can only assess for extra time/scribe etc if they have a specific qualification which allows them to do so.

My son was assessed by the Ed Psych as needing a laptop in school but even so the school refused to allow him to use it and some teachers even refused word processed coursework... very frustrating