Highlighters in GCSE exams

[vxa2]

Has anyone else been told that highlighters cannot be used to mark up questions on the GCSE papers ? I understand they should not be used in the answers but I thought it was fairly standard practice to highlight the key parts of the question to help with writing the answer.

My daughter has always done this and now, 3 days before her first exam she has been told she can't. I have emailed AQQ and am waiting for a response - their enquiries line was not accepting calls from parents.

I am attaching a photo showing what I mean.

This is causing my daughter a lot of stress. If the school are wrong I am going to be fuming.

Can't she circle the relevant parts with a regular pen.

I think it's okay if the question book and answer book are separate, but if it's all the same book then the highlighter can confuse the scanner. I would just circle and underline on normal pen rather than risk having half the answer blanked out when it's scanned.

I'm a secondary teacher and I've never heard this but I've only just gone back from mat leave so possibly I missed the memo! She could just underline with a pen though.

I think we will go for the pen option to be on the safe side but I am really unhappy that all the way through she has done mocks etc like this and now it's apparently changed. The website says not to use highlighters in answers but nothing about questions. WJEC in its advice to students actually states "it is good practice to use a highlighter to pick out the key phrases to help you with your answer" accompanied by an image showing an answer book with the question highlighted!

I’ve just had invigilator training today. Highlighters are fine on the questions but must not go on the answers.
Nothing has changed regarding using highlighters.
Who told your daughter this?

That's right - for English language you can use highlighter on the extracts insert but not on the question paper, same as last year.

Another invigilator here. I've not long had my annual training. No issues with students using highlighters to mark questions.(and we provide them too) Sounds as if this has come from the school rather than the exam board.

Sorry - should clarify the question paper is also the answer paper, that's why you can't use highlighter on it!

Thank you all. I have also had an email from AQA confirming that highlighters can be used. School told my daughter this and confirmed it in an email to my DH. When pressed today they eventually said they preferred the students not to use highlighters because some of them might highlight answers and lose all their marks !! Surely if the students can understand an instruction like write your answers in black ink only they should be able to understand an instruction re highlighters - if not then I would say the school isn't preparing them properly.

Anyway at least I have the answer and my daughter is happy.

I actually think that is quite a sensible approach from the school.
If accidentally highlighting something in the area where your answer goes causes the scanner to be confused, and the candidate to lovse marks, then, to me, it makes sense to have no highlighters near the paper.
As others have said you can still highlight key words / phrases / points with a coloured biro.

Surely if the students can understand an instruction like write your answers in black ink only they should be able to understand an instruction re highlighters - if not then I would say the school isn't preparing them properly.

Meanwhile back in the real world, kids panic, get stressed, forget, can't be arsed....

To be fair they don't all understand the black ink rule or no gel pens!!!