50 years on and still we disadvantage children with learn differences

[silverridgerider]

50 years ago I started school, the thick kid. I struggled reading and wtiting and was put in the bottom set for everything and left to fail. 40 years later with a diagnosis of dyslexia I gained a PhD. Yesterday my son who is on the spectrum was treated as a criminal because his parents gave him help with his GCSE PE essay assesment. "Malpractice" is the term the school used. His essay was deleted and he was given 4 days to rewrite an assignment that took 4 months to research and write, all his diagrams, pictures deleted. Oh and he was given a detention just to reinforce his wrong doung! 50 years! and we still put these children at a a disadvantage. It is not enough that they have learning difficulties....the education system is not interested in what they know. They subject them to questions written for neurotypicals and give them no help so that they can understand what is being asked. As parents you help them with different words and sentence structures in the name of educating and learning and your child is sanctioned.
What sort of society lines its neurodiverse child up to fail? We give them extra time and scribes, but what use is that if the child does not understand the questions. My son knows masses, but our education system wants him to fail!
We know how to ask questions using alternative, wording, videos, prompting, but the system is determined that they are disadvantaged at birth and they will remain that way through their education. Am I cross....I am incandescent. 50 years and we are still the thick kids!

I'm sorry OP but I have two children with learning difficulties. What you did was outright cheating. You can't do his coursework for him. I suspect many parents proofread a piece of coursework for spelling mistakes but you can't change his sentences etc.

But with the amount of adjustments that students can get these days, there IS flexibility.

Lots of kids would benefit from this kind of testing (including my own son) but for practical and cost reasons, writing is chosen so that they can compare pupils. It’s why exam technique lessons are as important as learning the content and top marks usually mean deeper understanding than repeating the facts.

I can understand your frustration OP, (multitude of NDs, including myself, in the family) I think you have most probably taken it too far with the help.
I realise that it's extremely frustrating that ND people often cannot demonstrate their skills and abilities to the full, but unfortunately the high school system in the UK is made partly as a filter for higher education, rather than a just a way of showing what you can do. This means that if you are altering words and sentence structure, in such a way that your child wouldn't be able to produce a similar answer by himself in class, let's say, the you are effectively attempting to give him an advantage.
I understand this may seem fair to you, because you see him already at a disadvantage, but hopefully, after school he can hone in to something that is the perfect fit for him.

ND - with ND kids and have avoided writing kids course work for them.

Helping then understand the question - asking probing questions - I could see being acceptable in very general over view way though going back to teacher would probably be more helpful - writing sentence structure obviously won't be.

My DC despite having coursework haven't needed that that level of help - they did in earlier years and sometimes do with exam prep to get going or improve answer but not for course work in Y9-11. My own parents kept it to reading though for spelling for coursework and helping locate resources.

Youre problem is allowing the school to find out. Surely the first rule of helping with coursework is never letting anyone know you've helped?
My dad helped with my coursework (when I was also given a week to completely redo an assignment at school), I have helped my dd, my (now adult) dd helped me write a masters essay and I've nicknamed her my research assistant.

I am also neurodiverse and a teacher. I hate the British school system with a passion because everything you say is so fucking true x

"It's okay to cheat as long as no one finds out about it..."

Your line of thought op seems to be that he knows all the answers so he should be credited for that.
And he should be.

But the person who knows all the answers AND can present all the answers in any form required should be more credited.

Any exam is testing two things. What is your knowledge. How do you articulate that.

He can do one of those.

So it is absolutely right that the person who can do both of those things gets a higher mark.

The thing is @silverridgerider the GCSE is a certain level for a reason, employers can be confident that a student has X, Y, Z skill as they have passed the exam . If you do not have X, Y, Z skill including understanding the set question then they fail or do a different qualification altogether.

Otherwise how does an employer know when they ask them to read X important Health and Safety document that they actually have and understood it?

When you are in an exam as a reader you are not allowed to paraphrase questions or explain what it means. You can't even read out the maths operations in a maths question so '2x20=' becomes 'two (pause) two, zero (pause)'

Ofcourse what should happen is that schools use other types of courses that fit better but really its a one size fits most case. Same as people like me who are great at course work but terrible at exams, which is why BTECs are so great and much more like true work situations but the coursework still needs to be the student's work and not paraphrased by someone else.

Where I’ve seen a child caught by this they tripped up because they couldn’t explain what the words in their coursework meant! Is that level of ‘help’ what you mean? If so then it’s obviously cheating, sorry.

A scribe in an exam can only write the exact words that the student tells them. They cannot reword anything, suggest anything, restructure anything, you can't say that anything is correct or incorrect or give any kind of facial expression or anything else that might indicate how they are doing. You cannot suggest they move on to the next question, tell them they're answering completely the wrong question, answering too many questions or anything else. You were doing much more than this by the sounds of it which obviously would not be acceptable.

Is your son allowed to use the same title? If so all his research will still be able to be used. Hopefully he will be able to redo a new piece in time.

Other children cannot compete with adults for their GCSE coursework! You must see that.

The playing field is never going to be level in the way you want it to be. Some children are very able and have an advantage because of that. Some children are very competent at sport and that’s to their advantage. Some children simply aren’t as intelligent as others and that’s just the same as adults.

If you, for example, have a group of children running a race, do you expect one to finish at the front and others further behind? Would it be acceptable for the ones at the back to have a piggy back from an adult, or a shorter race?

I taught children with dyslexia for many years, I have post grad qualifications; there were a multitude of strategies in use to support the areas they found difficult, but none of them included giving them the sentences and paragraphs they needed to construct an essay.

Mind maps- yes
Scaffolding- yes
Whatever helps them to learn the most, but not giving them the ideas or structuring the work.

What would a level playing field look like for your son?

Sounds like definite malpractice to me and the school are in the right.

Surely the point of education is learning things? The system is a farce!

As adults, we get help to get the end result - knowing the things. Why should there be fails at all? Everyone needs to be able to read and write and do maths etc, that shouldn't end at age 16/18. If someone is struggling to learn it all, then the system is failing and we should do better, not punish for finding creative ways to learn!

If the system doesn't gear everyone up to get A's then it really isn't fit for purpose is it.

Reason #729742 I'm home educating

I was about to write something along these lines myself.

I hear you OP. There needs to be a way to help to education kids with learning differences instead of forcing them into a mould!

I don’t agree that they’re being forced into a mould. There is differentiated learning going on, which takes account of differences and strengths.

Surely GCSEs are worthless if it's OK for some children to have had help? How are employers supposed to know who's really capable of passing and who isn't? And if that doesn't matter, why do exams at all?

I understand your point that the education system could do more to support kids.

Writing his coursework for him isn't on however. And if you wrote it and he didn't even understand it then it will have been very obvious to the school.

The point of GCSEs is two fold.

1. Kids actually learn stuff.

1. Get a grade so that an employer can see your skill set.

It seems that the op and a few others on this thread have focussed only on point 1, and are happy to cheat to get point 2, rendering the mark meaningless.

Regarding point two, I think perhaps new ways could be developed so that employers could see a prospective employees skill set without gcses. We are a diverse and inclusive society, are we not?

Did you write the essay for him. It sounds like school thought you did. How much did you do. It’s hardly fair on other students who had to do their own work.

YABU if he is not capable to getting a GCSE under his own steam, he should not get one - there are other qualifications

What would be the point in a qualification that anyone could get, no matter how limited they are academically.

Academic ability is not particularly important in life, but it is what GCSEs assess

There are plenty of other achievements people can work towards that assess different things

You are lucky, actually, that he hasn't been disqualified