My daughter has fallen sick during A level exams

[WishIwas21]

All,

Hope you're well.

My daughter has fallen sick during her A level exams and is unable to focus or revise. She sat 3/9 exams but I don't think she'll manage any of the others.

I don't believe she's fit to continue. Is anyone familiar with the rules around funding if a year 13 were to redo the year. She wouldn't be resitting the exam per se as she will only have managed 1 of 3 papers from each subject.

I'm in the midst of collating medical evidence for the school.

I'd be grateful for any guidance.

Kind regards,
Sidra

How will she do a gap year if she has to retake her A levels? Is she just going to do the gap year as planned then sit the exams as an independent candidate?

They don't do this any more I believe. I think they use mocks as evidence if you have extenuating circumstances that lowered your performance in an exam but not if you didn't sit the exam

Maybe she meant a single subject. Not a single exam

It's not the 6th forms or colleges that set the rules. It's the exam boards.

You can resit the following exam period (June). But not all schools will allow you to stay on for another year. Sometimes they just don't allow it, sometimes they are not running the same A Level anymore, sometimes the taught components are in a different order etc. You can resit as an external candidate though at an exam centre.

You can't resit in November or in a few weeks time when you're feeling better. It must be obvious why this isn't possible. The papers are widely discussed as soon as the exam is finished.

Not all universities or courses accept resits. They don't automatically have a bar but they will often have a requirement that all of the exams have to be in the same sitting which can affect pupils who have just taken a resit in one subject to try to improve a grade. In this case though the OPs DD seems to have all of her subjects affected so would presumably retake all of them. Genuine illness can be an extenuating circumstance if the evidence is submitted and accepted.

So nothing comes down to a single set of exams but you can't just wait a few weeks and then catch up or sit one or two of the papers in a separate exam year.

Can you do a covid test as well?

during GCSEs last year one of mine had a flare up of raging glandular fever and covid and was flat out

missed several exams and the school did some sort of an average

I’m sure for A levels though it would be a bit more difficult but they will have a protocol in place(dc was the first to get covid in that exam period)

@user09876543

You can't resit in November or in a few weeks time when you're feeling better. It must be obvious why this isn't possible. The papers are widely discussed as soon as the exam is finished

Of course it is possible to have a second sitting. You have a second set of papers. Obviously they wouldn't the same papers. What do you think universities do. They have resits that are a fresh set of exams that are used by students who failed and need to resit and for students who didn't sit the first set due to unforeseen circumstances like illness or bereavement

Because it's not reasonable to fuck up peoples lives by having a single set of exams and no back up.

There is a back up. The back up is that you sit as much as you can and then you work with the exam officer to submit the relevant evidence in the hope that you can be awarded a grade based on what you did and what the averages are etc.

Or you resit the following year.

The GP would usually only prescribe antibiotics if they think it is pneumonia ie a bacterial chest infection.

My son had double pneumonia (bacterial chest infection) age 3. Was extremely unwell and within a day of antibiotics was much, much, better.

I wouldn't be ruling out exams this week. As hard as it seems it might be the best option if she improves a bit (and it seems most likely that she will)

I was very unwell with anaemia during my a levels and advised to resit the year. I am grateful I didn't because I'd have been miserable.

Your poor daughter, it sound like she needs more medical attention if she’s in that much pain. Can you call 111 and ask for a 2nd opinion?. I needed morphine for pleurisy and a chest infection. Keep hospital discharge letters etc for evidence.

Just wanted to send sympathy, OP. My dd is also doing A levels and was hospitalised with pneumonia earlier this year. It was horrible, and took weeks to recover. Hope your dd recovers soon.

missed several exams and the school did some sort of an average

The school did nothing of the sort. They will have applied for special consideration as per the JCQ regs which have been posted upthread, and the relevant awarding bodies will have applied that.

Schools simply do the paperwork. They have no say in what happens.

I am really glad it worked out for your DC : that will be subject specific and depend on the weighting of components. I can equally point to students who have received no award / a U grade having missed two out of three exams or components. It depends partly on how they did in the one they sat as well, I assume.

Anyway, the person who will definitely know how this works for each subject the girl is doing is the exams officer at her school. I am hoping that is who the OP is seeing and not some poor hapless form tutor who, in all likelihood, won't know the regs in detail!

Exactly. This is the issue some are failing to understand. Nothing is up to the school it is subject specific and exam board specific. You can't even say "oh if its History its fine" since it is not one homogenous A Level, each exam board has a different syllabus, different weightings, different mark schemes etc. The exam board will ultimately make their decisions in accordance with the guidelines once the pupil has worked with the exams officer and submitted the relevant information for each missed paper.

@size4feet there are no second sittings - universities run their own exams so of course they can do November resists if they want. In England and Wales there is one big exam session running May/June and that is it.

many exams now have multiple papers though spread out over the exam session designed to ensure that for situations such as the OPs each student has enough time to recover and sit at least one or two papers. This means with the medical evidence (and you will need this) evidence from the school for expected grade (subject and board dependent) plus the information from the papers sat (including special consideration added if appropriate) a grade can be given.

in theOPs case missing 2 out of 9 papers should be fine. Unless she ends up in hospital though the final 4 papers do need to be sat and I would hope a grade can be given

@WishIwas21 it is the examsofficer you need to coordinate all of this as it is them who will send in the evidence needed

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/secondary/5080140-what-to-do-if-your-dc-mises-an-exam-this-summer

Mumsnet really ought to be running the initial post as a banner across Education / Secondary Ed / Further (and probably Higher Ed as well) at the moment...

@Quartz2208

size4feet there are no second sittings - universities run their own exams so of course they can do November resists if they want. In England and Wales there is one big exam session running May/June and that is it.
I KNOW there are microns sittings for a-levels. That's the whole point of my post 🤦🏻‍♀️
My point is that there should be. It's frankly ridiculous that school leavers can lose a whole year simply because they are ill or in an accident or lost their parents or some other reason. It's too important an event to have a single sitting. There should be an alternative date for people who for justifiable reasons could sit in the regular session. A fresh set of exams obvs. It's hardly beyond the wit of exam boards to offer this.

@Quartz2208 'no second sitings' not 'microns

I do agree that the exam system in the UK is especially arcane and brutal, but that's a side argument that really doesn't help OP's DD, sadly...

@size4feet thst is why there are usually 3 exams spread over the 6-8 weeks (if you count half term) so that illness should (hopefully like the OPs DD) only miss 1 so you can get the grade from those 2 with evidence.
The sheer amount of work involved in putting exams on, from delivery to collection to marking means it is a once a year job

changing that would mean a complete overhaul (which could be a good thing)

I work for one of the exam boards and this thread makes my head hurt.

There is no option to sit this week's papers after half term or in November or at any point other than this week.

A Levels do not have a resit option in the November series, that's only GCSE English and maths. You'd have to enter next spring to sit next year's papers.

We absolutely award grades to students who've sat only some, or none at all, of the papers. People have linked to AQA's alternative evidence webpage - this is run in the same way by all exam boards who are part of JCQ. Chief and Lead Examiners review other evidence which might include mock exams or coursework and assign a grade where possible.

The decision to move from modular exams to final exams was made by Gove and reform happened across the board in 2014/15. It is not in the gift of the AOs to offer exams every few months. And if you knew the processes for developing, producing, marking and awarding you'd understand that it's more complicated than just pushing out a new set of papers every few months. I don't disagree it's bitterly unfair if a disaster happens in May. But that's why there are processes in place to support students.