Disruption in exam advice needed

[lifeturnsonadime]

Unfortunately my son experienced significant disruption in his final history exam yesterday.

He does his exams away from the main hall as he has extra time for his dyslexia. He is also autistic (noise sensitive) and has diagnosed and medicated anxiety disorder.

He came home from his exam yesterday distraught. He reports that the exam was delayed starting due to the candidate next to him having issues with a headset in a languages exam, no problem so far. But the exam was started without the issue being resolved and he had to endure 27 mins of his hour long exam being disturbed by the candidate and the invigilator trying to resolve and eventually an IT support person coming into fix the headset.

Son said he wasn’t able to focus due to the fact he could hear every word of the discussions and he wasn’t able to complete the paper either. This is significant because it’s the subject he wants to study at university and he requires a grade A for even his insurance offer. This would not normally be an issue for him as he is very good at history (was even interviewed by Oxford)

We have contact the exams officer and the SLT at school who seem to be saying that this is acceptable / normal disruption but they will ask for special consideration which is a maximum 1% of this paper. I am very unhappy with this response so far as I believe that the continued disruption lasting almost 50 % of his exam time should not have been allowed to happen and that the exam should have been paused to resolve or the student with the headset issue taken away from the room so the others could do their exams without being impacted.

is this something we just have to put down to bad luck? Rather than celebrating the end of exams son is now convinced that the disruption could cost him his first choice university (and possibly second choice). To me this was avoidable and unfair.

He is not one to complain about small things and he is well practiced on these papers and has never failed to complete one on time before.

thanks for reading

Just bumping this to see if anyone has any words of wisdom?

This isn't normal disruption. I would pursue it.

I would contact the exam board, quite promptly, and ask them for advice if the school is unwilling to support further.

Sympathy for your ds. Op if this is OCR, then the one hour paper (he would have had extra time) is only worth 15%. I agree it sounds as tho it was badly handled but I would encourage him to focus on what he’s done well.

But I agree, I would contact the exams officer.

That does sound like the school managed the disruption poorly, and I can understand it’s stressful for your son. Unfortunately the amount of special consideration is not really up to the school - they will apply and the exam board will decide whether to award it or not. 1% is the appropriate amount listed in the JCQ regulations - go put it in context, 5% is the maximum, and that’s for someone who has a terminal illness or other similar circumstances.

thats what I’m telling him, BUT, an exam worth 15% most definitely can impact grades. Whatever he has not had the opportunity to demonstrate his full ability and is at a disadvantage compared to those who have not faced disruption.

I think this would be really unacceptable disruption for lots of people who are sitting an exam, never mind those who need additional support.
It continued for nearly half the exam paper time - 27 minutes out of an hour.

I am an exam invigilator and this was poorly handled imo. The languages exam shouldn’t have been started of the issue had not been resolved. Centres can start exam 30 mins after the published start time so delaying the start to sort the equipment issue would have been possible and it would have been sensible to move either your ds or the languages candidate to another room.

I contacted the exam board yesterday and they are taking it up directly with the centre. I feel better because at least I’ve done something .

Glad they are following this up. Not a great experience for your ds. I invigilate 23 students, all with access arrangements, and we do sometimes have IT or equipment issues, but this was not handled well imo.

We would normally start the other students in an exam if a problem couldn't be quickly resolved as it would probably be worse to have all the students sat there indefinitely waiting to start. We also wouldn't remove a student with technical issues.

I'm amazed that it took 27 minutes to resolve a headset issue though - try another port, try another pair of headphones normally resolves it. Otherwise it's a computer/IT issue that can often be sorted out remotely. I've no idea why they would try to fix a pair of headphones in an exam.

Unfortunately the special consideration percentages are extremely low - if your mum died yesterday you'd get 5%. so disruption like this would be considered very low in comparison. I don't know what the exam board could do really? Are you looking for his exam grade to be based on his other papers? I've no idea if they would consider it but you could ask.

What I would really recommend though is that he has noise cancelling headphones for the rest of his exams if he has more next week.

Gosh how awful so you'd disrupt an exam for a whole room because one person has an IT issue knowing you could have delayed start in accordance with the guidelines?

I find that shocking. These kids work so hard and don’t deserve to lose their ability to demonstrate in this way. My son is devastated that 2 years of hard work has ended like this. It may well cost his first choice university. It should have been handled better .

I think it really depends if the others have started. It’s disruptive to stop and start again as well. Better to remove the candidate with mal functioning equipment and start them 30 minutes later at the back of the room or in a separate room.

It’s only one paper. If the worst comes to the worst, unis are often willing to accept a lower grade on results day anyway, and if he has support about the issue from the school that will help too.

The 1% special consideration is all that can be awarded for disruption like this.

Hello. I wondered how this played out in the end as I'm in a very similar situation with a gcse exam on Friday and wondered if you have any advice on how to.pursue it and whether it makes a difference?