Phones in exams.

[LML78]

My daughter has just sat her first A level exam and college policy is phones powered off in bags at the back of the room. This was announced at the start of the exam. Unfortunately and incredibly stupidly she didn't fully power off her phone and by bad luck it rang. We're now wondering if this will be a clear cut disqualification for a phone being in the hall even though all students phones would have been in the exam hall? if so I assume that we could appeal this? Has anyone had anything similar happen?

I think it would be likely be malpractice - for that subject and her other subjects - so if may be disqualification from all. I don't know if that's worst case scenario though.

What have the college said?

I am surprised tbh that they allow phones in the room at all. The usual practice is for them to be stored safely outside the room.

Yes what has the college said? I am thinking its procedures could be in question.

Really? Even though the phone was no where near her and the school allowed phones in the exam room?

JCQ suggests she will get a warning as it wasn't in her possession.

https://www.jcq.org.uk/knowledge-hub/suspected-malpractice-policies-and-procedures/

It is up to the exam board, college need to report it. Happened to a girl at dc school and they were disqualified from that exam.

What happened when the phone rang? Dis she have to get up and switch it off ?

Do you know what, I did misread it, I thought she had it about her person.

How would they know it was hers in that case?

How did she even know it was hers?

@decorationday remember when we used to key in long codes for personalised song ringtones? (depending on your age) 🤣🤣

It is malpractice because it’s not switched off and it’s possibly disturbed the other exam candidates and the exams officer is duty bound to report it as such. However, in all the cases of this that I’ve had to report over the years, the exam boards have only ever issued a warning that lasts for two years.

Presumably an invigilator identified where the ringing was coming from. And then it’d be easy to see that it wasn’t powered off.

Op says the phones were in bags at the back of the room

They can identify the ringing bag and then match it with its owner.

Fancy allowing phones in the room. Unbelievable. I thought things were bad when they allowed calculators in.

Not all schools have lockers for students and this means that in some exam rooms we allow bags in the room with the rule being that phones are switched off completely.

When I worked in school all the phones (and anything else that students needed to drop off tbh) were stashed in a specific room which was then locked – and unlocked at the end of the exam.

You really don't want to be toting your coat into the exam, and your big rucksack and lunch? We used to make sure they literally had their pencil case or pens in their hand and maybe a labelless bottle of water.

Bags are left at the back of the exam hall in my school.

It’s not ideal, but we work with what we have.

While clearly an accident, all it takes is one student to complain to parents that it disturbed them, not the concern of cheating, which how could it be?

Not the best option for the school set up, of course some will not do a successful switch off, same as staff in meetings!

They shoukd ideally be handed in or bags kept outside.

The student can complain to parents that it disturbed them but there's no special consideration given to students disturbed by a phone going off during an exam.

Hopefully not but it could raise an issue which the exam board has to respond to.

The phone ringing would be reported as malpractice anyway.

I’m surprised by that, given all the awareness of adhd/asd and how some find it very challenging to re focus once disrupted like that, I’m surprised that kids can only complain to their parents and that there’s no consideration given.

It doesn’t sound like a quick ring ring disruption over. Someone will have had to locate the ringing phone to turn it off and spending in the phones security settings, some need to passcode/face it to turn it off.

This will have disrupted all the other kids in the room. Really, really shitty, to be honest. The college should not have allowed it, of course, but if I was one of her class mates I would be really pissed off with her.