Is it always wrong for parents to contact university on behalf of students?

[stripycats]

Just after some advice as I am sitting on my hands and it is becoming difficult. I also don't want to go into too much detail, but if a student has a bit of an issue with the university (not related to grades/marks awarded, discipline or attendance) and struggle to get a resolution themselves, with emails not being replied to, when, if ever would you get involved. There is a financial element to this dispute, which means it does affect me directly. Would it be wrong for me to get involved?

DC is in Y1 and the exams are in the summer. But if the concession is not granted at all the whole degree is at risk, yes. They won't do well without it.

We've given evidence and they have said it's insufficient but in the particular circumstances it is hard to know what else to provide.

Has your DC asked what evidence is sufficient? Staff will be guided by university regulations.

Look, no member of staff stonewalls students on purpose. We want them to thrive, but all staff (academic and professional services) are bound by the university's regulations. These have to be taken seriously. If we don't follow our own university statutes, we can be disciplined.

Have you gone to your DC's university website and read the teaching regs for that cohort (ie "Class of Graduation Year"). The regulations governing examinations and assessment will be there. At my place, it's the Teaching Quality Assurance Manual & it's all available online for public access. No password or university log in required.

Work in uni disability.

Without a diagnosis of a disability then we wouldn't put RA in place. Or being on a waiting list.

It may well be that your child isn't eligible for RA at university. This is unusual as school exams usually need a lot more evidence for adjustments.

I have worked at various unis in this area, and the necessary evidence needed varies.

I've read what the issue is. My ds had a similar problem and the university advised immediately that without an official assessment then it didn't matter what adjustments he'd had through school and 6th form. This is because reasonable adjustments at school level are based on something being their 'routine way of working' so for example my ds had a laptop for GCSE as he has very slow processing speed and consequently wasn't getting things handwritten in the time frame. He was also moved into a smaller room as had suspected ASD traits.
However, when it came to university it was definitely official assessment or no reasonable adjustments would be given. The problem we then had was that we couldn't afford the private assessments in the time scale needed.
He actually 'crashed out' at the beginning of his second year and he then gave permission for me to speak to everyone as it was a really complicated process and you had to do certain things in a certain order to maintain student finance etc. but that's the only time I actually spoke to tutors etc and he had to give explicit written consent.

Universities aren’t going to issue exam concessions without a diagnosis, bluntly. Your child has been told that evidence that the concession was in place throughout their schooldays is insufficient, but you seem to be resisting getting a diagnosis, even though your child is running out of time, and you say that not having this concession will have a significant negative impact on their degree.

That”s not on the university, and neither is the fact that you left it till just before Christmas.

I don't know how your University works but quite often you only need to pass the first year (to allow you to continue to Year 2). It is Years 2 & 3 that count towards the classification.
If this applies in your DC's case then it may take some of the pressure off, knowing that you can try again for Adjustment in Year 2. Or, worse case scenario, get Adjustment in time for Year 1 re-sits.

Find out all the rules & regs. Check that you are speaking to the right people (tutor / academics, exams officer, disability officer, student union, etc, etc) Find timelines and deadlines. Find complaints procedures and appeal procedures. The University will be bound by all sorts of rules and they must be fair & impartial: use their own regulations to fight against them.

This is what I mean by YP's degree being over before it has begun. If this happens. It's pretty hard to just sit and do nothing with this looming.

Well several do, according to poster here and professionals I have spoken to over the last couple of weeks. Also, the universities own website states a diagnosis may not be required, but they are saying, 'Oh not in this case...' I'm not resisting as such (though the financial cost is barely affordable to us) but it's not that simple as professionals do not believe dc has a condition that can 'easily' be diagnosed. I am speaking to so many different professionals and hitting a brick wall. Yes, it shouldn't have been left this late but I never imagined it would be such an issue. I feel a total idiot if that helps.

You'll need to get the assessment done privately, get your DC to ask disability services what is needed (as what they have as evidence has already been rejected) and work forwards from that. Often the assessments can be done online. As another poster has said, maybe not enough time for first year exams (which don't normally count) but certainly for future. I'm afraid you will need to pay for the assessments so make sure you get the right ones from an accredited professional, the university can sometimes point your DC in the direction of someone other students have used. Schools really do need to flag with parents that the reasonable adjustments at school level don't automatically carry through, as the majority of parents who knew about this arranged the assessments before uni started.

The wording 'may not' simply means that there are circumstances which won't need a diagnosis, but my understanding is that they have already rejected your DC evidence so that's not something that applies. The only time something like this is concrete is if the wording is 'will not' or 'should not' rather than 'may not'. All policies are written this way.

You could always ring the disability service and just ask questions without giving your child’s name. We get parents phoning and can give them general information about how things like this work. They may also be able to advise on where to go for the assessment. Some unis offer diagnostic assessments for specific learning difficulties for example.

I appreciate your advice and agree we will end up paying (but the issue is I'm not entirely sure what for or what will be accepted) and I definitely agree schools should flag this up. I do feel we have let our dc down here massively.

However, I do take issue with the wording. It says concessions being awarded in schools without a formal diagnosis may still be awarded at the uni if you provide evidence of JCQ form 8, which we have. Now they are rejecting that but it is what they asked for! They are now saying SpLD needs to have been suspected, but there is no mention of that on their website (but not seen an actual policy as there doesn't seem to be one) and for all they know it was suspected - how would you have evidence of something being suspected or not?! It just feels they are making it up as they go along tbh.

Does the university have a disability services webpage like this one?
https://hwb.swansea.ac.uk/student-support-services/specific-learning-difficulties/

These things do vary by university. We give some accommodations without a diagnosis, but with formal evidence from school. The Abrahard judgement said that Sarah had told her university about her difficulty and the university hadn't done anything. Universities are taking it seriously.

So you will need to know what your child's specific university regulations are.
Regardless of any of this, we are far more likely to take well a perhaps slightly badly worded request from a student to a legal demand from a parent. We teach the student and our agreements are with them.

It is part of our role to give them the skills to operate independently in the wider world and this includes dealing with officialdom. We make sure they find out through experience that asking questions is not wrong and will help them to work out what's possible and what isn't, but that also sometimes you have to operate within someone else's timelines.

This is a very good idea.

Has DC had a chat with the Disability Service? I appreciate that could be difficult, and I can see that this is an example where parental involvement could be justified. Rather than taking over, perhaps you and DC might have a conference call with DS (you will need their permission anyway, and it will be appreciated if they (appear to) organise the call.)

I don’t see how we can give further advice in the absence of particulars.

If you need an SpLD diagnosis you need somewhere like this: Students – Educational Guidance Service https://share.google/iIA6mMdN5o2hH72kX

Our university offers referrals and a a contribution to cost for various ones. Your YP should ask.

I'm a little confused about the 'difficult to diagnose' aspect though if it is an SpLD.

Also re time, we are overwhelmed by RA requests and Mit Circs right now. So it may take time to reply.

It is in the universitie's interest for your YP to progress and achieve well. It's unlikely they are ignoring the issue.

So dc was first referred to the disability service, They did online screening and it came back as probably not having a SpLD, with advice to see the GP. The issue is chronically bad handwriting. This was an issue throughout school and no amount of practice did any good whatsoever, despite dc being incredibly diligent and excelling academically and loving school. Different pens tried etc to no avail. A few other minor issues sensory related but nothing that really impacted on life enough to consider a diagnosis (vaguely considered a few times but didn't see the point).

Have spoken to a few ed psychs over the last few weeks who do not think dc will be diagnosed dyslexic, adhd etc. Uni do not consider poor handwriting as anything really and dc should practice. Ha! Writing is totally and utterly illegible and cannot be read even by dc so uni will be a total waste of time and money without laptop but dc is highly academic - gifted even. Occupational therapist thinks there will be a case for reasonable adjustments but someone up thread said at their place that wouldn't count with no diagnosis so if that's the case at dc's place what do they do?

Ok, so your DC sounds very similar to mine, school used 'slow processing speed' but we were also advised to see GP as hyper mobility runs in the family, which can make it difficult to hold a pen properly etc. Like you DS was considered gifted and had a scholarship at uni as well. Your DC needs to ask for the policy as you can't challenge why they aren't accepting your evidence without seeing the policy it relates to. Unfortunately it sounds to me that the diagnostics returned nothing specific, so the uni are then unable to accept the evidence as it doesn't really evidence anything other than school allowed them to use a laptop in class and for exams. See if disability services would agree to a joint call. Again, the departments that deal with these adjustments will be taking time to respond at the moment particularly if it's challenging a decision.

Thank you @Lightuptheroom . We have asked for the policy, which is where we are experiencing the delay but I'm glad someone agrees we are on the right lines there! Literally the only other symptoms dc has are a few minor sensory ones that never caused an issue as were easily accommodated and didn't cause behavioural issues. Maybe a call is the way to go.

All policies should be on the uni website.

I've looked on the alphabetical policy page and nothing - several about other aspects of exams but not about concessions that I can find. I don't know if they are obliged to have a policy about this?

Ours is called the reasonable adjustment policy. Could be called disability policy/learning support policy.

I presume you had him tested for dyspraxia? Sounds v difficult.

I would definitely try and get your child to contact their personal tutor? They could get things moving possibly if it's just that the admin team at student services who are swamped.

I think the SU has been mentioned. They can help.

Some unis will now work with 'anticipatory adjustments' meaning you're trying to get a diagnosis.

Sounds like a difficult one but kindly, how did it become so last minute? Surely a student knows this is coming up and needs to speak to disability services when they arrive or at least they should be directed their by their personal tutor.

Seems a shame that he's on a course where this is an issue. All my students just do coursework via laptops so I don't have to see handwriting.

This is a common issue, OP. A reasonably sized degree programme, never mind university, will have coped with it before.

To repeat a question from PP and me: what information has DC been given about positive ways to proceed? DC will get the best, fastest results if they follow existing systems.

Students at many unis are eligible either to be assessed by Occupational Health or by a student-centred version thereof.

One avenue that may not have been mentioned here is for DC to liaise with the Student Support Officer (or similarly titled) in their School. This person hopefully has good working relationships with the people DC needs right now, and may be able to facilitate things.

You may be hitting a wall with not labelling it a disability or temporary illness.