Potentially discriminatory extra time exam rules?

[Aleiha]

Just really wanted to sense check this.

DD is at a top ranking University and is entitled to extra time in exams due to having a disability. This is not disputed by the University which has given her 25% extra time. This is also what she had during A levels and GCSEs.

She is studying an essay based subject (history) and has had her first exam today and discovered that the university have extended the four hour exam to five hours. This is fine but they have applied the extra time to all students sitting the exam. This includes those with a disability and those without. The rationale from the university is that those who don't need the extra time won't use it and those who do need it can then use it.

Its a online open book exam (two essays) and so clearly everyone will use the extra time.

Is this a correct application of the rules? My understanding was that the extra time is supposed to alleviate any disadvantage she suffers due to her disability.

I wasn't aware until reading this thread that schools did an "extra time" test to find out who should have longer in exams. Is that just a timed exercise where you'll get the concession if you go slower? That sounds dreadfully open to gaming if so.

"now both of my dc got extra time but both were diagnosed young, not aged 15/16 just in time for exams!" lol, lol, lol. Everyone thinks their own children have REAL special needs, not like all the fakers.

Agree with all of this.

I think this is fine. She’s not meant to get a leg up on others but have the playing field levelled. They have levelled it by making the exam time longer than anyone could possible need. Others will leave sooner but she still has the extra time.

But anyone can buy a diagnosis of a disability, if one has sufficient means, so there is a problem with the current system. Far better to give everyone plenty of time.

I think it may be fairer in a way as many students don't have the diagnoses they need and a lot of assessment at a younger age depends on good parental advocacy. If you don't need the time then I guess most won't use it. Some will maybe hone their answers and achieve a few more marks. It's interesting though as I have never heating this method.

When my DD was doing A levels at 6th form college her English teacher asked at parent's evening whether or not she wanted the college to apply for extra time for her because she wasn't covering all the necessary points in her essays. DD absolutely loves writing and was focussing on making it a great piece of work. I pointed out to DD that she should focus on actually answering the exam question and after that she was fine.

But it is quite worrying that a college would suggest applying for extra time when there was absolutely no evidence for her needing it. I suppose once one school does it (private or state) others have to do it or their results may suffer.

I think it is a bit of a farce.

Agree with this. Diagnosis is often a privilege.

It’s not schools that do this, it’s the exam board. Schools have to apply to the exam board, with evidence, to say what the young person needs. The exam board will decide what is necessary. And no, that’s not the way it works, schools don’t do an extra time test. First and foremost, a diagnosis of disability must be there. Then it also comes down to what the disability is, how it affects the person, how they work. They can’t just suddenly At gcse time decide they need extra time. It goes on the years before this, and must be proven that this is their ‘normal way of working’.

Totally. Dd is diagnosed dyslexic. But school were no help Was 18 years ago and I had to pay privately. Cost £400, would probably be double that now.

I believe her diagnosis is genuine but if we hadn’t been able to afford it she wouldn’t have been assessed. I imagine there’s a lot of kids in that boat.

I think that you're missing the bigger picture. If the normal time is 4 hours, but a mediocre student gets 5 hours to write their essay, they may only use 3 hours and then they'll run out of things to say. If a good student can write a good essay in 4 hours, they'll use 4 hours. If a student is dyslexic and needs 5 hours, they'll use 5 hours.

It really won't advantage anyone.

First and foremost, a diagnosis of disability must be there. Then it also comes down to what the disability is, how it affects the person, how they work.

Is that true? I thought you didn't need a diagnosis to get adjustments. I have no idea why my DD's English teacher even mentioned it then.

But if the exam is a 4 hour exam, then unless they had some form of additional needs, they would be able to do that within the 4 hours. The only people who would use the extra hour are those who had some impedement which meant they couldn't complete it fully in 4 hours. They may not have a diagnosis, but they are obviously unable for some reason to work as quickly as would be expected.

Thanks. A couple of posters have mentioned a test like this further up but I hadn't heard of it.

Name changed for this as it's something I've just been raging about at work.
I've just run an exam for a course I teach. There were more students with extra time than without and five students who needed an individual room with their own invigilator and one also needed someone to read the exam paper. The only support I got from disability services was the provision of a reader. Everything else I had to call in favours from colleagues to sit with students who had a room on their own. Try getting the number of rooms you need out of the timetabling department. The student with the reader and an individual room had successfully completed a mock paper in class with all the other students and no reader which does lead me to question what disability services are doing. The student who achieved the highest mark was allowed 25% extra time and allowed a 10 minute break to go for a walk which I also had to staff but actually completed the paper early, and didn't take the break or use the additional time. Universities are so terrified of being sued or damaging someone's mental health that the whole system is becoming unworkable.
In the midst of all this are a small number of students whose real needs are being subsumed by all this nonsense.

I do think it also encourages some quite bad habits. Its really important to develop skills of:

• distilling out what the exam question is really focussed on
• prioritising/being selective about making the most relevant, high quality points
• structuring your answer in a succinct, concise way to answer efficiently

Not about simply getting as much down on paper as possible. More does not equal better. I still remember my history a-level exam where one of my class mates asked for and filled a second blank answer booklet. I still had spare pages in the first one.

I got a significantly higher mark.

Which is what the additional time is for!

I just don't think it is equitable to offer it to everyone

But why not? It's only of use to people who are disadvantaged by a need for extra time. If you don't need extra time, it won't help you.

I’m currently doing a professional qualification. The exams are 3 hrs long and have a set pass mark. If someone has the extra time that they need, they aren’t disadvantaged by other people having extra time as well. The pass rates for the final 4 exams ranges between 30-50%, so maybe if people are benefiting from extra time that might creep up a bit (although I doubt it, because if you don’t know the answer, you don’t know the answer, and if you do then 3hrs is fine if you don’t have additional needs - I wouldn’t have been able to get extra marks with extra time, the marks I missed would have stayed missed), but it doesn’t reduce the chance of passing for the individual who needs the extra time. They are getting the time they need, which is the important point for exams not graded on a curve.

I think that a longer time for all students would have helped OP's daughter and might have been appropriate. But in my work with university students from mixed backgrounds, I find that it is mostly British women of standard school leaving age who have the adjustments in place. That demographic is about 1/3 of the cohort. The system as it stands really isn't equitable. So I prefer to ask myself, what am I actually testing, and to try to design so that everyone has time to produce a written exam showing their abilities.

I do think, from OP's account and from the logic of the arrangement, that a longer time (or a shorter exam) may have been necessary to do this properly in this case.

This . The school needs to apply for concessions. My daughter has adhd. After school assessment for exams it was decided that it wasn’t needed to apply to the exam boards for extra time or a smaller room . I agree as the allocated exam time forces her to focus and extra time would have the opposite effect on her as she thrives on forced routine and breaks have the opposite effect on her ..Time based reminders work better for when her mind drifts .

At my daughter’s school it’s only if you have an official diagnosis and they think you may need it. Why would anyone want to doctor it ? They’d only be cheating themselves , where’s the pride in that or sense of achievement if it isn’t a real necessity ?

I'm sure there are lots of people who would take an honourable approach. I wish I thought everyone would but it takes all sorts, and people are often very keen to gain advantages in exams.

I have sat exactly these exams and I do think that she should have been given extra time - they are very open ended, an extra hour for someone without dyslexia is still a great chance to check the work, tweak the footnotes, add a little flair to the writing. This is not fair at all to your DD who hasn’t been given the chance to do these tweaks. It’s ridiculous to imagine that someone without dyslexia doing history finals is going to give a paper in an hour early,
so in effect she has not been given extra time -I’d challenge this strongly with the Uni on the grounds of discrimination

I disagree. Maybe as pp have said it wouldn't disadvantage you in accountancy, or a subject with need to know answers.

In an open subject like history, I believe it would bring about an advantage to those who do not need additional time, therefore disadvantaging those with the need for reasonable adjustments.