Scribe for GSCE exams - any experience please?

[bindibahji]

Child has sld Iincluding severe handwriting problems and is sitting his first 2 gcses this school year.
School are aware of his dyslexia problems etc but as he is very bright, they have put him down for the academic route, 11 gcses. in total including things like history which involve a LOT of writing. None of which he is likely to pass if no-one can read his writing or decipher his spelling.
School have said ''oh yes'' to my bleating on about getting him a scribe but whose decision is it? WHo do I nag (AND I HAVE LEARNED ENOUGH TO KNOW i must NAG...;) )
If the worst came to the worst, could I offer to pay for it myself?

Any experience or advice please?

well, he has been 'writing' essays and homework like this for the past two years, so I guess he is getting used to the scribe concept. He generally has a 15 minute panic and tears some time thinking about what he is going to say, followed by sitting down and just splurgng his knowledge at me, so fast I can barely keep up typing ;)
Transcription - his writing and spelling is so poor he cannot read it back, let alone anyone else.

You've received some very solid advice here. I would recommend speaking to the SENCO and trying to arrange a meeting with the Exams Officer before they get too bogged down organising January exams (I've worked as an invigilator for five years and honestly think Exams Officer is the worst job in school at the moment - ours is excellent and only manages 4-5hrs sleep a night during the summer exam season).

The one thing you might like to start practising with your DS is punctuation. Particularly in English exams students are expected to punctuate papers, e.g. "school, full stop. Capital letter, we...". In practice most scribes add punctuation anyway but he may get a new scribe or one who's a stickler for rules (I don't know much about specific SENs - if he has a problem identifying when to use punctuation due to his SEN there may be nothing to worry about - I don't know if they bend the rule in these circumstances).

IME scribes write, rather than type, papers so he may also have to learn to wait for handwriting to catch up (especially if your school says they have a lack of computers - ours has enough and scribes still handwrite). Is there a method of notetaking that he can read and understand, e.g. once he's worked out his answer could he perhaps colour-code bits of scrap paper/draw something to prompt his memory if the scribe is taking a while to write and he has the answer already worked out? I have a laptop and don't write in my exams and always ask for scrap paper to jot things down - you're entitled to it.

At our school the SENCO/Exams Officer work closely together and the student is either paired with a TA that they've worked with all year or with the same scribe (invigilator-on-scribe-duty) for the whole season. It would be worth checking whether there'll be any continuity for him as it can help students to relax.

Thanks all , as Rosie says, been some great advice here.

Rosies, I have to type as to be honest, my handwriting is pretty crap too and slooooooow ;)

TBH if it's just handwriting that's the problem, he won't get a scribe, but he will most likely get a typewriter (with no spell check etc).

Talk to the SENCO. Shouldn't be a big problem.

My daughter had a scribe for one GCSE ... she has a nerve in her hand that spasms ... we only discovered this during exams at the end of Y10 so she had a scribe for her early entry English in November

She could not cope with telling the scribe what to write as the thinking process for talking is, of course, different from the thinking process for writing

So she then went without and (luckily) all was ok

I think that the key is practice ... they practice answering questions but not answering them verbally at school

You either need a medical note or a submission from the SEN team at school ... it is not about paying it is about exam boards deciding yea or ney based on one of these

beaten, it's not just the handwriting, it's the spelling - he is dyslexic, his handwriting is illegible and the spelling is not phonetic even, it is totally bizarre and he misses out half the word. He cannot even read his owen writing 10 minutes after he has written it, neighter can anyone else.

Ah. Sorry must have missed bits

Should be eligible for a scribe then!