exams of different length

[kitkat1968]

what happens at your DC's school? Ds says people doing different length exams are in the same hall and the ones doing a longer exam are disturbed by the clatter of the ones doing a shorter exam leaving. This is going to be a big issue next week when DS has some 3 hour exams and will potentially be disturbed twice!

DD didn't even notice her friend (sitting in front of her) get up, be accompanied to the toilet (to spew) and come back and she has 0 concentration most of the time!!

DH (Maths teacher) did say that if he's so easily distracted that other students leaving the hall bother him, he shouldn't really be doing STEP...

Why?

What is STEP?

Using other rooms won't work because the papers are usually longer than the hour of lessons the pupils aren't in the classroom.

It really isn't that distracting. Whoever said that your ds shouldn't be doing STEP if distraction is an issue is right!

Why? Because for those students whose grasp of the subject is such that they are capable of STEP, they should be so absorbed in the complexities of the paper that they have absolutely tuned out whatever's going on around them. When DH brings home the STEP papers to have a go at himself, I won't be able to get through to him until he's done, pretty much!

DD gets extra time, so others always leave earlier.

The school now allow her to sit at the front, rather than in the normal alphabetical order, so she is less disturbed. (Her dyslexia report recommends seperate invigilation so it is a fair compromise.) It might also be worth checking that the school will shoo the early finishers away from the exam hall. Once or twice, though for school exams, DD has had to listen to excited post-mortems taking place just outside the door, as she is trying to complete the same paper.

FWIW STEP is tough. For good candidates this may be the first time they have struggled in a maths exam. It is perfectly possible to get 100% UMS on A level maths papers and yet put in a very average performance on STEP. And there is often a lot riding on it. Cambridge maths, say, apparently give out twice as many offers as they have places, relying on STEP to differentiate. Candidates will differ in how easily they are distracted (which is why it is recommended that DD has seperate invigilation) but this does not have much bearing on maths talent. Or is Living suggesting that Universities do not want SEN candidates.

If you're focusing properly on the task in hand then nothing around you will disturb your concentration... So stop looking for excuses in advance

Exactly! When I was at school, the shorter exam candidates were sat in columns to one side of the hall. At the end of their exam, the invigilator spoke the bare minimum of words to tell them to stop writing and then to leave the room silently. Virtually no disruption, maybe a couple of minutes at most. Leaving the hall can be quick and silent. It's entering where they'd be lots of noise which is why all the exams start at the same time!

Anyway, learning to concentrate and not be put off by what's going on around you is also a valuable life skill. When my son did the 11+, the supervisors made it clear that they (10 year olds) should ignore whatever's happening near them, and warned them about kids bursting into tears, wetting themselves, etc., and if that happened, just to ignore it and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Still laughing despairing at the assumption the Exam Boards provide the Invigilators!

And in some schools, other classrooms have to be used at times for overspill, use of computers or other SEND needs already and the nightmare of re-rooming the classes normally in those rooms is just hellish for the pupils, teachers and Admin staff. Extending this just so some students don't hear footsteps at some point in the exams just makes me want to cry!

(And believe me, lots of Invigilators walk up and down rows during the exams anyway so I don't understand the difference really)

If a student can't concentrate because of somebody quietly walking out of the room- what kind of a job will he ever find where he can concentrate? It will have to be one where he won't have to share an office with anyone, the phone never rings, no one knocks on the door as he is halfway through costing up his project and there are no noises from outside. A medieval hermit's cell might just do it, but they are few and far between these days.

Cory, I think that is unfair. In DDs case about 95% of the room will leave, often forgetting one or two remain. And if not moved on, they will chat loudly outside as they work off their nervous energy. This is not "somebody quietly walking out of the room".

DD regularly performs relatively poorly in exams. But the key word is "relatively". She is a good scientist and mathematician.

I am a bit about the stereotype of mathematicians. In our experience, there are at least as many good mathematicians who are dyslexic or on the spectrum and in humanities subjects. Indeed we have come across some quite Aspergers kids who have landed places to read maths at either Oxford or Cambridge. One feature that can go with other SN is being easily distracted. It takes all types to make a world. Your comment "what kind of a job will he ever find where he can concentrate?" is a bit rude. Hopefully we live in a world that does its best to accommodate disability. And that sucess in the real world is not solely predicted by ability to perform well under exam conditions. FWIW DD announced quite early on that she did not think she would be suited to working in an office. She is probably right.

Or is Living suggesting that Universities do not want SEN candidates.

No, not at all. I'm sorry: I must have missed the post where the OP said that her DS had SEN? In most schools, those SEN candidates who are likely to suffer from distraction, those whose learning profile indicate that they need a prompter, for example, are invigilated in separate rooms anyway. I assumed that the OP was talking about the candidates in the main exam hall being distracted by others leaving.

as everyone has said, this has been standard practice for a long time.

Any school will seat the kids doing the longer exams further from the exit so that they aren't disturbed by others leaving the hall.

It's simply not practical to expect a school (which still has lessons going on for the non exam years) to have 3 or even 4 exam rooms in operation for each session.

Exactly! When I was at school, the shorter exam candidates were sat in columns to one side of the hall.

Wow I didn't realise that that kinda heightism went on in schools but I guess things were different in those days!!