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Original poster

What happens if a child is too ill to attend a GCSE Exam?

15 replies

moosemama · 19/01/2018 19:38

Ds1 has IGCSE English next week. He has spent this evening with a group of teens who were all perfectly well, then suddenly came down with severe symptoms of what appears to be flu. Apparently this week they have all spent a lot of time with another lad who came down with the flu yesterday afternoon and was completely unable to even get out of bed by this morning.

Ignoring the fact that it’s a bit daft to schedule an exam right in the middle of flu season - what is the situation if he ends up getting it and is too poorly to attend the exam?

OP posts:
Julie8008 · 19/01/2018 20:54

In extreme circumstances a teacher (someone) can supervise him doing the exam in his bedroom / hospital. At least that's what SEN teacher told me for my DCs GCSEs.

sarahC40 · 19/01/2018 21:00

It’s difficult - you don’t want to spread flu by taking him to the drs, but under normal circs, I’d suggest that getting a letter from a dr as supporting evidence for applying for special consideration....can he take it in the June season instead? Speak to your go and the exams officer or ring the exam board direct for advice.

sarahC40 · 19/01/2018 21:00

Gp

Original poster
moosemama · 19/01/2018 21:09

Thank you Julie8008. If he gets what his friends have though, there is no way he would be fit to sit an exam. They couldn’t even sit up by the time their parents came to collect them.

sarahC40 thank you. If he gets it over the weekend I will call the GP for advice, as as you said, I don’t really want him to be spreading it by taking him to the GP unless absolutely necessary. I am not sure whether or not he could take it in June, I will have to either call the exam board (need to find out the contact details for them) and/or speak to the school to find out.

I really hope he doesn’t get it obviously, but if he does it will be doubly unfair as it’s one of his strongest subjects and one of two that he achieved A* for in his mocks. He is already taking less GCSE’s than most, as he has ASD and really needs to pass as many as he can of the ones he’s taking.

OP posts:
Julie8008 · 19/01/2018 21:32

If he is so ill he literally can't cannot physically do the GCSE exam and you follow the right procedure with the school he can be awarded a grade based on a combination of his mock result/teacher assessment/predicted grade.

Original poster
moosemama · 19/01/2018 21:54

I thought I had heard that, but wasn’t sure if that was just for people that had serious illnesses - as in hospitalised/critically ill.

OP posts:
noblegiraffe · 19/01/2018 21:59

If it’s a module (are IGCSE modular?) then he’d sit it in June. If it’s linear then I think they can award him a result based on his other English paper(s) so long as they count for a reasonable percentage of the final grade, or they might want him to sit it in June anyway.

Speak to the school exams officer.

Julie8008 · 19/01/2018 22:10

noble knows better than me... I went through this with Senco teacher this week (just GCSEs mind), as my DC has a small possibility of being hospitalised for health reasons during GCSEs. And they can award grade based on mocks... We didn't discuss how ill you had to be it just seemed to be obvious that you literally had to be genuinely incapacitated on the day of the exam (so pretty rare) and obviously have all the proof/follow all the procedures. If it was just flu and I know how bad flu gets as I am still recovering, you would probably have to be hospitalised from it to not have to sit the exam.

Original poster
moosemama · 19/01/2018 22:14

Thank you noblegiraffe.

I am hoping I won’t need to. I just wanted to know what I need to do to sort things out if he does come down with it, given his entire social group went down with it this evening. He’s still looking ridiculously healthy at the moment, so we’re going to keep on with the Echinacea and Vitamin C and keep everything crossed!

OP posts:
MrsPestilence · 19/01/2018 22:35

Moose you need to find out who the exams officer is and be prepared to become best friends with them over the course of next week. If he is too sick to do the exam, a doctors note will be needed.

As he is still well, he had better get revising.

thisagain · 20/01/2018 09:12

My daughter thinks that if she fails to make any of her exams due to illness, she will get awarded a mark based on the national average. She has been told this by a teacher as a recent change. Is this not true Noble?

noblegiraffe · 20/01/2018 10:55

I don’t think so,this - that would mean that some students would get a much better mark than they were heading for!

I’m not sure they use predicted grades any more either, we used to have to fill out sheets of these for the exam boards years ago, but not now. I suspect that they use marks for any completed exam assessments for that subject and possibly KS2 results, but I don’t know for sure.

catslife · 20/01/2018 13:12

thisagain My understanding of the rules is that your dc needs to have completed at least 25% of the assessment (including coursework if applicable) before this applies.
The mark awarded for the exams they have missed will be based on how they perform relative to the average on the parts of the course that they have already done. So if they are above average in assessments done already their mark for the missed exam will be above average (and vice versa).

marcopront · 21/01/2018 05:19

Is it Edexcel or CIE IGCSE?

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