Help! DD disquialified from year 10 mocks

[ilikechickentacos]

Name change as usually about my ds.
DD finished her year 10 mocks around last week and was disqualified from 3 different ones (luckily school use multiple exam boards per subject so she wants disqualified from extra) all for basically the same reason. I’ve emailed but no reply what do I do? I’m not happy with her one bit

Mocks don't count. Tell her she is not to communicate whatsoever in an exam in future

Putting her in isolation for misbehaving sends the message that it’s not her that needs to change, it’s the environment. Rather than telling her that she needs to change her attitude and behaviour, it’s just saying to her ‘you can carry on doing what you want, we’ll change our ways to accommodate you’

Undiagnosed sn like what? I very much doubt this tbf. I agree she needs to learn but i feel like she won’t

You need to speak to the school ASAP.

Mocks aren't administered or marked by the exam board. Instead they are run internally by school. I expect your school is treating her as if the exam was a real one and the consequence in her actual GCSEs would be disqualification by that exam board.

I'd back the school 100%. Why should teachers have to mark the work of students who are deliberately disrupting others?

You should also have a punishment at home as well. This is serious and could lead to her getting no GCSEs next year unless she behaves.

Students sit exams in different rooms for a whole range of reasons including extra time, medical, SEN etc. But extra rooms means extra staff and this costs the school so the likely hood of a student sitting an exam in a different room because they can't follow rules is highly unlikely.

The use of invigilators doesn't have anything to do with the exam board and is the schools way of setting the exams. If these were the real things then the invigilators would have the right to remove any student that is not following examination rules. The school might be following through with a threat to make an example.

I agree island that getting her her own room is not the solution. Misbehaving does not mean you qualify for this adjustment. It also sends the message that her behaviour is ok and everything around her should adjust. Rather than her just behaving.

What do you do? You utterly bollock her. Whatever you do to normally discipline her - do it more.

If she's the same next year she'll miss prom, and leave school with fuck all in the way of qualifications.

What does she plan to do after GCSEs? Show her the options that are available to kids with no qualifications. Take her to visit a college that does entry level and level 1 qualifications.

That doesn't make much sense - if no one was behind her and was just looking at a blank wall, why on earth would she be punished? Suspect you don't have the full picture just yet OP!

Sounds like the school are making an example of/to her so that she does ‘get’ it for next time.

Why would she not learn for this?

Have you told her off at home as well? Does she understand what would happen if she was disqualified from a real gcse?

If it was that easy to get an individual room I'd love to see how the school would manage 240 separate rooms when all the students decide they can't behave either!!

To give a rough idea of the potential costs, somebody employed directly by the school to invigilate will receive about £10 and hour. Through an agency, the cost would be nearer £20, if not more because they're in high demand this time of year.

Each invigilator will be paid for a session, usually from around 8am until 12pm and 12.30pm until 4.30pm (there's a lot of admin after an exam has finished). So if they have to employ somebody else for her to take them in isolation because she's distracting other kids and potentially causing them to fail their exams, that's somewhere in the region of 10 GCSEs, up to three papers per GCSE, one session for each paper = 10 x 3 x £40 = £1200 if employed direct by the school, £2400 if through an agency. And she could still fail them through being disqualified if she kicks off in isolation.

If the choice is paying out up to two and a half grand for other kids to be protected from her stupidity or failing her altogether, it's got to be worth it. Which is unlikely, as schools don't have vast amounts sitting in the bank account to protect idiot children from themselves.

She needs to think herself very fortunate if they even enter her for anything next year - and be extremely apologetic in the meantime.

Exactly what I thought! I was told briefly by school that she was looking around and she told me it apparently was towards the back so I was rather hesitant to believe her to be honest. She now has it drilled into her what happens if she does this in a real gcse but I don’t think she will learn as she’s not one to learn from consequences - she is more of a jump off a wall break your leg then do it again when she’s better type of person if you get me ( example used has happened and also has lead me to believe she may not learn )

Have you punished her? It sounds like she needs serious consequences for such bad behaviour.

sanity and alena, I’m not saying they should. As I said in my post I don’t think they should have to. But if OPs DD is to have a decent chance at getting her grades then it’s a question worth asking.

If I were the teachers I would consider making her do isolation for a long time through the study period as well as exams, mostly so she could get her exams done while making sure other students weren’t affected by her idiocy. But I’m not the teachers in this scenario - just trying to find a decent compromise.

She needs a firm talking to from you and some form of punishment. Then she’s been punished by you & the school & hopefully will take her real exams more seriously, in future.

If she doesn’t, that’s her own issue to deal with. She will have to resit her GCSEs in another environment or risk gaining no qualifications because she can’t behave in an exam hall.

It sounds like the school are running the mocks as real exams and using the exam consequences for students who choose to ignore the exam rules.

They get told the rules. She ignored them.

I agree with others, there's no need to push a separate setting. She just needs to learn to behave.

OP You sound really supportive. If you've done the usual bollocking and sanction at home then it might be that she has to make her own mistakes and get to a point where she learns for herself, even if that is the hard way into year 11.

I took my 11+ in a small, Wiltshire village primary school in 1973. I was 10. It was in 2 parts with a short break in between.

The girl in front of me (of maybe 12-15 of us), during the first exam, right at the end ('you have 5 more minutes!'), turned to look at me, briefly, with a 'WTF?' expression.

At break, we were both hauled out and told off.

I am still bitter 46 years later - tho we both passed.

she is more of a jump off a wall break your leg then do it again when she’s better type of person if you get me ( example used has happened and also has lead me to believe she may not learn )

Hang on, she jumped off a wall, broke her leg and then done it again?

Does she ever grasp consequences? What's her memory like? Does she have a sense of danger?

You seem fairly sure she won't learn from this - why is that? Being excluded from an exam would be a big thing for most kids. Being excluded from several would be a HUGE deal, yet you say she's not bothered.

Is that attitude or because she just doesn't get it?

“Putting her in isolation for misbehaving sends the message that it’s not her that needs to change, it’s the environment. Rather than telling her that she needs to change her attitude and behaviour, it’s just saying to her ‘you can carry on doing what you want, we’ll change our ways to accommodate you’”

This.

OP, I would talk to her quite calmly and ask her what happened and how she was feeling about being in the exam. Could she have felt nervous and ‘unnatural’ due to the silence?

What are her plans for sixth form ? Lots are competitive and make offers based on mocks and predicted GCSE grades, do ask her how she plans to get through the next set of mocks.

Is she used to being in situations where she sits in silence to work?

Give her some practice at home.

All with the firm message that her behaviour must not continue.

I hope she gets it.

Just a question would the results of her mocks be going how she is graded for subjects for y11 like different bands for maths and if she disqualufied would that not mean she goes in bottom set and maybe needs to be in the higher set for her 3 rd level choice. Im not at this stage yet so dont know.

If you don't think she will learn from her mistakes what consequences are there at home for the disqualification?
Personally I would be very disappointed and there would be strong consequences.

To be honest if she actually re-broke her leg like that I would wonder about something affecting her impulse control.

Like ADHD or something. These things present differently in girls and can get missed.

I think she still thinks that she was disqualified for basically nothing. Yes she did jump off the same wall again and broke her leg (again). You’d think she would’ve been more cautious or gone another way but nope. I think most of the time she understands why she gets the consequences but it doesn’t necessarily stop the behaviour. Her memory is awful to be frank , I think she nearly failed d of e bronze in year 9 for forgetting to hand her booklet in to get signed for the sections. I would say she has a good sense of danger but not the best . She wouldn’t stand of the edge of a cliff ( I think she’d be quite scared tbf) but would run across a main road because she couldn’t be bothered to wait for the lights. I don’t think she will learn because she never has really learn with anything else.

@mcfmen could you clarify what you mean?

Dd is not a fan of silence especially when doing something boring
She wants to go to sixth form and study phsycology and two other things she hasn’t decided on yet. Will definitely attempt to get her some practice of silence

If she struggles to learn from consequences like breaking a leg, maybe she does have some undiagnosed SEN.

What impact does being disqualified from mocks have?