How many additional-needs pupils get extra time at GCSE exams at your school?

[FaazoHuyzeoSix]

I have just found out, through a random fact dropped into a conversation on a different topic, what proportion of y11s at my DC's school have extra time in GCSE exams, and it's a quite surprising number to me.

If you know what rough percentage of pupils have this adjustment at your school could you post it here with a few words describing the school (eg Inner city comp, deprive area/selective state grammar/non-selective state school in affluent area/independent academically selective etc etc). I think it will be interesting to get a bit of anecdata on this and speculate about the different factors that might affect the figures? Are certain types of schools more likely to identify issues that lead to extra time being granted, or is it more that parents whose children may have additional issues are more likely to push for certain kinds of school? For schools where there is a lower-than-average proportion of kids who have been identified as having a need for additional adjustments, is it likely that there's a population of kids there with the same needs who just haven't been identified?

The leafier the school, the more concessions has been my experience. The reasons are complex: parents who are more articulate and literate and thus better placed to fight for their child's right to concessions; more resourcing (including parents putting their hand in their pocket) and more extensive SEND provision in-house both to assess need and to establish "normal way of working."

My son had extra time and sat his exams alone at local comp
I didn't even have to ask
Everything was all put in place for him
He was under Ed psych and senco
Since starting school .

Private schools flag up and have private assessments made quickly.

They don't hang hang about for years for pupils to be assessed by CAHMS etc as they would in a state school

I guess this is why it takes so long on the NHS etc as most of the professionals have gone private.

One of my best friends was an invigilator at a private school and she was actually surprised how FEW kids had extra time etc. It was only around 10 kids out of a cohort of 200/250 students, so very low.

We can't really enlighten you on the actions of whatever school your friend is at but I can assure you that none of the 3 private schools mine went to or any of the other schools their friends went to did this.

A few comments.

Small/individual rooms will only help the students who need them. Most students will be fine sitting in a large hall. They go in, 'get in the zone' and do their exam. That said, independent schools are more likely to have resources for more individual rooms, state schools I suspect are more likely to use 'smaller rooms'.

Ditto rest breaks. Having a rest break disturbs your train of thought and gets you out of the hyper focus / adrenaline of the exam. It also makes the overall exam take longer. My DD qualifies for rest breaks but in fact generally doesn't like using them as it breaks her concentration and impacts her overall stamina.

There are also independent schools and independent schools. I cam imagine some schools having a higher % than average of pupils with dyslexia as parents find their child isn't managing in the state system and move them to a non selective independent with smaller classes.

I think the kids who get missed are often the ones who are doing "well enough" and so don't get flagged as a concern at primary.

A friend pushed for help for her daughter, who wrote very slowly, and was told "but she's meeting expectations". Well, she was, but she wasn't meeting the expectations of her parents. The school agreed to put her in an intervention group for her writing, and it made a big difference. But if her mum hadn't pushed, it wouldn't have happened; she would have carried on just "meeting expectations", and never getting on to the extension tasks. Even after the intervention, she sometimes had to ask to be allowed to do the extension work.

If you're an able child achieving at "expected levels", then a particular difficulty may only be picked up if a parent or teacher realises that you could be doing much better. It will be picked up more in private schools where expectations are generally higher, and by parents who are well-educated, well-informed and confident.

Another friend's child managed to be halfway through an Oxbridge degree before ADHD was diagnosed. It turned out to be news to her that anyone ever managed to complete an exam in the time provided - she thought it was meant to be impossible. She'd obviously got close enough to finishing her GCSE/A-level exams to get good grades - and presumably nobody had ever picked up that she'd run out of time in every subject, because it was only those last few marks she'd lost.

Ah, yes interesting question. I also read that 2017 article. There are definitely kids who are worthy of the extra time but I also think (and have seen) many kids who have been accessed privately by an ed psych get extra time where it honestly wasn't warranted. Tbh, I've never heard of a single kid who was assessed who did not come out with some sort of 'diagnosis'. My DD has extra time but not sure she really needs it. But then lots of the other kids at her private have extra time as well so it's not great, but I do think it's a way of offering support (increasing chances of success)

I don't begrudge any child getting extra time if they have SEN which mean that they genuinely need it. However, I think it's target naive to suggest that other kids wouldn't benefit enormously from having extra time if it was available. Time management is a massive part of exam technique, and lots of kids without SEN struggle with it.

I've seen first hand how wealthy, sharp-elbowed parents at grammars who have gamed the system - usually nearing GCSE time.
Furthermore, those children are then rewarded at prizegivings, some gaining the highest marks at GCSE.
This is unfair on the children who genuinely have additional needs and on the kids who don't.

I put my DC into an independent school for 4 years because they had learning difficulties. Independent schools are so much better resourced than state, my child needed the space, time and support that just wasn’t available in our local school. In my experience a lot of the independent kids were there for the same reason so what you’re stating doesn’t surprise me.

I work in a large secondary school with a respected unit for pupils with special needs, so we attract an above average number of pupils with special needs each year compared to other local schools.

I would say about 10% of our pupils get some kind of concession ranging from extra time, using a laptop in exams to having a reader or prompter.

As a side note, my daughter went to an independent school and I was surprised at how many of the pupils there were getting concessions as they did not seem to have any kind of learning issue based on how well they did in class tests, essays etc. Some middle class parents really do know how to play the system.

Extra time is only useful if the child has been taught how to use it effectively, otherwise it's pointless. Most children with Dyslexia (as an example) aren't taught how to utilise the extra time effectively, and therefore it's unlikely to be of much help. Might be different with independent schools if they do study skills? I don't know. We've had a hard fight to get dd (now diagnosed with asd and dyslexia) diagnosed. Her secondary school is fantastic, and DD is now doing much better since her difficulties have been 'formally' recognised. But it will be me teaching her the 'hacks' to get through exams and how to use her extra time to her advantage (of course it's not really an advantage, it just means she has the time she needs to really understand and decode the question, a child who is academic doesn't need this, they understand the question as soon as they read it).
I really hate our educational system it sets most non academic kids up to fail; but that's a rant for another thread.

How do you know how well other dc did in their tests and whether or not they had LDs? Do you really believe you had all the knowledge of each dc and how they did in their tests and whether they did as well as they did due to the accommodations? Perhaps the reason they did well is because they were properly accommodated

I would suspect it's down to money. We paid for dd's assessment privately, it was done within weeks.

I don’t claim to know whether individual cases were genuine or not. But I do know the percentage of pupils getting concessions in the independent school was double that at the state school I work at, despite the independent school not having a dedicated unit for pupils with additional needs.
I can surmise from this that richer parents know better how to play the system. But you can deny it if you want.

You will find a lot of parents who suspect their child have sen needs send them to private schools for the small class sizes.
To be honest its not as easy as you think - my daughter's private school has a lot of children with SEN needs and extra time and because of this they are very wary of awarding extra time without rigorous evidence I guess because they assume they are more likely to be challenged.