Advice please! slow processing and using a laptop in exams

[picklefin]

DD v bright, did well in gcses, (7s & 8s) but tires in exams and is a slow writer.
Her school have run a few tests for access arrangements and in CTOPP-2 Rapid Symbolic Naming she achieved a standard score of 76 = 5th percentile.

Although her scores were ‘spiky’ she did not score lower than 84 in any other areas, or between 85-89 to get 25% extra time. But the testing was not a full dyslexia test, just a basic screening for exam arrangements. However, we may proceed with a full test for dyslexia, which may or may not highlight other <89 scores.

There is also a large difference between her LUCID exact handwriting speed – 55th Percentile and her typing speed 88th percentile.
In addition, she is hyper-mobile and gets achy hands after writing for a long time.
School are saying she can't use a laptop in exams. Does anyone have a link to the rules for being permitted to use a laptop/word processor in exams, other than it be a student’s “normal way of working”?

My son is in Year 13 (state school) he has just been granted by the school to use a lap top in exams for his essay/long answer based subjects. He has no diagnosis for anything I simply asked as he has extremely untidy writing and it was affecting his grades. The only stipulation by the school was he had to do all class tests on the laptop too in order to be able to use it in the exams.

Ps at the local independent school apparently all children do their A levels on the computer as standard!

Attaching a sample of his handwriting so you can see why sometimes even able kids need a laptop.

It's not pretty, but perfectly legible.

In my experience (science teacher and examinations officer), if a candidate doesn’t “have time to get every single thing they want down on paper” they are probably just doing a ‘brain dump’ of every single thing they can remember that might be relevant! It’s an exam skill to recognise what information the question is asking for. Exam times are actually designed to allow candidates to achieve the top grades comfortably.

My dd has MS particularly affecting her right side. She had tests done on her writing speed. Obviously she scored whatever she needed to as she did get extra time. However she still had to write with her hand, I don't think anyone suggested using a lap top. She was allowed rest breaks - on first couple papers she didn't need any but by her last exam (History A level) she took several.