High School Change Due to GCSE RESULT

[NOSANENE]

Asking on behalf of a friend and hoping to get some advice.
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@prh47bridge*;^@admissions; *@panelchair^;**@tiggytape
I wanted to pick your brains on the school appeal process. I wondered on what grounds an appeal could be upheld by Hertfordshire council. My circumstance is detailed below.
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I have a daughter who was refused 6th form admission as she did not make the entry requirements for her secondary school. She fell short of the requirement by not meeting the required grade for English Language.
However, she suffered from anxiety from when she started to take the GCSE mock exams in Year 10 and Year 11. This led me to ask the school to apply for extra time for her GCSE exams.
The school made me understand the exam board does not grant extra time for anxiety except there is an inherent ability. I then asked them to test her for inherent ability (evidence available) but they did not. When i received the GCSE result and having consulted with a few specialists, i decided to run this test privately. The test shows my daughter has Dyslexia which means she could have been provided with the extra support i initially asked for and this would have made a big difference. In addition to this, she is terrified of flies and she had a case of flies in her English exams which further impacted on her concentration span.

It is also important to let you know that she had counselling sessions to help her with anxiety while in school. She also found it hard settling in school making friends and feeling comfortable around the teachers. In year 8 and Year 10, she had to move forms and class respectively. This was to enable her concentrate on her studies. In addition, due to the grade she had in English the state schools she can apply for are certain colleges where smoking is permitted in school compounds as adults also study there. This environment is causing her more anxiety.

Thank you

You might stand a chance on her dyslexia having been undiagnosed at the time (depends how much she missed the grade by) but the rest is totally irrelevant.

I don't really understand the timeline here, are you saying that your friend's daughter received her GCSE result this August and in the time since then your friend has managed to speak with consultants, have her tested for dyslexia and receive the results? As it's obviously possible for her to have this done privately, it's a great shame that your friend didn't choose to do this much earlier. Where is her daughter currently at sixth form? Anywhere?

You don't tend to get extra time for anxiety.
You may get a smaller room or rest breaks.

You may get extra time for processing issues which could include dyslexia.
Private reports may or may not be accepted by schools. There are standard tests for access arrangements.

Has she passed EngLang but just not well enough, or did she get a 3 or lower so has to resit?

Has she been able to go on to do preferred subjects at college or a whole different set?

All 6th forms / college will have 'adults' given that 18 year olds are adults. Why is that a particular worry?

Is she under a GP / psychiatrist for the anxiety, and is she receiving treatment?

Ultimately she didn't meet the grade requirements for the school.

She Is about to send in an appeal

She was in a grammar school previously

OP. Did you apply for special consideration on the basis of absence/anxiety? I am an exams officer and if this has affected your daughter in the three months running up to the exams, the school can apply for a retrospective special consideration application.

This may give your daughter the % needed.

How close was she to the grade boundary? Have you looked at a review of marking?

The fact is that she missed the grade. A grammar is under no obligation to take her - at DD’s grammar her options would either be to leave and go to college or stay and repeat her GCSEs in hope of meeting the english language requirements for sixth form next year.

assesment was done privately as it was in English she scored low (4) which prompted the test to understand if there was an issue with processing speed.

@NOSANENE you havent said how far she was from the grade boundary, whether she was given spec con.

Did she score higher in English Literature?

Grammar schools can set whatever criteria that they want.

Is the girl going to retake language this school year ? If she’s likely to do better, has she considered starting A-level study in September 2025 instead ? The grammar might not take her if all of her grades were affected but she may have more state options.

@Imalongtimepostingmum it was a grammar school so I suspect a 6 in language was the minimum grade. Special consideration from an exam board would not raise the marks enough to get from a 4 to a 6, the allowances are very tiny.

@JustHereWithMyPopcorn sorry I hadn't spotted the 4. No it wouldn't have made a difference. But I find it interesting that the pupil wasn't seated in a smaller room or given rest breaks. We do both of those things for pupils with anxiety or Illness.
Unfortunately with this stuff it comes down to knowing what to ask for in the first place sometimes.

Yes I agree, it's a real shame that she has to leave the school althoguh it doesn't sound like she was that happy there. Hopefully a fresh start will be a good thing if the appeal fails.

Does your daughters friend have other choices because very soon it will be too late for this academic year. Also she needs to resit the English - Does the grammar support resits? I would approach other sixth forms, Further Education Colleges.

OP you seem to have had advice from exams' officers but you haven't tagged the Mumsnet appeals experts properly so here:
@prh47bridge
@admissions
@panelchair
@tiggytape

I am no longer contributing to appeals threads. I’ve said everything I have to say on appeals on hundreds of threads over the years.

Tiggytape hasn’t been here for years.

I suggest you start by looking at all the appeals information on gov.uk

You can’t force a sixth form to take a child of they don’t meet the criteria.
A friends DD got a place at a local secondary for A levels despite just missing out on grades. Your friend will need to call around as many schools as possible to see if one will take her DD if she really doesn’t want to go to college.

In addition, due to the grade she had in English the state schools she can apply for are certain colleges where smoking is permitted in school compounds as adults also study there. This environment is causing her more anxiety.

Get her into a school that will accept her, tell her not to walk past the smoking designated areas, and get her working with a therapist. Many of her future opportunities for education, employment and life - just fun stuff - will involve being around people with cigarettes and vapes. She would be better off addressing that now, not trying to avoid it.

None of the school based sixth forms in my area has smoking areas though. Look at those options, for a school based sixth with lower entry grades.

She had a 4 . Grammar school requirement was a 4. She will retake English

Just go to the college.

If the requirement was a 4 and she got a 4 then how did she miss the requirements? Do you mean that the requirement was 5 or 6?

My error, she got a 4 requirement is a 5

A school is not a diagnostic service for dyslexia, if she is 16 I’m surprised you haven’t noticed she has difficulties in reading and writing.

Access arrangements also have to be normal way of working, so along with a diagnosis of dyslexia extra time would need to be her normal way of working, on top of that centres have to shown they have first tried rest breaks to a reasonable level.

Diagnosed anxiety can lead to things like a small venue, but anxiety around exams is excluded from this.

Flies? Really?