Access arrangements GCSE's

[Northernsoul72]

Hi

Do we have any teachers etc who may have experience of this? I thought my daughters arrangements for extra time were in place, however I get an email today from the school to ask if the can send in her EHCP as supporting evidence. It all seems very last minute considering they start the middle of May. Or am I wrong?

Not a teacher worked in exams the cut off date will be next week (Friday 21st)

That is for extra time etc - a small room doesn’t need to be cleared

Goodness me, they are cutting it short

It’s on the edge I assume they are bringing it all together now to submit next Friday and it is just getting the permissions now. Exams tend to work to the deadlines due to the continued cyclical nature of it!

My daughter's was only sorted in early March.

A bit worrying they had to ask you for her EHCP though. They should be able to access it very easily through SEN team.

We have definitely put things in place after March for GCSEs. I had a student 3 years ago who was quite severely visually impaired. She already had enlarged papers and extra time but following her mocks, the local authority VA expert wanted her to have rest breaks. I emailed the exam board for my subject (Music) and asked their advice. The subject officer came back very quickly and explained how she wanted it to work. I forwarded the email to the Exams Officer and then talked through with the student how to make it work.

In Music, students write their answers directly onto the question paper. The extracts are played either from a CD or now I think it's downloaded the day before. We all agreed that the student could pause the recording and then turn over the paper during her rest breaks. She decided herself that she wanted to take a rest break after every 2 questions, as there are 8 on the paper, so it would break things up fairly evenly. We both chatted to the invigilator who was very happy with this and all went well. I'm pretty sure this all happened after Easter and the exam board came back to me within 24 hours.

The 21st March is the main deadline unless something happens (we had a girl hurt her hand a need a scribe for example)

it is much easier to add in extra things such as rest breaks but different exams papers or a completely new candidate much harder as it should reflect the normal way of working

I imagine at the OPs school they are getting it all together for the final week everything in exams runs to the deadline!

I definitely had to send a copy of DD2’s diagnosis of dyslexia around this time, the school had a copy (she was diagnosed three schools prior but for whatever reason they needed it again.

Dd1 had more complex arrangements with separate room, rest breaks and a known invigilator in the room due to complex issues, that was started earlier, January if i remember correctly as there was backwards and forwarding, report from of mental health nurse etc not just a single diagnosis letter. Dd1 didn’t really need extra time, it was the ability to not be in the same room as others that was key