GCSE exam anxiety

[Wedoneedsomeeducation]

I’d be grateful if anyone could help with reasons able adjustments a school can make NOW for severe GCSE examination anxiety.

DD has anxiety, recognised by medical professionals. Her school have been spectacularly unhelpful. CAMHS we’re just awful, but wave been involved in the past . Mostly we’ve managed it out of school and privately and she was at a brilliant place.

she’s started having panic attacks and loosing consciousness.

We know the date for special adjustments for exams has passed. Is it too late to ask the school that she goes in a smaller room, has a named person-first aider to go to?

Will A GP give a 15/16 year old anti anxiety drugs that work straight away? We’ve not got time to wait for ssri even if I did think they were a good idea.

what happens if she is too ill to sit exams? She’s a bright kid and needs certain grades to do what she wants to do next. She’s predicted 7-9s but I’m concerned if she doesn’t sit her exams she’ll get 0 and have to redo maths and English and won’t be able to do a levels. If that happens we will make it work but obviously I’d rather it didn’t!

thank you!

GPs will not prescribe ADs for under 16s. That has to be a psychiatrist.
You can contact the Examinations Officer and request EA - send copies of all documentation from camhs etc
You could try things like promethazine for sleep and calms or similar prior to the exams?
The school can make their own EA decisions if you aren't asking for extra time (so, smaller room, resf breaks)
Good luck

Small room is at schools discretion so should be fine.

GP could prescribe propranolol to block the adrenaline rush - do go and speak to them and ask.

Agree. A GP can prescribe propranolol for immediate impact.

Promethazine hydrochloride is know as the 'magic blue pill' in our house for sleeping.

The school can give access to a smaller room. They won't want to give it to just anyone so them knowing the official diagnosis and history will help. Every additional room costs them money for an invigilator.

How did she get on with mocks?

Presumably she knows and practices self calming techniques such as breathing, the 54321 technique, cross body tapping etc?

You need to do everything you can at home to reduce stress so she makes it into the exams. If she is a 7-9 student she should pass even if below par provides she gets into the exams.

If she has to go a round about route in 6th form it isn't the end of the world.

Thanks all. I’ll be back to follow up in a bit. Dealing with PA

This official guidance may help:
https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/blogs/understanding-the-requirements-for-separate-invigilation/

Small rooms are "easy" to sort out. I'm an invidulator who isn't assigned any exams (I already work in the school FT). But I get pulled at short notice when they needed extra bodies. I've done 1-1 for anxious kids (and dealt with the puke), I've conducted exams at diningroom tables in pupils houses- Please don't ask for this unless getting her out of the house is impossible tho.
I'd open up communications with the exams officer - and the Sendco if you already have a relationship with them, and see what they propose.
But also work on strategies that will a)calm her in general and b) could work during an exam.
Good luck!

I am an exam invigilator and as pp have mentioned small room is at the school’s discretion. I have often invigilated pupils on their own due to severe anxiety. I would contact the exams officer to see what can be done. Rest breaks don’t require exam board approval either and this may help if she was feeling overwhelmed and needed five minutes outside in the fresh air.

Thank you all so much.

we have contacted the school at they’ve been their usual unhelpful self. They’ve had all the paperwork. It’s very difficult to describe how unhelpful they’ve been. I feel like I’m going slightly mad when I deal with them.

next week we will get an emergency gp appointment. I know it may not seem like an emergency but non emergency apts are made for a fortnights time and that’s too long.

she was fine with the mocks.

it is great to know that it is the school’s discretion to ask for separate rooms. Apart from anything else, if she’s sick or worse in the exam hall it’s going to be dreadful for everyone else. She doesn’t want to be in with the disruptive kids though. I’ll happily pay for an invigilator, will I be allowed to?

She has said she can’t remember any of the self calming techniques. Argh.

She is 16 so can she get anti anxiety drugs from the GP? If she’s got to go to a psychiatrist I’d imagine that would have to be private to do it on time.

I would say trying to access anything like an SSRI would be impossible before before the exams and they take time, weeks, to work and also have initial side effects. The propranolol will likely be much more helpful and obtainable.

My DD was prescribed propranolol at 15.

Anti depressants can have anxiety reducing effect but you do not want to be starting them so soon before exams and they would need a consultant psychiatrist anyway.

I think you need to practice calming techniques when she is calm and she needs to recognize when she is starting to get anxious and use them as intervention. As well as the standard techniques I listed above, for DD we do 'animal alphabet - aardvark, beaver, coypu, dog etc' but that may be niche for her.

If she was fine for mocks has something happened to set things off now, or did she have the anxiety before? Is she anxious about the exams, or anxious about being anxious?

It is also worth knowing if she misses some exams due to legitimate reasons then she can still get a GCSE in those subjects so long as she has sat some assessment in that subject (e.g. 1 of the 3 maths papers). They calculate her grade from the papers/coursework completed.

I’m Confused as the official guidance says she needs to have needed to work in an individual room for the mocks to get an individual room for the real thing. It also seems to be that we are too late?

I’ve asked for a meeting with Senco and exams officer but not hopeful. Requesting gp apt and looking at those antihistamine s

What official guidance? Schools or exam authority?

The school won't want to put every anxious pupil into an individual room for cost/logistics reasons, but the fact your DD is having such severe attacks means it would be more sensible for all concerned for her to be in a smaller room as then she is maybe less likely to panic and will disrupt fewer others if she does.

Generally for any access arrangement to be granted it has to be the candidate’s normal way of working eg they need to type their answers, have extra time due to processing issues etc. However, Ime rest breaks and being accommodated in a smaller room can be granted by the school. Schools are not keen on separate accommodation as extra invigilators are required and costs go up. However, based on information from your DD’s gp the school should have a plan to support your dd. The purpose of any access arrangement is to ensure there is a level playing field for all candidates. It appears your dd would be disadvantaged by sitting her exams in a large hall, so ask the school what they will do to ensure she has the same opportunity as all other candidates.
There are deadlines re submitting info for access arrangements but things happen at the last minute and candidates’ needs cannot be ignored due to deadlines. I have been a scribe for a candidate with a broken arm for example.

Scrap this, see post below!

Here's the relevant guidance.

If she is having panic attacks and passing out, that would definitely disturb other candidates.

I'm another who would recommend to contact GP about propranolol (our GP prescribed for a 15 year old experiencing panic attacks). Also have the same comments about the arrangements (ex-invigilator and we always had a smaller room of 10-15 students where some like your daughter could be accommodated at the last minute). DS had panic attacks that also saw him black out and you can't have that in a main hall and it not be a disruption.

Another thing you might be able to do if you can find one and afford it is consider a hypnotherapist for a few sessions working on anxiety and techniques for recentering themselves. I honestly doubted it massively, but were recommended it and it worked brilliantly. Only had 3 sessions. Hasn't solved the anxiety but has helped to control it and the more it's practiced the quicker they can apply it when they start to feel things getting too much.

Thank you all so much!

hypnotherapy sounds good to me but might be a bit wooo for the family!

resurrecting this thread from the dead a bit...
@CasparBloomberg can you advise how you found a hypnotherapist?