Number of kids getting extra time in exams MASSIVELY overstated

[noblegiraffe]

Ofqual are withdrawing their statistics on how many children getting extra time and other accommodations in GCSEs and A-levels because they've admitted that they are completely wrong. It's something I know has been referenced quite a few times here so I thought it worth flagging.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/jul/17/ofqual-admits-massively-exaggerating-number-of-students-getting-exam-assistance?

"The new analysis suggests that the actual proportion of students receiving access arrangements – including 25% extra time in exams – is now broadly in line with the proportion of students with special educational needs in the school population."

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofqual-withdraws-access-arrangements-statistics

A starting point is are they running out of time / given more time can they actually do better?

Gaining a 3 and not answering the last questions is very different from gaining a 3 with poor answers from the off.

Because exams stipulate how well someone is at x questions. If they had 2 hours or 3 it wouldn't be as difficult (in some subjects like English lang) because you need to be able to write a critical, detailed response which is not verbose. You need to be able to read through the extracts quickly, but also pick out detail. If you have longer to read it then it's not testing comprehension as well as it could do. They give enough time for the questions, and students need to work towards it - also thry consider that when marking. They know you've only had 45 minutes for your response. In the case if English Land the Q5 story obviously 45 minutes limits the depth of a story and they know that and award marks accordingly.

Your child may have found English Lang difficult for time, but other children will find History, or Sociology difficult for time. It's an exam, you can't give out grades like candy. If a kid really struggles then they likely need access arrangements (to level the playing field). But some kids won't do need them can also struggle. Solution = work harder, practice exam questions timed over and over, get teachers to mark it,watch videos, study etc. Yes some kids may naturally find things easier but even that at GCSE, A-level and beyond will only get you so far e.g grade 5. The kids who get 6,7,8,9 they work for it a lot, in my experience. They do countless exam questions, revise for hours, constantly getting them marked and looking for the areas to improve. To do well you need to work hard, it's and exam and they're are only going to be a certain number of x grades. One of the reasons for an exam is to test skills within a time limit - its meant to be tight for time because it's hard.

Also if you can do exams in the order of highest mark to lowest so then if you do miss a question or don't finish then Q1 - 4 marks or Q2 - 8 marks shouldn't be the difference between a grade 3 and 4 because you've done the other 3 questions which are 68 marks (for Paper 1). Otherwise if those marks were the difference, you'd have likely done quite badly on the other questions.

I'm grateful for @noblegiraffe for posting this, and I look forward to the follow up in months to come.
The statistics seems to suggest the number of students with accommodations is on par with the number of students with SEN, add to that the multiple VAT threads where parents state that they send their children to independent schools for the quieter environment and lower student to teacher ratio (not including specialty sen schools) the concept that more private schools students get accommodations than state school might be better understood (or disproven).
I get the impression the grades are on a bell curve (a certain % required to fail) i see this as a bigger issue, all students who take the exam and reach a minimum score should pass (with a potential that all students who write an exam could pass and not have any failures that particular year).

I can see that we won't agree. But over years on MN I have consistently seen EngLang raised as the most tight on time subject (in the same way that Art is consistently raised as a time eater during the course).

I just don't see why speed reading / comprehension needs to be tested over and above a slower pace for slower readers. Ditto speed analysis.
If they want to stop kids being verbose they could put a word count on answers.

Making one of the most critical exams a 16yo can sit, which is a gateway to so many things, the most tight for time, seems just unnecessary.

And that is another point. Eng Lang seems to be the only subject where students are often recommended to not tackle the paper in order. That also seems ... curious.

Good god you'd be the last person I'd want to work for 🤔

Haven't RTFT yet but I've worked in schools in the past - a lot of the additional provision isn't necessarily extra time. Lots of kids took reader pens, though often they didn't use them. Same with extra time. More so in GCSEs. By A-Level most of the kids were keen to take every minute they were entitled to.

A lot comes down to what GCSEs and A levels are actually intended to do.

Basically they're a sieving system.

Who is suited to A levels, who is suited to academic university degrees, who is suited to university degrees pitched at a particular level.

Not all children are suited to everything.

DH and I were very academic, DD is the complete opposite. She would be utterly miserable doing A levels - regardless of her CAT scores. She will be blissfully happy doing a L3 Extended BTEC which is a great fit, and it doesn't limit her university choices in anyway.

If a child is only really capable of getting a 5 in Maths, then they really shouldn't be considering Maths A level or a Maths degree. It's not going to be a happy experience for anyone.

Maybe better if parents focused more on their own child and how they fit within the system we have.

My child having extra time and a laptop doesn't affect your child's results in any way whatsoever.

If you feel your child struggles in a way that is seriously impacting their getting an exam grade that is in line with their ability, then pick up the phone to school and discuss it.

DD's dyslexia is so severe that it is blatantly obvious to everyone, so everything from Ed Psych to Access Arrangements was just automatically sorted. But, I still contacted school to discuss whether it was better to enable spell-check and editing in exchange for an automatic deduction of all SPaG marks in all exams (20% in English Lang, 5-6% in most others) or hope she might manage to scrape a few marks that made it worthwhile. I worried her syntax will make examiners think she's stupid and they won't give benefit of the doubt etc.

And anyone whinging about access arrangements at school being unfair is going to explode when they see what you get later on. We have colleges and universities falling over themselves to explain how much support and tech they will be putting in place. After the very real stress over the last few years it's amazing.

Maybe some of the issues with EngLang could be resolved if they brought back Foundation and Higher tiers. Though that still possibly wouldn't resolve the ridiculously tight times.

You actually draw the line with some very specific tests where the students are watched and timed in certain ways. If a child is slightly slower, their marks on these tests won't be low enough to qualify for extra time. There are very hard lines drawn by the exam boards and it is very clear where they are drawn. Plus people who perform the tests have done extensive training and have been verified by the exam boards. Without the proper paper work, the application for access arrangements, be that extra time or something else will be refused.

One thing the exam.board states that it must be the usual practice of the child. E.g. if they usually use a laptop they can in exam, if they do t they can't. If they usually have a scribe in classroom they can have one in exam.

Yep or being trans and winning a women's competition

Oh yes, let's all remember that a child who is dyslexic, has ADHD, is hyper mobile, has processing difficulties and can't see properly, who has been given an additional 22 minutes to write 3 history essays has such massive advantages over the NT kid ... 🙄

It’s definitely increased

I'd like to mention that extra time in an exam does not overcome all the disadvantages of slower processing.

Slower processing also means that lessons will tend to go too fast so the student has to focus much harder than average to take in what is being taught, and will miss more of the details.

Additionally is means that revision is harder and takes longer so it takes more effort to learn the same amount.

Extra time in an exam means more time stuck in exams and less down time between exams / less last minute going over notes time.

Obviously extra time should be given for disabilities, but is “slower processing” a disability, or is it just that the child is not as intelligent/academic as a comparator?

Back in the day. I took far longer to “get” Maths and Science at school and I had to think about questions for far longer before writing my answers. Other kids just whizzed through them.

My GCSE grades in these subjects reflected the fact that I was not a natural. It would have given a false impression to any employer, if extra time had increased my grade as it would not have been a true reflection of my ability.

I taught a kid who got all A*s at GCSE and then at A-level it was revealed that they needed extra time. They were incredibly clever and really hardworking and this made up for their slow processing speed at GCSE but at A-level they couldn't finish the exams in time.

They got top grades at A-level too.

That pretty much describes DD too, but she was working well within her limits at A level and in coursework-heavy subjects. Unfortunately, in hindsight, she chose a university that depended on final exams, and was squeezed for time. Extra time (to which, it now turns out, she would have been entitled) might have made quite a difference.

I shall now go and name change before she kills me.

@noblegiraffe
My DD couldn’t finish one of her GCSEs but knew the answers to the last 7 questions. She probably has dropped two grades. It’s not her strongest subject, so she takes longer to answer, but would get almost 100% if she had extra time.

However if she got a 9 in maths, would that grade reflect her true ability compared to someone who got a 9 having done the paper in half the time?

Actually I’ve just remembered a good one from my Invigilating time.

A new invigilator was hired and just before the first exam announced that due to anxiety issues she would need someone with her at all times. She said that she would do the walking round, handing out papers etc but she requested another invigilator sit beside her in all exams (despite there being several other invigilators in hall). The face of the Chief Invigilator and even more so the face of the Exam Officer who had a budget!

I know someone will trumpet that this was a reasonable adjustment, but really!

I know several children who get extra time in part, but not wholly for issues with slower processing, including my DD.

A lot depends on discrepancies with other scores.

A child who has average VR, NVR and spatial scores, combined with average processing speed and average working memory is likely to be looking at average grades (if we reckon they are reasonably hard working and no other issues) and no amount of extra time is going to change a thing with their grades.

A child who has VR, NVR and spatial scores on the 98th centile (so are in the top 2 out of every hundred people), but processing speed is average (50th centile) is going to potentially struggle compared with a child whose processing speed is in line with their other scores.

When Ed Psychs talk about spiky profiles, these are the kids they mean - where there are significant differences between their key scores.

If you then combine average processing with a weak working memory it's an even bigger issue.

What is so depressing about these kinds of threads is that the people who complain and worry that little Johnny might get an extra 20 minutes and that's 'not fair' have absolutely no clue just how much of a problem spiky scores can be in practice. Not just in exams, but every day.

Intelligence is a very difficult thing to measure and simple IQ tests that just give a score where 100 is average, >150 is genius and <50 is severely mentally challenged are basically discredited as not a useful measure. Educational Psychology assessments instead use WISC-V (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Intelligence_Scale_for_Children) to measure 5 different types of intelligence Verbal Comprehension Index (VCI), Visual Spatial Index (VSI), Fluid Reasoning Index (FRI), Working Memory Index (WMI), and Processing Speed Index (PSI).

For example a child can be on the 99.9th centile for VCI and VSI, on the 99th centile for FRI and the 90th for WMI, but on the 45th centile for PSI. They are extremely intelligent and able where it actually counts, but in standardised exams without reasonable adjustments would get worse results than a child who is around the 80th centile on all measures. A well design examinations system is set up to allow a child who has 99th centile + abilities to shine, not consign them to be categorised as someone with below-average abilities because the blunt tool of timed examinations doesn't work with how they function.

If she can answer all the questions 100% then she is really good at maths and her grade should reflect that. Is it fair that someone who can do all the questions but takes longer get awarded the same grade as someone who can only answer two thirds of them however long you gave them to do it?

You could give most kids all day in a maths exam and they still wouldn't be able to do the grade 9 questions.
So in my view yes it would reflect her true ability.

@noblegiraffe
When you put it like that I see your point!

Hey Ho… all done and dusted now 🥲

Although the fact she can eventually get the questions right still doesn’t make her the same level as someone who “got it” very quickly when being taught.

I suppose it depends what the aim of GCSEs is. If it’s to differentiate between candidates, then arguably it’s not particularly effective if some non disabled children who have slow processing either do or (to use your example ) don’t get extra time!