Daughter is being refused extra time even though she has ADHD

[YourAzureJoker]

I understand having adhd does not automatically guarantee extra time!

My daughter finished her A levels and is currently resitting at her old school. She’s expressed a need for extra time since she joined the sixth form. She was tested and it took ten months to tell her that she did not qualify for extra time. At that time, she was being assessed for ADHD and hadn’t been diagnosed yet, so she couldn’t refute it.

However, now we have done research and discovered that she could get extra time through the Form 9 as she has all the necessary evidence, as she trialed rest breaks during her exams, she had mocks with extra time, and her teacher was the person who even suggested she should be tested in the first place. We told the school about this, but they have refused, stating that her scores show that she can’t get extra time according to the JCQ guideline, but in the JCQ guideline for a Form 9, it states that those scores should not be taken into account for ADHD.

We’ve sent countless emails, which have been ignored. Am I right to believe she should be able to get extra time? She’s always finished tests last in school, and she would even come back at break time to finish them. I don’t get how her teachers were not advocating for this for her?
She ended up running out of time in her A level exams, which is one of the reasons why she’s retaking. I would appreciate some advice. Am I being reasonable? Is it truly impossible for her to get that extra time, and should we drop it as she’s not in the school anymore and is just sitting her exams there?

I’m going to call the access arrangement officer next week as I find it concerning that they’ve stated that my daughter can only get rest breaks again, but they’ve not asked why she did not find the rest breaks helpful and how they could accommodate her needs, as she complained that the invigilators kept asking her questions about the exams and were discussing topics that were not relevant to her during her rest break, which she found very distracting as she couldn’t refocus when she went back to the exam hall. She also expressed that she would want to be in a smaller room as she finds it distracting having to walk out of the exam hall just to be sat outside watching everyone write away and maybe ear muffs to create a quieter zone for focus.

Are these reasonable requests even if she doesn’t get extra time? Sorry for the rant

She was diagnosed only this year.Yes I know she will have to submit another form to the DSA stating her needs I’m pretty sure and they’ll assess her from there on.

I’m saying anything JCQ isn’t recognised by uni - your DD had a diagnosis so had reports which uni have looked at and said she needs extra time. JCQ doesn’t automatically carry over to HE

If they thought she would be grift from xtra time then surely it would have been raised years ago? Her diagnosis makes no difference. The school don’t lose anything for extra time so they aren’t gaining anything by refusing. They may genuinely feel she wouldn’t benefit/qualify for it

If there is no teacher evidence then it won’t be awarded. We have lots of kids saying they need extra time when they just mismanage their time in exams. I think tightening up the assessment is the right thing to do. The majority of kids would do better if given extra time. The school knows about the form 9-it’s just where access arrangements are recorded, it’s not a diagnostic tool. If her lucid scores are high it’s looking unlikely.

if she is not in school/college that is the issue. They cannot sign it off as an established way of working. Will she sit mocks again? If so, can that be used to measure comparative performance, with/without extra time. Any controlled assessments? Will she therefore be an external candidate if she is not on school roll, if so is she using their exam centre? How much difference is expected from a resit?

Surely this can be argued on disability discrimination grounds?

I live in Ireland and DS was diagnosed by a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist. We paid for this as a private consultation.

Interestingly, the forms he asked the secondary school staff to complete mostly ticked the boxes saying ‘fine’ and no extra support required. This was because DS is naturally fairly academic so they assumed he didn’t need any extra help. However, they at least acknowledged that his handwriting was very poor (he also has dyspraxia) and that examiners would have difficulties reading it.

Thankfully, after a few appointments, the Neurologist confirmed his diagnosis and wrote to the school with a list of recommendations for support. He also said it was quite common for schools to assume that students who ‘appeared’ to be coping ok didn’t really need extra help. He pointed out that offering reasonable adjustments ensured a more level playing field.

Obviously, it would be unwise for the school to dismiss his recommendations as they’re not the experts
here, and DS was given extra time, use of a laptop, movement breaks and sitting the exams in a smaller exam room.

As a result, his Junior Cycle results (GCSE equivalent) were very good and an improvement on his February mocks.

I think you need to spend money to go privately and get a thorough medical diagnosis and take it from there.

Thank you, my son got extra time no questions asked too in uni. All he had to do for the DSA was fill out a form and he got a laptop and a printer as well.

I’m very grateful for everyone’s reply here I’ve read all of them. I understand everyone’s point and I just don’t want to fail my daughter again as I want to make sure I try everything I can to make sure she can do her best this time around.

If school are failing to answer your questions and not reviewing the Form 9 then you could raise it as a formal complaint and require them to go through their complaints process. I believe that this eventually ends up with the Governors who are maybe less likely to want an accusation of disability discrimination. Your complaint would mean you could set out all of the accumulated evidence from teachers and mocks and quote the guidelines on FOrm 9 and why Form 8 is not relevant.

We had this with our DD where the school decided to ignore both the NHS OT report and the Edpsych's report in their entirety. Its so frustrating.

The school have to comply

https://childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/discrimination-in-education/

The equalities commission will be v helpful in this. They have a phoneline.

Has she had rest breaks before?

I believe they have to include as evidence that rest breaks have been trialled, but my knowledge is a couple of year old so apologies if that is now out of date.

Could she get a study skills tutor to help her with exam technique?

You may find that having the year to revise and focus on exam technique rather than learning may make up for what she has lost from not having extra time. As others have said university is generally less strict for exam arrangements.

She's at home studying because she wasn't 'allowed' back in? What do you mean by 'allowed'?

Have you emailed Senco and HoY and asked for an appointment to discuss. So there's a paper trail. Say if one isn't offered then your'll make a complaint?

I do exam arrangements for a job. JCQ have tightened up on the evidence required this year, requiring evidence (from teachers) of a timed assessment showing use of extra time (different colour pen or font). They have also highlighted that parental input is NOT to be used as evidence. I agree with you that your DD should get extra time, as it helped when she got it in mocks, but your DD needs to speak to the school, not you, and to try and get the teacher evidence (difficult if she’s not actually in lessons any more, but not impossible if they could use her mocks.
She could also request shared smaller room and/or ear defenders, to block out noise distraction.

It’s tricky because her scores on the tests for Form 8 were average or higher, but with ADHD it should be based more on her normal way of working than on her scores in those tests.

Another exam arrangement is promoter, which is someone to alert you if you’re just sitting wasting your time, or spending too long on one question etc.

@NeedToKnow101 Apologies for jumping in. but given your job wondered if I could have a cheeky ask? My daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy this year. If she has a seizure then the whole day is effectively wiped out. And her meds make her very tired - she’s not making it in to school until second period as she is so fatigued if I try to wake her earlier. Will we be able to get agreements she can take a different day if has a seizure or at a different time if exam is early in the morning when she’ll be fatigued?

Schools will keep records. What was the situation in GCSEs? Was she granted extra time? If she was, did she actually use it or did she not?
Exam boards are getting much stricter, due to the high number of parents requesting extra time and rest breaks. There needs to be concrete evidence from an approved professional. And they will have expected your daughter to have used this during GCSEs. If your school is audited they need to be squeaky clean.

Thank goodness! It is such bullshit and parents are trying to game the system to give their children an unfair advantage.

Sorry to hear that. Give the SENDco her medical evidence. If she’s doing the whole range of GCSEs I don’t think her school would rearrange any on the off-chance she has a seizure, as the exams are at set dates and times. (It can be offered in certain circumstances I think though, but not something I’ve ever come across).

If she has a seizure on the day of the exam (or day before) the school can apply for special consideration, for marking, for the papers impacted.
Depending on the type and severity of the seizures her school might offer her rest breaks, and the environment should be taken into consideration, e.g, if artificial light can trigger her seizures, she could be in a room with natural light. If her seizures are happening alongside other difficulties, other exam arrangements might be considered.

Game the system?
What absolute bollocks.

Would you like to swap your child for mine with his disabilities?

I thought not! 🤔

You need to speak to the exams officer about appropriate arrangementsbut the public exams timetable is not flexible. There are procedures for handling clashes, involving supervision of candidates between exams in isolation to avoid any potential leaks of content, but normally this is taken on the same day/next morning which may not work for your dc even if it were available at short notice in the event of a medical situation If one or more papers for an exam are taken it maybe possible for a grade to be awarded on the basis of those marks even if one is missed , think minimum is 25% of the overall exam must have been taken.

This -when I was teaching we would get endless requests from parents to evidence that their child needed extra time -it c was getting ridiculous. It is a good thing that JCQ are finally tightening up.

DD3 had an OT assessment which evidenced her slow writing. That might be something to consider.

They can also flunk totally despite being clever if there are even the slightest distraction. A tapping pen, an coughing student etc can paralyse them into not being able focus on an exam paper

Lots of children don't have time to finish all of the questions in an A level exam. It's actually perfectly normal for many children not to finish every question. I examined A levels for over 20 years and this is very common. Grade boundaries are standardised on many children not completing every question.

Invigilators should not be talking to your daughter while she is on rest breaks - that is against jcqs rules!
also why is she leaving the room for rest breaks - unless she needs a movement break which by the sound of it she doesn’t- she should just be closing her paper and staying at her desk and then restarting at end of break in

The standard procedure is that the student can start the exam up to one hour before the normal finish time of the exam. So if it's a morning exam say 9.30-12 your daughter would need to start the exam by 11am, or an afternoon exam say 1-3.30 by 2.30. This is because she cannot meet the students who have sat the paper at the normal time to be given a full run-down of the questions, before she completes the exam. (Not saying your daughter would, but obviously she could if she was taking the exam on a different day,)

There is procedure for "clash candidates" if a student ends up doing an unusual combination of subjects and has 2 exams at the same time, - which involves the student being supervised securely by school staff either at home or elsewhere from the time the normal exam finished until the time the candidate can sit the exam. Otherwise the school would need to put in a special circumstances form for your daughter and the board would probably give her an overall grade from coursework and predicted grades for any exams she had missed.