Extra time

[UltimateLuxury]

This isn’t meant to be provocative but…

my daughter is sitting GCSEs at the moment and told me last night that 43 kids of 120 are getting extra time

This seems really high to me. The school, although fee paying, is very academically strong and doesn’t have large SEN numbers.

To be clear, my point is not that my daughter isn’t getting this extra time. However, it feels that maybe the pendulum has perhaps swung to the point that those that really do need the additional time may be being disadvantaged by those with softer requirements?

How is the decision made? Would be interested in views.

I’m invigilating at the moment. My thoughts;
1: Not all children who get extra time get it for every subject. I check each day which subjects those children are getting their extra time for.
2: Lots of evidence is needed to get it.
3: They don’t always use it.
4: Why does anyone care? It’s really about evening things up, not giving an advantage.
5: I’m invigilating in a private school, the extra timers are very much the minority- by a long way.

I think the amount of extra-time in private schools and leafy comps will be the next national scandal. It is actually upholding systemic privilege in many cases.

As an invigilator I once had a group of four in a room, each with their own scribe, none of them wrote a word but at least the school could say they had given them every opportunity. It was their last exam and they didn't care but I wonder what they are doing now.

I also invigilated at different times a couple if students with anxiety who did their exams alone in a room with me. Personally, I wondered how they would cope in the world outside school and I would have thought it was more stressful to work in a room alone with one invigilator looking at you but that was none of my business.

I’m not sure you understand how grade boundaries work… 😂

I think it is only a 'huge advantage' for those who are significantly slower.

For others they may be able to pick up a few extra marks by spotting mistakes, adding small details. That may or may not get them over a grade boundary.

But for those who really need it it helps them access the last 20% of the paper, tackling whole questions they wouldn't otherwise have got to.

And more time in exams isn't much of an advantage in the GCSE marathon if it isn't needed.

A minority- I should hope so! Our local private schools are sitting at about 30% on extra-time. Much higher than state (which is high enough regardless). It’s a disgrace and money talks.

i posted earlier that my Dd only received extra time in subjects where there was evidence that her illness had affected the grade. However, as an invigilator I have never seen a situation where a learner only has extra time in some papers, but no doubt that depends on the evidence submitted?
There are so many factors to consider. In mock exams I give the learners more support eg I have learners not use an e-reader and then find out they don’t know how to use it and are too embarrassed to ask.

It's not an advantage though, it's about levelling the playing field.

There is such a wide range of reasons why ET may be given that it's hard to clamp down without cutting off access to people who really do need it.

I had ET when I was in school because I'm deaf, and one of the side effects is that I get horrific tinnitus when in a silent room. The halls where we would normally do exams would trigger it and it massively affected my ability to concentrate.

The solution was to have me take the exam in the same room as the students who had a reader so that there would be constant background noise to avoid the tinnitus, and the ET was to account for the extra distractions that came from being in a room with multiple high needs students (there was several meltdowns and one instance of furniture being thrown around the room).

We also had some exams that were answering questions in a time limited format by listening to a tape and I was allowed to replay the question three times and ask a 1 to 1 staff member to clarify if I'd understood the question properly.

Many people objected to me getting ET "for being deaf" and said it was unfair. It's hard to know exactly how someone is affected unless you've been through it yourself.

Again, with all due respect, it’s abundantly clear that you do not teach English or any other essay subject. Extra-time is the biggest advantage a candidate could have.

How do you know how many students have extra time in your local private schools?

Do they get extra time just because of a diagnosis? Or does the diagnosis prompt evidence gathering in school? In Scotland a diagnosis alone would not result in alternative exam arrangements, evidence would still need to be gathered in school in every subject. This can also be done for pupils who have no official diagnosis.

It’s an advantage when better off candidates can pay for private diagnosis. In my experience as a teacher across both sectors this happens regularly. There are strange bedfellows at play in this debate- it’s a coalition of the obviously well-meaning / ‘be kind’ lobby who are inadvertently giving the most privileged in society an extra leg up. What a funny old world!

Family and friends across most local schools. Teachers talk.

So gossip then, not facts.n

Can’t speak for all schools but I know an invigilator in two separate ones. She says a lot of this year’s cohort are pretty ridiculous and not at all responsible.
Getting extra time and not using it wisely. Taking a ridiculous number of toilet breaks just to have a walk around, falling asleep in exams, faffing around.
It wasn’t like that years ago. Sorry but it just wasn’t.

Of course there are some who just want to get it done as well as possible. But this year seems to be very ‘needy’.

You are wilfully blind. Do you deny that wealthy students getting a private diagnosis that leads to advantage in exams is a problem? If this were going on, would you have an issue with it?

If they don’t know the answers then all the time in the world won’t make a difference and neither would removing extra time. You only use extra time if you are able to tackle the question.

Parents at independent schools can afford to pay thousands for diagnoses. As a teacher, I’ve never seen a single one of these come back without a diagnosis. Extra time then follows. Even if all these diagnoses are genuine, it is yet another way in which kids from wealthy families get a leg-up - whilst children from families who can’t afford to get these private diagnoses are waiting years to get help, often never getting it before they leave school. The whole system is a shambles.

I invigilate in a state school. The only experience I have of private schools is my DD’s application for extra time which I detailed above. My Dd’s consultant (private following nhs treatment) provided details of her chronic health condition and she received extra time in two out of four subjects based on this letter and her mock results. My experience doesn’t support your argument of wealthy parents buying an exam advantage, does it?

My year 10 son gets the 25%, he has diagnosed inattentive ADHD, dyslexia and extremely slow processing speed. He is also in top sets for all subjects and is predicted 7-9’s across his GCSE’s.

him being able to achieve those grades is based far less on his academic ability rather, how he deals with the exam conditions on the day-he will have a prompter. I’m many ways the extra time is a torture to him, but literally reading and comprehending the question takes him significantly longer than children without his difficulties.

it’s still a possibility that he may zone out and miss massive chunks of his papers, results day is going to be interesting that’s for sure!

Are you disputing the fact that many private school parents do indeed do this?

I already said that English is right for time for all.
That is the 'fault' of the English GCSE exams, not of the concept of extra time.

It may well be that the criteria for who qualifies needs to be tightened. I think mine would still clearly qualify even under a more stringent system.

Yes, I’m not sure the posters on the thread have thought about this angle when defending generous extra-time allowances. See no evil, hear no evil etc.

How is she supposed to know? I invigilate in a state school too, albeit a state school in a very leafy suburb. Why would I know what parents at other schools are doing, whether state or private?