Dyspraxic DS being let down by school in year 11

[Steggers123]

My DS is in year 11 and GCSE's are looming. He is dyspraxic and as a result his handwriting is illegible. He also has organisational issues and problems with his short term memory. Everything is in place for his GCSE's, laptop in exams, extra time and a scribe for maths.

He is really struggling with the pressures of controlled assessments, so many deadlines to meet and so much to it together. I have been in to see the head of SEN on numerous occasions to see if we can get some strategies for coping in place but nothing is forthcoming. Before Christmas he did his first set of mocks, when he does an exam on the laptop, learning support print off his papers and hand them to his teachers. They have not printed off his chemistry paper, part of his physics paper and his maths paper 3 was not given to his teacher. Even worse his physics ISA paper 2 which needs to go to the exam board has also been lost on the system. I'm trying my hardest to help my DS, build up his confidence and achieve his potential but school are messing up. What do I do next, head of SEN is lovely, but nothing is changing, what happens if they lose his actual GCSE papers in the summer? I am at my wits end with it all.

but if you are in a different room, what happens when students want to look again at the equipment, or try and different method, or refer back to something they have done? do you not let your students do that?

Do you do AQA? The papers are under high control conditions. They are timed.

and what happens to the laptop during a wet practical? And how does the student complete a graph started on the exam paper, or refer three ways between the paper, the results and the laptop?

We have all sorts of disabiities and problems amongst our students taking ISAs, but never have a met anyone for whom a laptop is considered appropriate, or who has asked for one.

it would not be the prefered way of working, because the use has been strongly discouraged in recent years, as it is known they compound the educational problems they were meant to alleviate

Yes I do AQA

we are doing one tomorrow actually. (no time limit)

Please could you provide a link re: laptops not helping?

Paper 1 and paper 2 are timed. The research and practical are low control and not timed. The OP refers to paper 2 being lost. Paper 2 is timed. My students drew sketch graphs etc on the paper, and answered either on the paper or on a word document as they chose. No need for a laptop in the practical.

User, how on earth could using a laptop compound my son's problems? He would not have got through the last few years of his education without one and will use one in sixth form and at university.

Ds used to print his off before leaving the exam room. Surely it is a risk to the integrity of the script to remove the laptop and print it later elsewhere. You should make a formal complaint to the exams officer about the lost papers.

User, here is a sample of his handwriting, what alternative to a laptop on a day to day basis would you suggest?

Ds' is similar. Cannot sustain clarity for any length of time and hand gets tired (hyperflexible joints). He's used a laptop since y6, now at uni.

LIZS yes, for children now at university, they were allowed to become laptop dependent, but now it is recognised that it hinders development significantly.

steggars, I can see that he is clearly not bad enough to need a scribe, although it would concern me that he isn't getting enough hand writing practice. I'm dyspraxic, and consider that I need to practice every day, nd in quite large amounts, even at 50+

fallen madonna, we must be doing a different spec, our papers are not timed

Not clear what you mean by "hinders development". Very few roles in life require handwriting these days. There is no way ds could take lecture notes or write essays by hand. I think he still handwrote some gcse papers, like maths and science.

User, so you are suggesting that his illegible handwriting is not bad enough for a scribe and with a bit of practise it will be alright. He's 16 years old, we've done it all, extra handwriting sessions at school, handwriting sessions out of school done by the OT service and after years of assessments the professionals have come to the conclusion that no amount of practising is going to make a blind bit of difference. He has come up against attitudes like yours an awful lots whilst he has been at school and each time his confidence has been destroyed. You say you have dyspraxia yourself then surely you should understand the frustration of a very bright child who cannot get the thoughts in his head down on paper.

So my son sounds very similar but he's still only yr 8. He currently works with a scribe and has extra time but the aim (which we are already working towards with some success) is that he will use a laptop for most of his GCSEs. Like your son he is bright and typing (with the spell checker turned off) will allow him to full access to SPAG marks. I never heard that typing can hinder the development before so I'd be very interested to see any links on this. In fact we've been consistently told that typing will help him because he will be able to work independently (and I've spoken to a lot of people (sencos, teachers, OTs, and ed psychologist) across a wide range of schools. He isn't keen on working with scribes and I can understand why. I'd be very concerned about the school's handling of printing of your son's papers though and think this is worth escalating now to make sure they get proper procedures in place by the time he sits his actual GCSEs (and sort out the missing exam paper issue )

Steggers123

I have shown your posts to my DH and he is shocked by the behaviour of the staff at your DS school

Does your son have a form teacher that you can ask for help with who is responsible for which part of the school if you can't find it on the website?

The first thing you need to do is find out who the examination officer is

Also, report to the deputy or head teacher or director of academic studies - the lack of competence in the staff concerned with your son's mock exams and assessments

In reality it should be an email sent to everybody (by cc) including the SEN teacher who told you what had happened, also examination officer

He was Head of Chemistry at his school and students did use laptops.

If OP son is needing to use a laptop, that is not the issue that the OP has with his school. It is that the exam work has gone missing and nobody is interested in helping her son and marking him down rather than trying to find out why the papers didn't arrive for marking

The post about printing in his opinion is of no relevance to the OP as there is something seriously wrong with a school if the exam printing is included in a teacher or dept quota and if they, an individual or dept have gone over a quota and then say they can't or won't print exam papers then it is ridiculous

User, so you are suggesting that his illegible handwriting is not bad enough for a scribe

well, it doesn't look bad enough just on the sample you have shown, but of course I don't know how long that took him.

But its certainly not illegible, on the contrary, its completely clear, although untidy. In a class of 30 average 16 year olds, I would expect at least 5-10 of them to be less clear.

And if this is what he achieves without handwriting practice, he might not have much of a problem if he did do practice.

if I stop writing, it deteriorates so fast i would be illegible within a week or two. So I always write every day, but then it is no real hardship for me, as I am very figity prefer it to sitting still anyway, so I have a pen or pencil to hand all the time whilst watching tv, listening to the radio or even listening to someone talk in work.

Has he tried colouring? as an alternative? I've tried that too, but it didn't suit me so much. It suits some of my dyspraxic pupils though.

Oh my goodness I am raging, DS has come from school with the news that that someone in learning support has deleted his high level controlled assessment for Geography which is saved on one of the exam laptops. I'm hoping there is a hard copy somewhere, he works on the assessment during geography lessons then it is saved and the exam laptop returned until next lesson. I actually am lost for words, I have emailed school regarding the other issues but something has gone seriously wrong here. My poor DS, he may as well just give up.

We are both shocked at what the school are doing to your poor son

Learning support seem to be useless with these laptops

The only bright light is that I think that it is very difficult to actually delete things from memory of computers

As in the IT dept might be able to retrieve it from inside the depths of the hard drive, how IT savvy are the school IT dept?

Then the other thing is to put a formal compliant to the head teacher as this is really not fair on your DS, I know that doesn't get his work back but it might stop his other subjects from being deleted too

How easy is it for you to go to see headteacher? I think putting in email is good in that there is a written record of it but this needs sorting PDQ

RTKanga, I actually can't quite get my head around what he has just told me. I really hope it can be retrieved, he's been working on it since November. I will call the head of SEN in the morning, I'm also going to fire an email off to her this evening. The headteacher is hopeless, the school is rated as requiring improvement and he tendered his resignation last term. My son is bright and full of potential particularly in the sciences and now I'd be happy if he just gets the five gcse's he needs to get into sixth form, sorry that's not very positive is it, but I'm starting to despair so goodness knows how he feels.

You need to have anot urgent meeting with whichever member of the senior team is responsible for exams. No lower than Assistant Head. If you don't know who that is, phone and ask.

Not the Head of SEN. It is an examination issue, not a SEN issue.

One of the deputy head teachers is actually his geography teacher so it may be worth speaking to him. So do you think we should bypass SEN and learning support now and have it taken out of their hands. If they cannot retrieve the assessment, can he possibly do it again? If necessary can we contact the exam board ourselves? Sorry to bombard you with questions, I'm in panic mode!

Call the examinations officer as a matter of urgency. It is their responsibility to ensure adjustments are implemented in accordance with the rules and coursework/cas submitted and moderated.

Crumbs!!!!

Ok head is not good idea

Fallen is right contact the exam office it is their job to safeguard exams etc

Somebody must take responsibility for this and probably lots of other children's exam work

If it was a student who didn't try or care about doing their best then that would be different but your DS is doing the work but then other people (it seems to be the SEN dept) are stopping it getting to the right person for marking or deleting it - my goodness I would be at screaming pitch too