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Here you'll find advice from parents and teachers on special needs education.

Potential problem with GCSE/A Level papers printing

3 replies

LittleBlackLamb · 23/05/2022 11:05

Hello all,
I originally posted this in Chat but didn't get much traffic and someone suggested it might be better here - not sure I'm supposed to post the same thing in 2 forums.....?

It's come to my attention that some - maybe all, who knows but definitely my child's GCSE papers have been printed in black and white instead of colour.
My child has their exam papers printed on colour paper because they have dyslexia and they also take their exams in a separate room. This isn't a new thing in education and there are a number of students at our local school who have the same set up.

After taking the English GCSE last week my child remarked to their friends that the exam would have been easier if the photograph for the big mark, creative writing question had been in colour rather than black and white. Turns out that the standard printed papers were all in colour and the papers printed on coloured paper were in black and white.

Obviously the school have been informed and the exam board (AQA) contacted about this now, but if our child had not made this comment to friends we would still be unaware this had happened.

In a paper like English this sort of error is bad enough but imagine if it was maths with colour coded graphs or geography with maps.
I would like to stress that this is not the schools error, but the examining board who sent out black and white test papers.

I just wanted to alert any parents out there who also may have a dyslexic child taking exams to this potential issue - or any teachers who may not be aware of this potential issue.

OP posts:
DentonsFringeArnottsWaistcoat · 23/05/2022 11:21

I would like to stress that this is not the schools error, but the examining board who sent out black and white test papers

As far as I know the exam boards don’t send out coloured test papers. The school requests the PDF and prints on the relevant colour paper for the students access arrangements. So if the school did that then surely they should have flagged that the diagrams pictures etc were printing in black and white and contacted the exam board before the students sat the exam?

TeenPlusCat · 23/05/2022 20:31

You may want to post this again on the Secondary Education board. (You can post the same thing unless you spam all over the place). If the pp is right this is your school's screw up.

I think maths is black and white anyway. Not sure about geography.

fuckweasel · 23/05/2022 20:41

DentonsFringeArnottsWaistcoat · 23/05/2022 11:21

I would like to stress that this is not the schools error, but the examining board who sent out black and white test papers

As far as I know the exam boards don’t send out coloured test papers. The school requests the PDF and prints on the relevant colour paper for the students access arrangements. So if the school did that then surely they should have flagged that the diagrams pictures etc were printing in black and white and contacted the exam board before the students sat the exam?

It's certainly the case in Scotland that we request coloured papers and the exam boards sends them as requested.

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