HAVE FOUND OUT AFTER GCSE EXAMS MY SON'S SECONDARY SCHOOL DIDN'T KNOW HE HAD DYSLEXIA

[mummytippy]

To say I am upset is an understatement! Please can someone advise me what to do next. I will try to keep emotion out of my post and remain factual, but I feel so very angry and disappointed for my ds and thoroughly let down by the education system.

My ds was diagnosed with Dyslexia in 2013. I moved house and the subsequent primary school were made aware. The 14 page report compiled by Dyslexia Action was given to them by me. In addition to this he is summer born.

In Year 6 I selected the secondary school I felt (through viewing schools, speaking with the ALS staff, looking at work completed by children already there) was best for him.

Secondary school started in Sept 2017 for my ds. I attended all parents evenings and school events and monitored my ds's progress closely.
At parents evenings I would ask about progress in relation to his Dyslexia. My ds was doing well up to around Yr9. Obviously all children have had the Covid situation and home learning to contend with too. For my ds I feel the home environment as opposed to school was further detrimental.

Fast forward to last October and I asked if my DS (direct email to his English teacher) would receive extra time in his exams ( mock exams looming) and I was told if an assessment in place, Yes he would. I believed the Dyslexia assessment report was on his file and had been referred to on an ongoing basis.

Bear with me please...

Sadly last November my Mum became ill and sadly passed away in December. This was obviously upsetting for myself and my ds, I am a lone parent and an only child. I have had to single handily sort out my late mother's affairs. My Dad sadly passed in 2020 and I had only just started to finish finalising his affairs.

The point I am making is that during the time of my ds's GCSEs (Yr9-end of Yr 11) I was preoccupied with the admin in relation to my Dad passing away, my Mum passing away and generally helping my ds and myself put one front in front of the other.

Whilst 'pre-occupied', my ds sat his exams and when I asked him if he'd been given extra time, he told me he hadn't. Come results day and the projected grades my son had been given had gone out of the window. In Maths and English he was awarded grade 3s where he was projected grade 5s. He achieved a grade 7 (A) in Art of which he was super pleased, as was I!

The morning after results day I contacted my ds's school to ask them to confirm whether he had been given support and extra time. His maths teacher responded and said he didn't know and to contact the exams office which I did. I also emailed the Head of the school but didn't get a reply until the first week of September.

My ds had a conditional offer to study Art at A Level at the Sixth Form. His Art teacher at school had advised him to do this based on his talent. This offer was withdrawn at his interview the day after results day as he had 3s and not the minimum grade 4s in Maths and English. I have never seen my son look so dejected. I had taken the Dyslexia Report with us and explained I was waiting on a reply from the schools exam office.

My son had to think on his feet what to do instead and so he opted for a vocational course - painting and decorating.

When the secondary school responded, they confirmed my ds had not been given extra time. They then said they did not know he had dyslexia and did not have the report on file as they had not been sent it by the primary school.

I was absolutely 'gob smacked' and so so angry! I attended a meeting with the vice principal with a copy of the assessment report and to say he had a hostile attitude would be an understatement. He asked me to point out where in the report it stated my ds has Dyslexia. I told him the entire report is stating he has dyslexia! He continued to state the school did not know and blamed the primary school for not sharing the information. After 5 mins of passing the blame, I asked (irrespective of allegedly not having the report) how my ds's Dyslexia had gone un noticed for 5 years by his teachers, and that it had been raised by me in emails and at parents evenings - no answer!

I then cut to the chase and asked that I wanted the school to contact the relevant exam boards and tell them what had happened. He brought a member of staff in from the exams office who looked at the assessment report. They confirmed it is in the report in black and white that my ds warrants extra time in exams and classroom support. He was extremely apologetic. Basically from the meeting the school appealed my ds's grades based on 'information coming to light after the exams'. It took 4 weeks for a decision to be made and the result was no change.

I am wanting to know how do I find out what went wrong?
Who is responsible?

I am going to officially complain about the secondary school and I also want to go back to both exam boards regarding my ds's maths and english grades and ask them to explain why there is no change in view of everything.

I'd be grateful for anyone on here that has experience in dealing with complaints to schools and exam boards in advising me of the best way to go about this. I cannot believe that my son has spent 11 years at school to be fobbed off over such an important matter of which the rest of his academic life and career depend on.

Thank you for reading all of this.

I think there is responsibility on all sides. The primary school should have passed information on. You should have spoken to the SENCO to ensure they had all the relevant information. Did you not speak with them when DS started the school? And then also to ensure access arrangements were in place. This should have happened before the beginning of Y11. The report from years ago would not have been sufficient evidence to provide extra time. The secondary school should have spotted DS had SEN.

Special consideration post results is only allowed in the “most exceptional circumstances” and there needs to be ”compelling evidence to support a late application”. I don’t think that threshold is met here.

I think you should focus on ensuring access arrangements are in place going forward, because for extra time there will need to be an updated assessment and to prove it is the normal way of working.

My ds had a conditional offer to study Art at A Level at the Sixth Form. His Art teacher at school had advised him to do this based on his talent. This offer was withdrawn at his interview the day after results day as he had 3s and not the minimum grade 4s in Maths and English. I have never seen my son look so dejected. I had taken the Dyslexia Report with us and explained I was waiting on a reply from the schools exam office.

Was there not a level 2 art course?

@Thatsnotmycar

Thank you for your comment.

Yes there was a level 2 art course... art and design but my ds didn't want to attend the college where it was offered. I can't tell you why as to me that was the 'next best thing'. He is also a typical teenager a lot of the time and doesn't want to listen-much to my frustration.

No, I didn't get to meet the SENCO at secondary school and I'll be honest, I didn't find it strange at the time, but I do now. I just kept asking members of teaching staff about his progress as parents were told that they were to let the school get on with their job as secondary school very different to primary school. I guess they were trying to cut the ties between parents and children in making them more independant in their learning.

I'm interested as to why it was not picked up in school as in the schools inclusion policy it says there are various assessment points. At each of these my ds seems to have have slipped under the radar. For example he joined the school with high SAT results which apparently 'threw them off the scent'.

I'm interested on your comment where you say... ''compelling evidence would need to be submitted to support late application''. Could I not explain all of the above... add the school failed to pick up my ds had a SEN and I'm in the process of complaining about that. If I also add a copy of the Dyslexia Report? I know the school did not send it when they 'appealed', they just said it was available for the exam board to view it should they want to. I would have preffered it to have been sent so they had all the facts.

I have spoken to SENDIASS and they were appalled saying my son will not have stopped being Dyslexic.

Going forwards you might not believe this but the college recorded my son as having grade 5s on their system in maths and english and not the grade 3s he received. This was despite a seperate meeting upon enrolment with the ALS department and being assured he'd be supported. This meant he was missed out of the resit classes between 7/9 and the week before the October HT holidays (7 weeks). The consequence of this was he now has to resit next May instead of last week. This error only came to light as the college queried his attendance and I asked when the resit classes were going to start. I had to email the college a copy of the enrollment form my ds was given on the day to prove he had enrolled on the GCSE maths and english classes. I feel like I'm losing my mind and that no-one seems to be able to do their job properly.

You could explain all the above, but it is unlikely to meet the high threshold for the “most exceptional circumstances” and be ”compelling evidence to support a late application”. Even when applying for special consideration before results are released it is normally only given when already approved access arrangements aren’t put in place. Sending the dyslexia report now won’t achieve anything as access arrangements such as extra time couldn’t have been applied for with that report. They are required to be more up to date.


You need to make sure access arrangements are being put in place for May because it needs an updated assessment and to be DS’s normal way of working.

@Thatsnotmycar

Thank you.

Can I ask from what capacity you are basing your advice please?

Experience of the SEN system and knowledge of the JCQ rules. Both the rules for access arrangements and special consideration you can find on their website, which is where my quotes have come from.

Thank you so much @Thatsnotmycar

It sounds like a nightmare OP, and how mean of school not to let him do Art A-level while retaking his Eng and maths considering the situation.

To get extra time/a reader/scribe/word processor etc in an exam it has to be the students normal way of working, so he should have had/needed these things in his mocks for example, if not in all his lessons - and it has to be applied for well in advance. I assume he didn't have them in his mocks so was there a reason you didn't raise it then? Or why you didn't ask at parents evening what would be put in place for him? Or why your son didn't raise it when other students has access arrangements and he didn't? I guess you just assumed it was under control because you thought they knew about it and know nothing yourself (understandably) about how access arrangements work.

None of ds's teachers ever seemed to know he had ASD/dyspraxia - but he got to use a laptop as either the SEN team were aware due to primary school info, or because they saw how awful his handwriting was. Unless it was clear from your son's lessons that he was dyslexic it wouldn't have been flagged by his teachers, which might mean he didn't get assessed. I don't know exactly how it works but if no one told the SEN/Exam coordinators then they wouldn't assess him and so wouldn't give him access arrangements. The teachers you mentioned it to wouldn't know that the necessary people didn't know because it hadn't been passed on by the primary school.

So I think the primary school have really messed up here as that really important information hasn't been passed on as it should.

A student achieving 3s is unlikely to cope with the demands of A levels/a level 3 course.

@Choconut

Exactly this

''I assume he didn't have them in his mocks so was there a reason you didn't raise it then? Or why you didn't ask at parents evening what would be put in place for him? Or why your son didn't raise it when other students has access arrangements and he didn't? I guess you just assumed it was under control because you thought they knew about it and know nothing yourself (understandably) about how access arrangements work''.

I did not know how things worked. I had given his dyslexia assessment to primary school in year 5 and they had supported him closely. I was then told than the report would be passed on to the secondary school during transition and I asked at the time (verbally) whether it had and was told that it had. I simply trusted the secondary school to support and monitor my ds as neccesary and asked at every opportunity I could.

My eye was off the ball when the mock exams started last October/November as my mother became ill and passed away. It's been a very difficult past couple of years as my Dad passed away 17 months in 2020 whilst my ds was in Yr9.
MS teams was the homelearning method for my ds (like many children caught up in the Covid educational lockdown) and this certainly affected him too.

I have emailed the primary school to confirm the again that the assessment was passed on to the secondary school(bearing in mind it is 5 years ago) and the email I received on Monday (after waiting 4 weeks).

This was their response

''Good afternoon,
I have spoken to Mrs S our learning mentor as our SENCO Mrs B was on maternity leave at the time and Ms D was acting SENCO and as far as we are aware the report will have been shared with the high school by the class teacher at the time of transition however as both the class teacher (Mrs K) and head teacher (Ms D) at that time are no longer with the school so we are unable to confirm this for definite''.

This for me still does not answer why non of the staff at the secondary school picked my ds's dyslexia up. It is clear from his English books to me and I'm no expert!

@Thatsnotmycar

My ds had chosen

3D Art and Design
Fine Art and
Graphic Design

He got a grade A at GCSE in 3D Art and Design. It is his passion.
Many of his friends (also with additional needs) have gone to the sixth form and are being supported. My ds was told at his enrolment interview he'd have been allowed on the courses if he'd got maths or english but couldn't as he'd not aceived either and they don't have resit classes. I'm aware there is a lot of writing on the theory side of things which there is on the painting and decorating course of which he is receiving support.

From the primary school’s response I wouldn’t be so sure the report did get passed on. Normally the SENCO (or their cover) would be involved in passing SEN information on. It confirms my belief there is responsibility on all 3 sides.

Art A level requires a higher level of written work than than a level 1 or 2 painting and decorating course. It’s unusual for sixth forms to allow students to take 3 A levels that all come under art and design A level.

@Thatsnotmycar

I just wish I hadn't been so preoccupied and trusting!

I'm in two minds whether to retort in a reply to the primary school along the lines of... regardless of maternity leave, I would have liked to think important information like this is documented as definitely being passed on... rather than the answer I got. I mean let's face it, the majority of teachers are female, they take time off to have their own children and if this falls when children are transitioning, even more reason to have extra measures in place.

I have found out from another Mum at the school today (her sister works as a SEN at a different primary school), that the SENCO at the primary school is renown for not sending things on. That said the head (who was acting as the lead SENCO at the time) did confirm to me verbally it had gone. The reason we had this conversation was because I was called in to school at the end of Year 6 because my son got stabbed in the hand by another child with a pencil!

She also mentioned I can request to see the transition file?

With regards to 3 Art subjects, I agree with what you're saying but they had allowed it. I guess it's only like taking 3 sciences. Also, yes more writing involved on the theory side... I did Art at A Level but with A level English literature as a mature student.

Personally, I wouldn’t bother replying to the primary school, it isn’t going to help you now. I would focus on ensuring access arrangements are in place going forward.

It’s irrelevant really, but taking those 3 A levels isn’t like taking 3 sciences because the sciences are completely separate A levels (A level biology, A level chemistry, A level physics) whereas the 3 A levels mentioned in your OP are all come under Art and Design A level.

Normally a whole file of information is passed from primary to secondary, so if on the file at primary, would have been passed on (but maybe not highlighted). Did he have some form of plan at primary? What does the secondary have in relation to a pupil passport that secondary teachers have access to? Remember in secondary, they often teach 150 pupils each teacher (year7-11) - approximately 15 will have SEN. As above by year 11 it is too late for access arrangements- what does the schools policy say regarding assessing for access arrangements, most do it during year 9 or early year 10. Did they not pick up in year 7/8 that he was not performing where his SATS or CATS (if school use them), would predict? Most schools or colleges as said above wouldn't allow those 3 as the practical exams are all at the same time, possibly 2, but not 3.

Focus on getting the level 2 Maths and English with college- he could always change courses at the end of the year, if he can get them in August results.

In my experience, which isn’t recent, but hopefully relevant, assessment reports for access arrangements had to be submitted within two years of the exams. Reports that were issued in primary school wouldn’t be accepted for GCSE.

I agree that resitting Maths and English and improving those grades will give him a stronger foundation for pursuing the Art course next year.

Yes, for access arrangements that require a Form 8 the assessment must be no earlier than Y9 so the assessment in primary school wouldn’t have been sufficient.