Quick advice wanted, daughter just suffered bereavement pre A level exams

[keeplaughing]

My DD's grandad just died on sunday, she 's obviously upset and starts her exams on friday. School said to write a letter to explain situation to send to examiners, don't know what to say, how do exam boards take this stuff? She can't go to funeral as has exam on that day. Hope she will be ok but worried it may affect her. She has been working v hard for this for a long time

bump

Sorry to hear your news. Can your GP help? Where I work the GP's write letters in cases of close family bereavement (I have seen one for a poor girl whose Mother died), but I'm not sure if the GP has to know the bereaved?

I would have thought a copy of the Death Cert with a letter would be sufficient, and to say how close they were so her final revision has been upset.

yes how very sad she cannot attend the funeral.
fwiw i had my dad die suddenly before my 1st yr uni exams. I plead my case and got aegrotat assessment in all subjects. Which meant they went back to course work to establish my likely mark.
I should imagine they have a system in place? Has the school offered any assistance or advice?
ps sorry to hear of the passing of her grandad x

thanx, don't want to sound like I'm making excuses for her but worried in case it affects her

It's definately worth doing. They have some weird sliding scale of adding % points according to the level of the upset - it might well make the difference between one grade and the next. I shoudl just say something like "Please find enclosed a copy of the death certificate of XXX's (add in exam board reference no) grandfather. As you can see he died immedietely before the start of the examinations and I feel that this has adversely affected XXX's performance over the exam period".

do you think I should do that? it feels really weird - like making an excuse

Definately do it - it's not an excuse - iy's a reasonable thing to notify them of. Nevr mind feeling a bit embarassed etc now - what if she does do badly and you have to deal with the fall out in August? Well worth making your case now.

have you spoken to her about what she wants to do?
she might still want to do them, to make her grandad proud, especially if she's been working so hard IYKWIM.

exam boards are normally quite understanding of that sort of thing though if you do.

definitely send the letter. even if she wants to do them and gets straight A's it wont do any harm

There's basically a set number of marks that get added on for different situations varying from a disturbance outside during exam/slight illness up to terminal disease/ death. It's certainly worth a letter and the school will fill in a special consideration form

yes write and tell the school / exam board of the situation, many people put in all sorts of 'extenuating circumstances', this is at the more serious end of the scale.
I was also allowed to attend a funeral and sit an a-level exam alone the next day [had to have parents guarantees that I would be unable to contact anyone who had done the exam at the 'set' time] so it might be worth asking whether there is any leeway on this. Doing the exam even before or after the funeral might be preferable to her missing it - I think you have to go with whatever she wants.

The father of a friend of DS1's died during her A2s. I know a father is closer and probably more upsetting than a garndfather but anyway, she was def allowed some kind of leeway.

I just checked with him, he thinks the school handled it for her but isn't sure. It was just before her last couple of exams and was very sudden and unexpected - she would definitely not have performed very well but she did get good grades so they must have made allowances.

Very for you all, esp that she can't come to the funeral, that will be tough for her.

Hi keeplaughing, sorry for your loss. If you confirm the situation with the school, they can apply for 'special consideration' for your daughter. in practice this won't mean much if she is firmly between grades, but may make all the difference if she is just a few marks short of a higher grade. You should point it out; it may or may not make a difference to her final marks.

Thanks for your thoughts on this - I didn't know it might be possible to sit exam at different time possibly, but have said to her we could do our own special goodbye to him after exams. What a horrible thing,will talk to her again tomorrow, she says she is 'powering thro revision' so she doesn't think about it. Life is bi**ch sometimes isn't it?