Highlights from The Exam Man podcast, Series 1 Episode 9
For Episode 9 of Series 1 we were joined by Anna, who had just been looking into arranging “special consideration” for her son, Ieuan, who is 18 and was about to start his A-level exams when we spoke. Anna is Sophie’s older sister and Ieuan is Sophie’s nephew. Anna and her children had been going through a challenging period, but she was unaware of the measures that might be available to support Ieuan through his exams until she spoke to John and Sophie. We were really grateful that Anna felt willing to share her experience for the benefit of other families who may need similar support one day.
Anna, we’re really excited to have you here. It would be really interesting for our listeners to find out about the absolutely “fantastic” (!) year that you've had. Tell us as much as you feel you want to.
Hello, I'm Anna and I'm based in Wales. I've had quite a stressful year, but particularly over the last six months. And in the midst of all of these issues that I've been facing, was the realisation that my 18-year-old son was about to hit his A-level final exams. With Sophie and John's background in education I obviously had some conversations with them about all the stresses that have occurred as a family for us, and how that could affect my son's ability to focus with A-level exams looming. I was very interested to find out what support was out there, because I had absolutely no idea- even though I’m a parent of two. My daughter is two years older, so has gone through the school system and college, and she's currently doing a university course as well. But prior to this time, I had no knowledge of there being such a thing as …..I've completely forgotten the term! Special consideration.
Did you think that Ieuan would just have to suck it up, until I told you?
Exactly. I have daily phone calls with Sophie and I just dropped it in, that I was a bit concerned with his A levels coming up. And that's when Sophie and then later John actually made me aware of something called special consideration that was available. I had never previously needed to even consider something like this. That led to me approaching my son's college. I first put a call in to his Head of Year, Steph, probably about six weeks ago and it was really, really beneficial. I highlighted to her two significant issues that we had faced over the last year as a family, and what my son- who was under her watch at college- had been facing. I'll just briefly outline those issues. Firstly, here was a very sudden and unexpected breakup of my marriage. And then the next thing that happened was that I've had a medical condition for many decades, and it became more difficult to manage last year. I got progressively more unwell, and that led to me being hospitalised on the 23rd of December. The whole of Christmas and the New Year period ended up with me being hospitalised for five weeks, which was a shock in itself because I’d anticipated I'd be in overnight. This led to Ieuan and his sister being home alone, basically. They're both adults, but my presence, or lack of presence, was felt. Mainly for laundry and grocery shopping and all the rest of it!
That was really hard and there was obviously a lot of concern about my health at that time. In the third week of my hospitalisation, I ended up having major surgery, which I had to recover from. Biopsies were taken during that procedure, and one day after discharge, I had a call from my surgeon informing me that I actually had cancer, that the surgeon had managed to successfully remove. However, it had spread to lymph nodes, and because of lymph node activity, they had to instigate a course of chemotherapy. I'm in the middle of this course of chemotherapy at the moment and, to be quite frank, it’s a very, very brutal treatment. It leaves you incredibly fatigued, lots of side effects, et cetera. I's been really, really tough. Therefore, Ieuan has had to face major disruption to what was our family life. His mother, who he's incredibly close with, ended up seriously ill, having surgery and getting a cancer diagnosis, and also having to watch me now going through the effects of the chemotherapy is really tough. So we've had a bit of a bad run of things over these last six months!
I highlighted these issues to Steph, his form tutor. She was really, really pleased that I had made contact and said that it was really important that the staff at the college were aware of any of these circumstances, because they naturally can affect a student's abilities to engage. She endorsed the fact that Ieuan was, overall, a good and attentive student, and that his attendance had been largely fine. He'd missed the odd day or the odd lesson, and that could be attributed to coming to see me in hospital, for example. But she didn't have any major concerns about how he was functioning. She said that the information that I'd given her would be collated and forwarded for consideration when it came to the time of Ieuan’s A-level exams, which we've just hit now. This has given him a bit of reassurance, and acknowledgement that he has gone through a bit of a tough time, to say the least, and that this wouldn't be ignored.
One of the things that's interesting is that when you listen to everything that you've and Ieuan have gone through, special consideration as a thing just seems quite small. What you potentially get out of special consideration isn't a huge amount. But at the same time, it does just provide that sense of reassurance, that sense that people understand that you're having a hard time and it will have an effect on how you're going to do. At least a bit will be done to try and reflect that. It’s just nice to know that he has that behind him, and the support of his college and everything. Has it helped you to relax a little bit?
It's been reassuring for me, and I think for him, that some consideration is given to the fact that it has been a particularly tough period. Like we all get in life, of course- it's just come at this pivotal time in his education. I'm more than happy to discuss this, and if it helps other parents and teachers, that's great. But it's not an excuse for slacking, and I'm still on his case constantly! I got the sense that this wasn't particularly unusual, and that Steph had obviously come across students having some out of college experiences that could be detrimental to their learning and achievements. Could I ask a question? You have explained to me previously, but I'm blaming it on chemo fog, which apparently is a thing, and I'm not retaining information as I would normally! Can you outline to me what this special consideration does, in practical terms?
The exam boards basically break the serious things that can affect student down into four or five categories. The most serious is if an immediate family member drops dead during the exam season. And then from there, it's down to the least serious, which may be having a tummy ache on the day of the exam or something like that. Depending on which category they put your issue into, that will then determine what percentage increase you get on your examination. I think the maximum is 5%. So it's not a huge amount, but it can make a difference.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if a student was maybe hovering in the marker’s mind between a B and a C grade, could this potentially-if it was really on the cusp-tip them over to the B?
Absolutely. If a student was awarded, just purely on the marks they got from the exam, say a higher C grade-close to the B border line-and then they were given a significant special consideration uplift of about four or five percent, then that could certainly be the difference between getting a C or getting a B. In those circumstances, it can obviously have an impact. What it's not going to do is take a student who is really struggling to magically pass a qualification. It's a marginal uplift, but it can be enough to make the difference to the final grade.
It's good to make people aware of it, isn't it? Because as I always say, 'you're not born with the knowledge'. That's one of my catchphrases!
You have done a valuable public service here. Take care, Anna.
To listen to and read more interviews like this, subscribe to The Exam Man - the #1 podcast about exams and assessment
To find out more about Examscreen please contact us: Examscreen