Highlights from The Exam Man podcast, Series 3 Episode 3
Part 1: Extra time
In the first part of this episode we talk about access arrangements for exams, especially the allocation of extra time. It was in the news before Christmas and it has been again. So we thought we'd dig into it a little bit.
It's about access arrangements, isn't it?
Yes, access arrangements generally and in particular extra time. So every year JCQ look at what's been going on in schools in terms of the number of applications they process for access arrangements. For anyone who's not listened to us on this subject before, access arrangements are the additional bits of support that students get to help them take exams if they have a learning disability or some other issue which makes taking exams a bit more difficult for them.
JCQ does a sort of state of the nation every year of what's going on with access arrangements, and it's been increasing. The number of student applications has been increasing now for quite a long time and it jumped up by about 12.5% last year.
It's quite a lot, isn't it?
There is quite a big increase going on. In particular, there is a big increase in extra time. Extra time makes up about two-thirds of all the access arrangements given. Extra time is the one that most students are given.
What's the percentage for extra time?
It does depend a bit, but there's a standard amount which is 25%, which you might get because you have some sort of learning or processing difficulty. It might be because you have English as an additional language, or it might be some other physical or mental health condition, which means that you're awarded that.
And do parents apply for it, a bit like special consideration?
No. Sometimes some evidence might be required. We sometimes have to process emergency ones for example if a student's done themselves an injury or something like that, and we need evidence. But on the whole, the evidence should come through both the school and other professionals that work with the student. One route to extra time is through an EHCP.
If you have an EHCP, you don't have to do the sort of standardised testing to see whether you need extra time. You just have to be able to demonstrate that the student’s need means that they need the extra time. But if you don't have an EHCP, then you have to do some tests, some standardised tests, to determine whether they need it. There's been an increase in the number of students getting extra time and now a third of all students get extra time in exams, which obviously to a lot of people would seem like quite a high percentage.
And there's also something else going on here, which is that when you look at state schools versus private schools, it's 27% in state schools and it's 42% in private schools. And that has raised some eyebrows. So the government have asked Ofqual, the qualifications regulator, to have a look into this and to see what is going on. I think that’s both from the perspective of working out what this disparity between state and private is all about, and also just more generally about the picture around extra time and the way that it's increasing.
I should say at this point that you probably might make some assumptions about that gap between state and private. And I think the assumption most people would probably make is that the private schools are gaming the system. But I think it's important to remember that there are a lot of private schools that are, for example, special schools, specialist schools. And in those schools probably 100% of the students need to have extra time. So there might be more lying behind that disparity than at first appears. But at the same time, I think it's right that Ofqual is looking into it as well.
Obviously a lot has happened over the last few years. We had COVID. There's an increase in diagnosis of kids with things like autism, ADHD. This might be contributing to the increase in extra time. But I do think obviously we've got to a level where if that figure goes much higher, you're starting to think about the validity of the system as a whole. Obviously, the purpose of extra time is to try and level the playing field. There's a saying in web design, which is quite useful here, which I think is like, if the whole website is bold, nothing is bold. And similarly, if everyone gets extra time, then nobody gets extra time.
The purpose of the system is for it to be very targeted. And so I think there may be some concern that it's got away from that targeting and it needs to be reined back in. So it will be interesting to see what happens when this gets looked at.