Exam disruption impacts my son, and school declines my request for Special consideration - anyone got experience of this??

How did it go?

glint Janeob thanks so much for your insights - i will be printing off this thread and refering to it in the meeting shortly. many thanks for your help and kind good wishes!

In particular, I’d ask what exam arrangements were included on his paperwork? Did he have a reader for his mocks? If he did have one for his mocks and it wasn’t provided in the exam then that’s on the school and is nothing to do with the other issues with individual invigilator - although obviously connected.

Good luck. I’d say have a think before the meeting about what outcome you want. Do you want a resit? It might be possible to do that anyway, without an appeal.

Try to ask as many questions as you can and write everything down - name of invigilator? Was he hired by the school or an agency? What action will be taken after the incident? Have the exam board been informed again? What was the exam board for each paper? Who in the school is in charge of exams and invigilation? As many things as you can think of.

I think you’re likely to leave the meeting feeling even more frustrated, so may be best to prepare for that I’d say. Schools are very keen for children to take responsibility for their actions and say sorry when things go wrong, but it’s something they rarely do themselves.

I'm afraid that I have zero experience of making a claim to the Exam Board, so am unable to help on that front. I would however strongly dispute the schools handling of the situation in allowing an invigilator rather than the Exams Officer to make the claim on behalf of your son, especially if it was the same invigilator who appears to have acted outside of the exam rules (that to me is a huge red flag as there is a conflict of interest i.e. the invigilator may have wanted to 'hide' their errors when writing the claim). If you are prepared to follow through, I would also advise the Head that if they do not support your son's claim, you will be contacting the relevant exam Boards to complain (you can get the complaints procedures online via each respective Board).

Slightly 'left field', but it may help you to know.......you may also like to ask about the schools invigilator training procedures; we all have to be trained via online modules & each September, any new additions to the JCQ Guidelines get included in the online training. Ask when the last time the invigilator completed their training; the Exams Office should have records confirming this.

Good luck

glint Janeob TIW thank you so much for your reply on this glint . Indeed today it has emerged that the school allowed the invigilator who disturb my son, to file the SC request direct to the exam board, unchecked by their exams officer, or indeed anyone! They did not give a full and accurate account of the disturbances, and of course the claim was rejected. the school is now saying to proceed to a stage 2 claim, I must fund this myself,  for each exam.

• Stage 2: appeal hearing £228.20

Any advice or guidance would be appreciated please. i have a meeting tomorrow with the head at 10am on TEAMS. Yours gratefully all!

The school will be extremely defensive of this, as any irregularities could affect their status as an examination centre. I imagine they may not want to go down the route of informing the exam officers at all about what happened, and in those circumstances it’s just easier to tell themselves that the disruptions were in fact minor ones. I think your clearest path is to focus on the absence of a reader. If he was meant to have one, if he had one in his mocks, and then it wasn’t working on the day, then that alone is a huge mistake.

Thanks for your reply Janeob it is really helpful and detailed. I will certainly add it to the evidenced argument I will present to the head, especially as you state ways that similar incidents are dealt with at your own centre. Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed response for me, I do appreciate it.

Hi KIDS3 - I'm an invigilator (inv), a parent of a child currently undergoing testing for ASD/ADHD & was invigilating a GCSE this morning! In answer to several of your questions:

1) the inv should not be writing on a students exam paper

2) the inv should not be talking to the student once the exam has started unless the student has indicated they have a question, the exam has ended & the inv needs to tell them or there is an 'extraordinary situ' such as a fire drill 

3) if your child is expecting a computer reader & one has previously been provided by the school, then your child could reasonably expect that subsequent exams would also have a computer reader provided

4) it is not usual to change seats/desks at the start of an exam (or once it has started), but we have done it where I work.  Sometimes you need to change a chair/desk if it has malfunctioned or a child could be overly anxious / feeling sick / not well & ask to sit by the door.  If it is the latter, then we make a note on an Incident Form to say that there has been a change, the child's name & the reason.  This may not happen in other schools (for local reasons), but I do not believe that there is a JCQ regulation that does not permit the changing of seats

On a personal note, the school should not be 'down playing' your son's disruptions as minor.  Whilst they may appear minor to other students and/or teachers, they are not minor to your son and have clearly caused him distress.  I would request a meeting / phone call with his Head of Year and/or SEN Co-Ordinator ASAP as there are still a few GCSEs to go & you want your son to have the least anxious exam experience that he can.  Good luck 

Thanks so much for your reply TIW ! He doesn't have an EHCP but is 'K' coded, and is hopefully at the very end of a 4 year wait for formal diagnosis. He sits all of his exams in a separate room, has extra time, and uses a computer reader and writes all of his answers on a PC. I think these are all 'reasonable adjustments' for him. These were all granted and organised by the school, without any hassling from me as parent; I don't know who their assessor for these was, sorry.

The school has known him very well for 5 years, during which time they know he has had acute anxiety, and eating disorder, and recently been on a reduced timetable due to stress. My big concerns are that knowing all this, how can they now state that the disruptions he endured [let alone the fact that they were all created by the schools own invigilation staff!] were of minor impact to him.

Having looked at at the JCQ regs for the conduct of exams, and the conditions for appeals for special consideration - [1] the invigilator was wrong to communicate with him at all, and very wrong to write on his exam paper [2] how can they deny point 2.3.16 above? Could this be a breech of the disability act 2010, as they are refusing to acknowledge his disability? 

Might the school be rattled with me, as they are trying to cover up their own failings? They have told me that there are no records of any disruptions in the exam room, and when my son showed be the TEAMS chat between him and his Learning Support assistant, the photos she had sent him for reassurance of his chair back in place, after the worst incident on Friday, ready for his next exam on Monday - the text was still there, but the 2 photos had been 'removed by their owner'.

I very much appreciate your thoughts on this, from your experienced perspective - thank you!

https://www.jcq.org.uk/exams-office/instructions-for-conducting-examinations-ice/ 

https://www.jcq.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/09/JCQ-A-guide-to-the-special-consideration-process-FINAL_2025_26.pdf

I am an ex-Assistant Headteacher with multiple complex disabilities including ASC (I personal prefer condition than disorder) and was in charge of SEND and Inclusion.

I wondered if your son has an EHCP or is under "SEND Support"? If he has an EHCP the exam arrangements should ideally be stated in it. If not and under SEND Support then reasonable adjustments under the Equalities Act 2010 should have been considered and applied. Just thinking back (its been awhile!) As it sounds like he requires assistive technology then he should have had an "Access Arrangements" assessment by a qualified SpLD Assessor - do you know if this happened? I appreciate that there are more questions than answers but additional context may help me give further feedback to you.