Sally Weale’s article on the increased use of “access arrangements” for children who would otherwise be at a disadvantage in exams gave a reasonable account of the logistical demands that this places on schools and colleges (Extra exam time: why do so many schoolkids suddenly need it?, 23 April). As an assessor for such arrangements in a large further education college, I am aware that the year-on-year increase in them was established long before Covid, suggesting another possible mechanism for the trend beyond the likely culprits outlined by Weale.
To sit still, concentrate at length, recall and regurgitate knowledge, generate creative ideas, endure fatigue, write legibly, spell accurately and process large amounts of text accurately and at speed, during a strictly timed examinations season, still seems to be regarded as the gold standard for children’s assessment. This is despite there being no meaningful correlation to any real-world application (that I can think of).
Rather than questioning, sometimes unfairly, a rise in the use of access arrangements and how they might “reasonably” be removed (the underlying implication of many articles that I see on this subject), perhaps we should treat the use of computers, different timings for different people, and other non-traditional ways of working, for what it is – namely children and their families trying to modernise, often unknowingly, an archaic and somewhat arbitrary educational assessment system. Good for them.
Ian Abbott
Cirencester, Gloucestershire
• To add a small point to Sally Weale’s excellent article about access arrangements, I am a state secondary school teacher and students have said in front of me that they have gamed the system to gain extra time – deliberately writing slowly in the access arrangements assessment, for example.
The issue, really, is why they feel the need to do so: the fact that we are now in a situation where students view much of their secondary education as preparation for tests that are required for them to move forward, not as an education to learn interesting and potentially useful knowledge and skills.
Name and address supplied
• That many schoolchildren need extra time for exams is sufficient explanation for this employer as to why so many new recruits who are “as good as” on paper, are, in practice, slow and unable to finish tasks, don’t know how to work or organise themselves, and don’t get through their probation period (Letters, 25 April). This is at a financial cost to us, and a more severe emotional cost to them.
If grades were accompanied by a note detailing the access arrangements required to achieve the stated grades, then employers could take a more informed view on whether the job and work environment fit the candidate.
It may come as a surprise to academia and the overdiagnosis industry, but value-creation industries cannot afford one-on-one managers for a whole career in the way that they can afford one-on-one invigilators for a few hours.
Peter Anderson
Barwick in Elmet, West Yorkshire
• I used to invigilate exams at a well-known university and recall my strangest session: invigilating for a student who required two extra desks to accommodate the 33 soft toys needed to ensure “emotional security in stressful environments”. I still wonder which employer would be equally accommodating.
Janet Kingston
Swansea
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