School exams should be the great leveller: children ought to be assessed on their knowledge, not who they are or where they come from. But many people are rightly concerned about growing unfairness in the system. New figures reveal that a record 420,000 pupils in England now receive extra time in their GCSEs and A-levels — four times as many as a decade ago. This staggering rise is also particularly acute in independent schools, where 42% of pupils now qualify for extra time, compared to 27% in state schools.
It’s easy to accuse private schools of gaming the system, but there are many potential explanations for the discrepancy. Firstly, some independent schools are special schools, where almost all pupils may have additional needs. Secondly, private schools are often smaller and have more resources to identify and refer pupils who may need extra support. Parents at these schools are more likely to pay for private diagnoses — a private autism assessment can cost up to £2000 — and skip years-long waiting lists. They may also send their neurodivergent children to private schools if they feel that they cannot cope in the overstretched state sector.
Private schools are also more likely to have bigger budgets for their SEN departments. Special exam arrangements require a significant amount of labour and evidence collection, and state schools may not have as much capacity when it comes to processing applications.
However, quibbling over the difference between private and state schools misses the wider point: how have we reached a situation where almost a third of pupils across all schools require extra time in exams? If close to half a million children genuinely have a significant impairment which means they are at a serious disadvantage when completing exams, then surely we must have a fundamental problem with the format of our assessments. At what point do we consider whether we need to restructure exams entirely? When those who don’t have extra time become the minority?
Alternatively, or perhaps simultaneously, we need to question how we move away from this tendency to over-diagnose. Too often, we overlook the parental, educational, social and online causes of challenging behaviour and learning difficulties, and mistake normal childish and adolescent behaviours for something more sinister and permanent. For example, research has shown that students born in August — the youngest in their academic year — are twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD than those born in September, which suggests that temporary immaturity can often be misinterpreted as debilitating hyperactivity. This is particularly problematic for boys: nearly half of summer-born male pupils are categorised as SEN when they are in primary school.
We can criticise overanxious parents or overzealous schools, but they are all working legitimately within the system: if you don’t ask, you don’t get. The problem is the system itself, with its ever-widening assessment and diagnostic criteria. For example, in 2013 four separate categories of autism were consolidated into the umbrella term “autism spectrum disorder”, and this broader definition could partly explain why autism diagnoses increased by 175% between 2011 and 2022.
We need to ensure that the process for extra time is as rigorous, and therefore trustworthy, as possible. Without this, we risk discrediting the validity of exams, the needs of genuinely disadvantaged students, and the success of our whole education system altogether.
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SubscribeIt’s a great middle class con. My children are grown now, but 5-10 years ago when they were doing their exams at school, the number of pupils who got extra time was scandalous. These children were normal but their parents just shrugged and paid the diagnosis fee because ‘everyone else is doing it’.
There may be some truth in your accusation! Some parents will always play the system, which is also something at which many teachers are adept. Don’t forget though that a great many genuine SEND children go to private schools. As KM says, their parents just can’t bear to fight the endless battles with local authorities in order to get the appropriate support. The difficulty is in separating the wheat from the chaff.
The only way to do it is to only have extra time for physical impairments. I am not saying that is fair or possible, but its the only way
It doesn’t sound as bad if it is well off SEN kids who are getting the extra advantages of private education and extra exam time. But it is still unfair.
I think it is fair to say that if there is an advantage to be had, it is the children of pushier, more well off parents that will get it. And this in spite of the fact that it is almost certainly the kids from poorer homes who need a leg up.
Extra time doesn’t mean better results.
All such meddling by parents may cause worst results not better.
Honestly the issue with over medicalization in today’s youth is a major issue, and society, but of all the harms coming from it I hardly think extra time on exams is that catastrophic.
Here’s the thing some extra time on a test isn’t going to change anything, extra time might take someone on the edge over but that’s about it, and their medicalized advantage will disappear when they get into the real world and their boss tells them “Get the report in on time or I’ll find someone who will, our clients don’t care you’re a special snowflake they just want the report done.”
It’s a self correcting problem.
I think you are being naive about how progression works in society. The tricky bit for most people is getting to the top table. Once there you will be noticed and progress relative to your top table peers. Hence the odd fact, often remarked on, that there appear to be stupid people at all levels of society.
if we are talking about pupils at prestigious private schools, we are piling advantage on advantage.
It’s not self-correcting fast enough though – employers won’t have advance warning that some people can’t – for whatever reason – get a job done as fast as others. You admit this is relevant and important information. So why change the exam system to attempt to suppress it ? As with DEI, it might all self-correct in the end. But not until after someone’s hired the wrong people and suffered the consequences first.
Allowing more time doesn’t guarantee a student will always do better – but they certainly will do in many cases. This – to take one example – is the reason chess is played with clocks.
If you end up working in an Amazon warehouse, your slowness will show up pretty quickly. In a cushy middle class number, not so much.
In much of the public sector your slowness is likely to be invisible
I teach at a prestigious public school, over the half the pupils are SEN. There is no incentive for parents not to seek all the extra help that they can get for their children, deserved or not. How about having a grade marker, that can only be awarded to pupils who receive no added support? This might give future employers useful information.
It’s that prestigious bit that is the most concerning in terms of fairness.
Surely they cease to be special once they’re the majority ?
I agree, the results need to be marked up showing whether the exams were taken under standard or relaxed conditions. There will doubtless be a lot of whining about “confidentiality”. But you don’t get to compete in the paralympics without declaring your condition. And these are at the end of the day public examinations.
Perhaps the British elite would be doing a better job of running the country if we could arrange for them to have extra support throughout their careers.
You start to wonder if we have a fundamental problem with the format of our children!
If, following on from this extra help, they go on to function fully in the jobs they get, then fine. But what if they don’t. What if we are just elevating them into jobs they cannot really do, or cannot do in the time you would normally expect?
For my parents, marriage was an automatic thing and children were a sort of collateral damage from their actions. Children were left to their own devices. When I reached the age of 10 years my mother went to work full time and she gave me a key to the house. In winter I walked home from school and let myself into an empty dark house. My first job was to light the coal fire – already laid and ready for a match. As the wooden kindling started to burn I had to hold a sheet of newspaper over the fire to get it to ‘draw’. Then homework until my parents arrived home.
Today children are special and precious. Money must be spent to buy the best – meaning the best in schooling, whether they need it or not. Parents are desperate to get their children into ‘uni’ where they study Sociology or Media Studies – subjects of no use or relevance to earning a living. Students are taught to hate everything around them, including their parents. What is the point?
It’s easy to forget that there are kids today whose lives are tougher than yours was – they are not all special and precious to their parents.
You miss the point. I had a normal childhood.
Sure – but does that apply to “nearly half of all summer born males” ?
UK is a freak show. There is no other country like it. This is another problem to solve. How do you get a country to become self-aware of the damage done to it, when they know nothing else? When they cannot compare their own goldfish bowl with other countries?
Let’s carry this over to real life:
Should a fireman be allowed extra time to get on his equipment, get to the fire and then start fighting it?Should your doctor be allowed extra time to diagnose your condition when you visit with a health concern?Should you tip (here in the US we’re supposed to tip) your server when she needs extra time to process and deliver your order?Should certain runner athletes get a head start in races?How you feel about slower EMS technicians trying to activate a heart machine?Tests measure knowledge and recall within a set period of time. I’m all for physical accommodations such as different style desks (being left-handed I appreciated the few lefty desks in my college).
Perhaps there will be a special mark where once a certain percentage of class gets “extra time” for a test, everyone in the class gets the same exteded time.
One of your examples holds true already in Britain. Tips are routinely collected and dolled out “equitably” between staff and kitchen workers. This was laid out to me by a chef friend of mine who tried to justify this sort of thing.
“At what point do we consider whether we need to restructure exams entirely?”
Oh no you don’t. Grading had already fallen victim to non-exam based assessment when I was at school. It was an excuse for those with “special needs”, English as second language, attentive parents or teacher’s pets to have extra help (also known as cheating) in a non-invigilated environment. It favours girls at the expense of boys which with the current trend of nearly two-to-one female/male university ratios can only lead to this getting worse.
I returned to full time education as a mature student undergraduate in 2011 and several students from my cohort were taking dyslexia tests and faking symptoms so that they could benefit from extra time in exams and other special dispensations made available to students with learning disabilities. I don’t doubt that this happens at 2nd level too.
This is a very stupid rule that send the message that complaining enough gets you preferential treatment. The West needs to get rid of this “reward the victim” mentality.
Scrap this extra-time thing altogether.
Two comments:
A psychologist “diagnosed “ my then 8 year old grandson, born in August, with ADD, over a Zoom call, 3 months after his parents separated. She suggested medication. Thankfully my daughter declined. The psychologist was not pleased.
I work in a tax office in Canada, where there are generous tax benefits available to families with disabled children. I have noticed a substantial increase in these credits amoung our client base. 20 years ago perhaps one or two qualified; now we have 20 or so, often 2 in the same family. From what I see, the diagnosis are all psychological.
Anecdotal for sure, but what are we telling these children about themselves?
Just allow an extra hour for everyone. End of problem.
As an August Baby I concur…it caught up with me when I mucked up my A-levels…re-did the year – and went from C’s to A’s just be being a bit more grown-up. Certainly no more work, and if anything rather more socialising…
A warning from the far west: in the province of BC, Canada, they scrapped all standard exams years ago. English was the last to go. Students’ marks are based only on their teachers’ assessment. Government adopted the goal of increasing graduation rates – and made it very easy to graduate. Teachers have “professional autonomy” in their contracts which means they can interpret the (very vague) curriculum, use whatever “learning resources” they want, and decide on grades as they see fit. Textbooks are almost non-existent. “Content” (aka knowledge) is not important because you can just google any fact. “Grade inflation” is the norm. And when students get into to jobs, it’s hard to fire them because potential replacements are just as incompetent and entitled. Check out John Taylor Gatto’s Dumbing Us Down.
Some children are now diagnosed as having ‘slow processing’. There used to be another word for that. Hmm? What was it?
I propose that this phenomenon is just a sign of our times, an evolution that has slowly got us here. What to blame? I propose a slow slip away from nature in the wide sense of the word: away form a life that is (was) interconnected with other life: people, the environment, bacteria, bugs, etc…. where power and money are there is the service for power and money. (diagnoses are lucrative). We have forgotten that building resilience comes through lots of different life experiences (not online), through contact. This resilience brought safety, now we think safety coms though protection: lets all live in a glass bubble??
Medicine is far too preoccupied with what deviates from the median (and we can sell a treatment for) and forgot that its role is to foster health
At school I was useless at sport. Now, if I’d been given extra time in the 100m, or 1500m, I realise, I could have excelled.