[senco-forum] Colour blindness

It's not really acceptable but we have to follow the guidelines.

Hi Donna and All,

As you may recall I'm already in correspondence with the JCQ regarding
their outright ban on the use of gel pens in exams, including those
with dark single coloured (blue or black) inks.

With this in mind I can also appreciate the point made by someone who
responded to me direct regarding the standard accommodations exam
boards insist colour-blind students must adhere to....

> It's not really acceptable but we have to follow the guidelines.

Well it seems to me the JCQ and exam boards are simply not yet
addressing some fundamental recent changes in the law, namely the new
'Disability in Education' legislation. Furthermore they are getting
away with his because to my knowledge no one has yet taken them to
task (and ultimately to Court) regarding their failure to agree
'reasonable' accommodations ...not just from their own point of view
but also from the point of view of individual disabled or SEN children
and adults. For under todays legislative framework whatever standard
accommodations they come up with in place of what's requested must be
appropriate and agreed in a timely manner and not disadvantage the
child by virtue (or otherwise) of real-world impracticality or 'lack
of common sense' when applied in schools outside the exam room.

Now their only defence is that schools proposed accommodations might
skew their students academic results. However it seems to me they are
conveniently ignoring the fact their existing 'standard
accommodations' are doing just that. For in practice disabled children
are being forced to jump through unnecessary additional hoops' far
removed from how they'd address their disability during their normal
school life.

What's more this makes a complete mockery of the fact the JCQ and exam
boards insist disabled students can only use a word-processor in exams
if this is "their normal method of working in school".

As I've mentioned in a previous post, the JCQ has written back to me
regarding my complaint stating they are going to 'discuss this at a
meeting' at the end of the month. Now contrast this with what happened
when I was a child and one of the exam papers turned out to be deeply
flawed, to the extent the main instructions made little sense. What
happened? Well they were inundated with lots of frantic phone calls
from schools all over the country, but interestingly a new wording was
both agreed and issued to schools within three-quarters of an hour.

How many students were affected? Well as I recall this wasn't a
mainline subject so I guess far fewer than are being unnecessarily
affected by this ban on gel pens this summer because of the delay in
addressing this issue. In other words is seems that in practice
disabled students are seen as a low low priority compared with other
issues that might affect candidates exam results.

Indeed this is not the first time I've come up against this issue of
'lack of timeliness' in education, for you might also recall my
postings regarding the school I worked in who refused to let a
disabled student immediately start using the students disabled toilet
facilities and took well over a week to finally get round to supplying
him with as key.

OK, so overall what to do about this?

Well to begin with I'd like to learn from you as many examples as you
can think of how the exam regulations discriminate against disabled
and SEN students, especially regarding the boards standard
accommodations that are less than wholly appropriate to a student's
needs and a more suitable alternative is not permitted.

How do I intend to use these examples? Well I'm sure I'll end up
engaged in extended correspondence with the JCQ, not least regarding
the fact they've failed to address the issue of Gel pens with
sufficient urgency, ands this has meant students sitting this summer's
exams won't have the benefit of a decision and hopefully a revision of
this regulation.

Anyway having got their attention I'd like (with your permission) to
follow up with a letter something on the lines of "And bye the way,
also what about..." and use your examples as a lever to highlight the
fact there's something fundamentally wrong with the culture of the JCQ
and the exam boards. Indeed this manifests as the continuation of
their past practice, systematically discriminating against individual
disabled and SEN students in a manner that is now unlawful.

Hopefully the end result will be a complete shakeup of how they
address disability issues in respect of the unacceptable inflexibility
of their existing concessions systems.

David Bowles

> Dear David, 
>  It's not really acceptable but we have to follow the guidelines. 
> Personally, i'd rather let the students use their own personal
> day-to-day strategies and have colours labelled for them on pencils
> etc.  Unfortunately, the guidelines don't often take into
> consideration the practicalities/common sense issues.
>  Regards, Donna

>> It's debatable whether an accommodation such as 'having a helper read
>> out the colours' is wholly appropriate, given this makes them overly
>> dependent upon others. This would be unacceptably demeaning (and
>> probably illegal as well under the DDA) where they are normally used
>> to deploying their own far more self sufficient adaptation strategies.
>> 
>> David Bowles
>> 
>> > Hi, 
>> > You have to apply to the exam board for arrangements. The colours
>> > can be read out to the student and they are eligible for extra time
>> > for this subject only (Science too, where appropriate)
>> > Donna