[senco-forum] Access Arrangements

Hello everyone A perennial question - how are you managing to provide
readers and scribes for all of the pupils who are entitled to them in GCSE
exams? This year, we are having a nightmare with the science assessments
because we have just under 20 pupils in Year 10 who are entitled to readers
and scribes for all the science modular tests and assessments. Add to that
the written GCSE exams and mocks over the next few weeks and we have a
situation where my TA team are never in their timetabled classes. So - if
you use TAs to read and scribe, how do you manage to support all your
statmented pupils in class AND provide the exam pupils with their
entitlement? If you use outside bodies to read and scribe, how do you train
them? How do you afford to pay them? Do you have a viable alternative?
Should I be looking at using computer software? If so, what hardware do I
need to run the software you use?

---- While realising this has been aired before this year, could I restate
that using computer software IS a viable option for those needing readers
and for those needing scribes.

In my humble opinion it offers the kids the best arrangements, since they
operate independently of adults, at the speed they want for dictation,  or
reading and re-reading as frequently as required.  Our school networked
machines, and non-networked laptops all running Windows have been suitable.
Not sure how you would run it with Apple machines.

Yes there may be an initial outlay on decent software, but it would soon be
recouped if  the alternative is paying outsiders.  Presumably also, these
outsiders would have to be CRB checked thus adding a time delay.

It seems to me that this is something that should be part of the exams
budget - do you know how big that budget is in your school?