[senco-forum] Access Arrangements

Hello everyone A perennial question - how are you managing to provide

We have 24 students in Year 10 who have Readers.  I do not know how we shall 
accomodate them.
I almost feel like asked them if they still feel they need a reader.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sad Senco" <sadsenco at googlemail.com>
To: <senco-forum at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 12:51 PM
Subject: [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?
> 