[SENco-forum] Access arrangements (was Extra Time for sats)

A distinction has to be made between those who need extra time for
processing issues - slow reading/thinking/spelling and consequently who
produce less work over a set amount of minutes including, but not
exclusively students with dyslexia/dyspraxia, and those who just write
slowly due to poor procioceptor problems such as those with dyspraxia and
Hyper Joint Mobility Syndrome the mild end of which is referred to as
'doublejointedness'.

Slow writers need extra time or in the case of illegibility a range of
support from partial transcription through to a scribe.  Will the
availability last year of both the Penny Allcock writing speed assessment
norms for Secondary age students and the production recently of DASH for the
9+ age group there will be more applications for extra time.

Just because a teacher is unaware that a slow writer in the bottom 10% of
writing speed can have extra time , or, that there were no standard test
instruments that made it easy to do whole class assessments of writing speed
before is not a good reason to allow perfectly able students to suffer and
flounder in exams.

There should always be a place for handwriting for pleasure.  It is a
tactile skill that can be fun, but as everyone keeps pointing out
handwriting as used in exams in no longer the preferred method of
communication in business and perhaps it is time the exams were changed to
reflect this.

Sharon Tringham
Member of the National Handwriting Association

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