What should you do if your child gets Covid during their GCSE or A-level exams?
The advice from the UK Health Security Agency is to stay at home if you are unwell and have a high temperature on the day of your exam. You can then apply for 'special consideration' from your exam board.
You will be asked to fill in a form, which your school or college will use to make the request on your behalf. Examinations have been spaced by at least 10 days this year so you should be able to receive grades based on other parts you have completed, reports Birmingham Live.
Read More: The best revision tips trending on TikTok as GCSE and A-level exams get under way
'Special consideration' is defined as any adjustments given to a student who has temporarily experienced an illness, injury, or other event outside of their control at the time of the assessment, according to Ofqual, the department that regulates qualifications, exams and tests in England.
The illness or injury must have significantly affected their ability to take an assessment or demonstrate what they can do in an assessment.
A government spokesman said: "Special consideration is only for things that happen immediately before or during an exam or assessment that has a material effect on a student’s ability to take that exam or assessment, or on how they performed.
"To be eligible for special consideration students must have been fully prepared for the assessment and have covered the whole course. Students are not eligible for special consideration because their education was disrupted, either by the pandemic or for any other reason."
The way special consideration is handled will depend upon your child's exam board. For example, AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) said it is applicable if a student is absent from an exam for a valid reason.
An AQA spokesman said: "In these cases, a mark is calculated for the missing unit provided the student has completed enough of the specification to meet the minimum requirements specified by JCQ (Joint Council for Qualifications). This is known as a 'z-score'.
"The calculation of the missing mark takes into account the student's performance in the other comparable units of the exam and the national average for those units. The assumption is that the student will perform as well – no better, no worse – on the paper with the missing mark compared to their performance on the other papers when compared to the national cohort.
"This method is considered to be fair and consistent, and is applied the same way by all exam boards offering GCSEs and A-levels."
To find out more, read JCQ's guidance and check your child's exam board and their special considerations criteria here:
How to apply for special consideration
If your child misses their exam due to Covid, they should discuss this with the exams officer at their school or college as the school or college must support an application for special consideration. Exams officers can apply for special consideration under one the following four options:
- Absent candidate – for a student who was absent from a written exam
- Disadvantaged candidate – for a student who was disadvantaged at the time of a written exam
- Group request – for a group of students for any exam or assessment
- Non-timetabled assessment – for a student whose coursework, oral or practical assessment has been lost or is incomplete
Applications are then processed by the special consideration team.
Read Next:
