Essex 11+ SEN Reasonable Adjustments Policy

[mystery]

Sorry it wasn't clear to me whether the details of the adjustments have gone to the school yet or not. Did they tell you when they would?
Presumably the school could tell you what tests they carried out and how your daughter scored, and give you a copy of their application for adjustments?

[tigger2]

I don't know if the decision has been sent back to the school yet but I sent a polite letter to school asking them to call me to let me know as soon as they received the details. I still hope that I have been given the wrong info .....I can't quite believe that we are not automatically entitled to know the result of an assessment that we have requested that is directly connected to an exam that had to register our dd for. I hope that makes sense

We will try again tomorrow !

Thanks for all your advice
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[mystery]

Did you e-mail or speak to someone at KCC? I have asked questions before about the 11plus by e-mail and received e-mail answers back from someone who is in charge of the 11plus process. It might be worth e-mailing secondary admissions if so far all your communications have been by telephone as you may not have been speaking to someone senior enough to really know the answers, if you get my drift

[tigger2]

I called Kcc today to chase up a reply to three emails regarding adjustments for the test which is only a month away to be told that the decision makers won't be doing any decision making until the last week of August when they meet . They are all away on holiday at the moment. The earliest date that I could speak to anyone will be the 21st but,even then, they won't tell me over the phone what has been decided and a letter will only be sent to her school . The Head of Education at Kcc is away too until the 28th. Very frustrating

[senmum]

Sorry to hear of the delays - did you find out from the school what adjustments they asked for?

[tigger2]

Afraid not....they said that they sent in results of tests that they had to carry out specifically for the 11+ and Kcc decide on what is required...Kcc told me that they take the results of the tests and the schools recommendations. We have written a letter to the ht so hope that we will hear something soon...

[senmum]

That is poor - in my experience in this area the adjustments do also have to take into account what is currently done in her school for her in other examination situations - it might be worth asking the ht whether they communicated that to kcc even if they did not ask specifically for particular adjustments. if he didn't then perhaps he would now before they make their decision.
Hope this helps

[tigger2]

Thank you....it is nice to know that other people believe I am not asking for something that is unreasonable. I have emailed Kcc a copy of an email sent to me by the senco confirming adjustments for sats last year so hope that will help. Does anyone know if children awarded extra time still sit in the main exam room? I asked our school and they had no idea and implied that dd's application was the first that they had submitted for years . When it is sats time dd sits with the whole class for some tests and not others. She tells me that she has a different pen to use for extra time so when everyone else stops she switches over to the new colour (didn't know that until last week!). She would really like a reader for the maths and extra time for vr and the written task-all adjustments that she has had before but we will just have to see what happens next week
Tigger
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[senmum]

You are not being unreasonable in any way -if you have a child with a disability it is their right in law to have reasonable adjustments made for their disability. And those adjustments must be for their disability - not to be offered some adjustments and not others because an examining board has a blanket ban on some types of adjustments.
I am very surprised to hear about the change in Pen colour. What purpose does that serve? Surely the extra time should be irrelevant when papers are marked and candidates with extra time should not be identified as such to markers in such a way. My dd had extra time for sats and never had to change pen.
Best of luck next week
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[senmum]

On the subject of sitting the test in the same room my dd was taken to a separate room with a separate invigilator for Essex 11+. However they paid such poor attention to her exam conditions and the provision of those adjustments that we won the appeal on the grounds that the school had not followed the admissions process correctly in my dd's case. If I was doing it again I would pay far more attention to how the adjustments were to work in practice- and get it agreed in advance. The separate room helps with the fact that it aids concentration where that is an issue and resolves the problem of noise when the exam ends for other pupils earlier.
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