| Abstract: | In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, recent guidance on access arrangements for students with special educational needs taking public examinations such as the end-of-school General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) has signalled a commitment to the development of access arrangements in line with 'best practice'. In this article, Kevin Woods, from the Educational Support and Inclusion section of the School of Education at the University of Manchester, provides a relevant evaluation of access arrangements for GCSE examinations using questionnaire feedback from 205 specialist teachers involved in their implementation. The findings are that the system for allocating access arrangements is considered 'manageable' by 20% of teachers and 'fair' by only 25% of teachers; 70% of teachers would consider extension of access arrangements to be appropriate, notwithstanding resource constraints. Qualitative data from the questionnaires highlight the reasons for this pattern of results and a call by teachers for wider access in examinations to readers, scribes, extra time and a word processing facility. Kevin Woods sets his findings within the context of recent Government initiatives that are designed to improve engagement and achievement in the 14 to 19 age group. |
