Teach Secondary -Issue 15.1

Schools are constantly wrestling with staff shortages and competing timetables. Clashes pile up. Appropriate rooms vanish just as quickly as they’re booked, and while invigilators are expected to uphold exam integrity, many receive little training on specific SEND profiles. That lack of preparation can lead to inconsistent experiences and, in a few cases, distress for those students who already associate tests with feelings of panic. Communication breakdowns are common, too. Who collects which student?Which adult knows the student’s anxiety triggers?Who checks that the reader is assigned to the correct candidate, and not the identical twin sat in the next room?When there are dozens of moving parts, the margin for error increases. Exams areOUR job Meanwhile, the JCQ tweaks something every year – and even small changes can upend workflows schools have spent months refining. The most successful exam seasons have one factor in common, that being shared responsibility . When SEND and exam officers are left to carry everything, the strain soon starts to show. But when schools bring multiple teams together early, the culture shifts. Pre-season planning meetings will help everyone understand what the cohort needs. Centralising staff deployment should help prevent sudden scrambles for warm bodies. Some schools run consistent training for their invigilators and support staff so that expectations are made clear. Post-mocks debriefs serve to highlight where things went wrong and what still needs adjusting. One of the most effective approaches I’ve seen is assigning key adults to the most vulnerable students. Those adults aren’t there to ‘bend the rules’, but to provide emotional safety and intercept problems before they escalate. Listen to students, change the game If the process of planning exams feels out of control for us adults, just imagine how they must seem to students with anxiety, or traits associated with pathological demand avoidance. A ceding of control for these students, even in small ways, canmake a real difference. Some schools help students devise simple, one-page ‘ What helps me in exams ’ profiles that outline what triggers their stress, what helps them recover and anything else other adults need to know. Staff then have clear guidance without having to resort to guesswork. However supportive the adults are though, levels of fairness depend on consistency. Students shouldn’t have drastically different exam experiences just because one invigilator is confident with SEND and another isn’t. And as many teachers know, students can sometimes mask their distress so well that their needs are missed entirely. Regular monitoring, check-ins and maintenance of communication channels with families will help to catch those students who might otherwise slip through the cracks unnoticed. Emotional and academic readiness The support available doesn’t have to stop at logistics. SEND students will often need scaffolded approaches to revision and retrieval practice, and usually benefit from predictable routines and structured tasks. When schools model what good preparation looks like and break down expectations, students can arrive for their exams with not just with the right adjustments, but a sense of readiness . Digital platforms, such as Access GCSEPod, can support this kind of retrieval and confidence-building, but only when woven into a broader strategy, rather than handed to students as a standalone fix. They work best when teachers use them to reinforce routines that students already know, rather than when adding yet another unknown to an already stressful landscape. A fair exam experience is possible, but only if we treat that as a collective promise. One message expressed repeatedly by SEND leads is that fairness requires forethought . When adjustments are identified early; when training is regular; when communications are kept clear; and whenmock exams are used to stress-test systems – students feel the difference . Access isn’t about loopholes or box-ticking; it’s about dignity. It’s about making sure that every student, regardless of need, can walk into their GCSE exams believing that the systemhasn’t already decided their chances. And, perhaps most importantly – it’s about remembering that for some young people, the quietest room in the school is the one that holds the most fear. Our job is to make that room feel a little less hostile. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Asmaa Ahmed is a former teacher and mental health lead, now senior customer success manager at The Access Group, working with schools across the UK on the adoption and implementation of evidence-based strategies that improve student outcomes while reducing operational strain for staff; for more information, visit theaccessgroup.com 33 teachwire.net/secondary TEACH SECONDARY SPECIAL GCSEs G C S E s