PARENTS are exploiting exam rules for pupils with disabilities to secure extra time for their children in their GCSEs and A-levels.

Pupils are being given up to 25% extra time — 45 minutes more on a three-hour paper — under rules that were designed to help candidates with disorders such as dyslexia.

They have only to show through an assessment by specially trained teachers at the school that they are “slow” readers or writers to gain extra time and so potentially raise their chances of success.

Senior educational psychologists claim that between a third and a half of candidates at some schools are getting the extensions, which can boost schools’ results in exam league tables.

“It is becoming a national scandal,” said Bernadette McLean, principal of the Helen Arkell Centre in Farnham, Surrey, Britain’s oldest centre for training professionals to diagnose dyslexia.

She blamed the problem on schools taking over responsibility for assessing and awarding pupils time extensions. Until 2002 the exam boards had to authorise individual candidates’ extra time.

Last year about 35,000 candidates from state and independent schools taking GCSEs and A-levels got 25% extra time on their papers. However, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), which compiled the data, admitted it was an underestimate because schools “under-reported” their figures.

“Exam boards have in recent years failed to police the system,” said McLean. “The decision on extra time is now left to schools.

“Pupils have to be assessed by a specialist but they do not have to be diagnosed as dyslexic or dyspraxic. The school has only to be confident that a pupil is a slow processor of information, that they are a slow reader or writer.”

Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Commons select committee on education, said the way the rules were being operated was giving some candidates an “unfair” advantage.

Most state and independent schools contacted last week declined to reveal the number of pupils gaining extensions. One, however, admitted it had 20%; another, a highly selective independent grammar school, said 12% of its A-level candidates had been awarded extra time.

Barnaby Lenon, headmaster of Harrow school in north London, said the rules were too lax. “It’s ridiculous. I have come across a boy — not at this school — who has been given 25% extra time because his handwriting is slightly slow,” Lenon said. “Are we getting to the stage when we will be obliged to give all pupils a test to judge their writing speed?” Other head teachers said parents often pressed schools into granting extensions after paying up to £400 for professional assessments from educational psychologists.

Gregg Davies, head of Shiplake college in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, said parents could take legal action against a school that did not give extra time to a pupil who had been identified as eligible.

To gain an extension, the assessor has to confirm whether the candidate writes “more slowly than is average for his/her age”, before giving details of the child’s words per minute and percentage of indecipherable words. Alternatively, children can get extra time if the assessor confirms their reading speed is below average for their age, defined as being in the bottom 16% of the ability range.

Martin Turner, former head of psychology at the Dyslexia Institute, said the system had begun to undermine the credibility of exam results. “There are so many getting 25% extra time for every subject that it must feed into grade inflation,” he said. “With an extra half hour, a pupil could push their grade up from a D to a C.

“It does not make sense to give extra time in this way. It brings in dull children who have slow reading speeds and can exclude high-ability dyslexics. I know of some independent schools where a third to a half of exam candidates get 25% extra time. They are well organised and have the resources to pay for assessments.”

The QCA said it closely monitored time extensions, which remained “small” as a proportion of the number sitting exams. It added: “We are currently working with the exam boards on improved systems for recording information on special arrangements so that they can be tracked in more detail.”

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