Dear Dan

Pearson, which is the company contracted with the Department for Education to administer the Skills tests, displays its standard information about the reasonable adjustments available on the DfE website at www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/traininganddevelopment/professional/b00211219/special-arrangements. Pearson calls adjustments ‘special arrangements’, a terminology they inherited from the old Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA).

As the web page says, ‘candidates who previously required special arrangements in a test or public exam can request the same for the professional skills tests for trainee teachers’. This is quite a good way of arguing, for example, that any support provided for disabled students on their undergraduate courses should similarly be available to them for Skills tests when they come to a PGCE.

The second page on ‘Reasons for special arrangements’ gives a list of the most frequent arrangements. Leaving aside the very medical model, it does give a flavour of what else can be provided apart from 25% extra time.

On the Disability Rights UK student helpline we have recently had several questions and complaints about Pearson not putting in place requested ‘special arrangements. This can be especially problematic since the tests are now up-front and the number of allowable re-sits has been capped at two. This can be disadvantageous to disabled trainees if there are any early delays or their support needs fine-tuning.

On the other hand we have feedback from one university that Pearson were very helpful when rung directly and their complaint was quickly investigated and resolved.

We would appreciate any feedback (positive or negative) about how things are working with the QTS Skills tests since the TDA was abolished.

It is also our impression that there are barriers in other areas – we know for example about problems experienced by disabled trainees on Teach First – and if necessary we intend to approach the Teaching Agency which lost a lot of its diversity remit after the General Teaching Council for England and the TDA both closed. This puts the Teaching Agency out of step with other bodies such as the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Law Society which all take a proactive interest in the recruitment of disabled people into their professions.

Thanks

Tony Stevens
Project Lead - Education and Careers

Student helpline email: [log in to unmask]







________________________________________
From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff. [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of DIS-FORUM automatic digest system [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 16 October 2013 00:04
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: DIS-FORUM Digest - 14 Oct 2013 to 15 Oct 2013 (#2013-149)

There are 2 messages totaling 275 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. additional support for QTS test
  2. Reach & remit of DISSUPCORD

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Date:    Tue, 15 Oct 2013 11:37:14 +0000
From:    Daniel Robinson <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: additional support for QTS test

Dear colleagues,

Are any of you aware of any support over and above the additional 25% extra time available for the QTS literacy and numeracy tests?

Thanks
Dan



Daniel Robinson
Student Services

01695 584793
Ext 4793

________________________________
Edge Hill University
Times Higher University of the Year - shortlisted 2007, 2010, 2011
www.edgehill.ac.uk<http://www.edgehill.ac.uk>
________________________________
This message is private and confidential. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and remove it from your system. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Edge Hill or associated companies. Edge Hill University may monitor email traffic data and also the content of email for the purposes of security and business communications during staff absence.

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Date:    Tue, 15 Oct 2013 16:15:37 +0000
From:    Fiona Valentine <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Reach & remit of DISSUPCORD

Dear all

As we now move forward with the NMH charter I propose to expand the reach and remit of the Dissuppcord Jiscmail list to encourage wider debate around all things NMH - particularly among the wider sector colleagues, who are not themselves co-ordinators or providers but have an active interest in NMH provision.  Going forward to prevent the duplication on several lists of the same information we will move forward to discuss both Charter and other NMH issues  on this one list with a wider audience which negates the need to have to duplicate the information on many others, reducing our already busy inboxes !

If you are not already a member but would like to join the group just send me an email with your name and email address on it to prevent you missing out on any NMH discussions.

(I am posting this to NADP & Disforum, please feel free to disseminate to other lists)

Many thanks

Fiona Valentine

Support Worker Co-ordinator
Specialist Support Worker Service
Disability Services
University of Central Lancashire
Foster Building 119
Corporation Street
Preston
PR1 2HE

Tel 01772 892608
Email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>


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End of DIS-FORUM Digest - 14 Oct 2013 to 15 Oct 2013 (#2013-149)
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