Schools ask parents to step in to avoid exam chaos this term
Aneira Davies
ContributorParents and teachers are being asked to cover invigilator shortages during exam season.
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After two years of disruption to education – and just as things are beginning to go back to normal – school pupils could face even more exam chaos this summer, as there aren't enough invigilators to help out.
Instead, parents and teachers are being asked to step in and oversee exams, in a bid to help pupils sitting their GCSE and A Level exams this summer.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ACSL) has warned that shortfalls are having to be covered by other staff members, while school staff have said that parents have also been asked to help out – because many invigilators are worried about the risk of catching COVID-19 in schools or have found other jobs.
Katherine McDiarmid, exams officer at Kendrick School in Reading, told the BBC she has put 'constant adverts out' for invigilators this year, and has trained two part-time librarians and some parents.
She said:
'The Covid situation has meant that a lot of [invigilators] have decided they don't want to work. They don't want to put themselves at risk.
'People who were your really experienced key room leads - that could do the job standing on their heads - have left.'
ACSL General Secretary Geoff Barton said that shortages meant that schools were having to train their own staff to cover these roles.
He said:
'It is also clear that there are sufficient difficulties in recruiting enough invigilators. It would obviously reassure these staff if free Covid testing was available for exam students and we once again appeal to the government to make this simple and obvious provision.'
While one invigilator normally covers 30 students, they'll now have to oversee 40 students instead, while rules forbidding teachers from supervising their own subjects have been relaxed.
Schools are also reporting a greater need for invigilators as many pupils are sitting exams in separate rooms than their classmates, due to higher levels of anxiety among pupils.
One deputy headteacher of a school in Wigan told the BBC that her school had set up rooms for pupils who have asked to sit exams separately since COVID, and that the school needed 'a lot more' invigilators for those extra rooms.
Leanne Turner, deputy head teacher at The Deanery Church of England High School in Wigan, said:
'The thought of returning to school for some children was just too much to bear.
'Going into the sports hall, being there with another 250 children, sitting still for all that time, walking into that actual room - it's a bridge too far for many of them that are already feeling wobbly.'
The Department for Education has said that schools will have made 'robust contingency plans' for exam season and should be able to cope. Schools have also been advised that they can delay exams or split students into groups if they cannot find enough invigilators.
A spokesperson told the BBC:
'Schools and exam centres are well prepared to handle any challenges, having been asked to have robust contingency plans in place.'
It's not the first time that school leaders and teaching unions have spoken out about the issue, with the ASCL calling for GCSE and A Level pupils to be given more protection to avoid the virus spreading in exam halls.
In April, Geoff Barton called on the government to bring back free COVID testing for exam season.
He urged:
'We simply can’t understand why the government does not take this simple step, particularly given that it has been so insistent about the importance of students sitting public exams.'
The government has promised measures such as timetabling exams in the same subject at least 10 days apart and releasing information on what topics will be covered.
However, this won't stop pupils catching COVID during an exam and missing their next exam as a result, and won't help staff or invigilator absences either.
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