Fears are growing over a shortage of invigilator staff to oversee students sitting GCSE and A-level exams this summer as leaders warn of the “most anxious cohort they’ve ever had”.
Three-quarters of exam officers (75 per cent) are concerned that schools and colleges will not have or expect not to have enough competent, fully trained invigilators for the summer exam series, according to a recent poll.
And the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) has warned that the most “anxious and stressed out” exam cohort heads have seen is sparking an increased number of students needing special arrangements to sit exams, which is driving demand for more exam invigilators.
It comes as schools brace for a return to pre-pandemic grading in 2023, although exam regulator Ofqual has promised “some protection against any impact of Covid disruption” to learning.
More than eight in 10 (81 per cent) of exam officers who forecast an invigilator shortage in the survey said it was due to a rise in requests for different “access arrangements”, including demands for separate rooms, a need for reader or scribe support, according to the poll of 875 exam officers by the National Association of Examinations Officers (NAEO).
Tom Middlehurst, curriculum, assessment and inspection specialist at ASCL, said the union’s council members have warned this year’s GCSE and A-level students “are the most anxious, stressed out cohort that they have ever had”.
He added it was ”always a logistical challenge for schools to recruit enough invigilators, given the large number of exams taken during a short window of time”, but added that ”a growing requirement for readers, scribes or separate rooms will only increase the numbers of invigilators that are needed, the time spent on training and the financial cost to schools”.
Mr Middlehurst said that increasing numbers of students are anxious enough to meet the threshold to be eligible for special access arrangements, “whether that’s because they have doctor’s notes or whether they simply are exhibiting signs of acute anxiety”.
He added that this issue is likely to continue for the next few years because “these students have gone through the biggest crisis that we’ve faced as a country since the Second World War”.
“It’s inevitable that there’s going to be more anxiety around some of this.”
However, he doesn’t see this being baked into the system and sees it as a response to students missing out on “huge chunks of learning” and a return to pre-pandemic grading this year.
Commenting on the latest poll by NAEO, its chief executive officer Jugjit Chima said that the impact of the pandemic is ”still being felt by many centres in the recruitment of invigilators ahead of this summer’s exam series”.
Last year, the number of invigilators required to oversee the summer exams was reduced amid fears over shortages of people to carry out these roles.
Over 500,000 access arrangements were awarded to students taking GCSE, AS and A-level exams last summer.
Glyn Potts, headteacher at Blessed John Henry Newman RC College in Oldham, whose school had difficulties hiring invigilators last year, said that this year the situation was “just as bad”.
He said the “challenge” his school is struggling with is the number of young people who are entitled to exam access arrangements requiring separate rooms in which to sit exams, and therefore more invigilators.
Competition emerging between schools
Mr Potts said some schools are being forced to go into “competition” with each other in a bid to get more invigilators on board.
He said that the schools near his college have added time before every exam “for what they’re calling administration, which equates to 30 minutes additional pay”, to attract staff.
Mr Potts added that the delay in pupils being seen by Camhs means they need to be granted special support to sit exams as if they had already received a diagnosis.
Dan Morrow, chief executive officer of Dartmoor Multi Academy Trust, said that while he was concerned about invigilator numbers for this summer, the trust has managed to now fully staff its team using an alumni network of former pupils and governance colleagues.
He said shortages were due to a “significant increase in the number of young people requiring access arrangements” and many invigilators not returning after Covid.
Jon Curtis-Brignell, the headteacher at the Priory School in Lewes, East Sussex, told Tes that an increase in the number of invigilators needed to cover access arrangements was a “trend”.
He said his school needed about 20 to 25 invigilators to run an exam series and “it’s quite hard to recruit that many”, especially, he says, “with a lot of other institutions trying to do the same thing”.
Mr Curtis-Brignell is also seeing an increase in exam-year students presenting with anxiety.
He added that just under a third of his current Year 11 cohort have requested some kind of special arrangements to sit their GCSEs this year, which was “a trend pre-pandemic as well”.
“Every year, the demand around exam season was increasing: needing more room, needing more invigilators,” he said.
He added that although it was a “positive” that schools are meeting a need, “it does present a real statistical and operational challenge”.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We do not anticipate general disruption as a result of a lack of invigilators, who are currently still being recruited.
“The Exams Office and National Association of Examinations Officers have developed a Vacancy Map to support invigilator recruitment and we are working with them to promote this widely. The map collates centre vacancies in one place, making invigilation opportunities more visible.
“Schools and exam centres are well prepared to handle any challenges, and should have robust contingency plans in place but if schools and colleges identify that they do not have sufficient invigilators to conduct an exam, they should contact their exam board.”
