Success is better together! Building relationships with the UK exam support community

Exam season: whether you’re a student, a teacher, an exams officer or a SENCo, it’s not a period that many of us would associate with stress-free living. We’ve all seen our share of…

• Long days
• Endless doomscrolling
• Last-minute fixes
• Sleepless nights, anxious about tomorrow’s exam…
• …Or sleepless nights feeling anxious about those feeling anxious about tomorrow’s exams.

Tests like SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels aren’t easy for any learner, but when neurodivergent minds and Special Educational Needs are in play, these tests can go from difficult and a little stressful to anxiety-inducing and feeling impossible – and that often means results suffer too. But at Empowering Tech, we believe that learning and thinking differently shouldn’t mean that a student has to compromise on their ambitions, or give up on their dreams of academic success. We believe that every last part of the education system should be an open door for everyone… and that includes the doors to the exam hall too.

That’s why we’re so proud of our long history of supporting exam success for people who learn and think differently, as well as the professionals who guide them every step of the way.

Empowering Tech's collaboration with The Exams Office

Our long-time relationship with The Exams Office is one of the cornerstones of how we see our role as providers of edtech excellence, and challengers of the idea that students with additional needs have a limited scope for success. Alongside our co-founder Jack Churchill, Empowering Tech has been working with The Exams Office from the very beginning, pushing for change to a testing system that disadvantaged learners who were neurodivergent, had low literacy, or had Special Educational Needs. Together we’ve been championing the access arrangements framework that unlocks fair and equal exam-taking for all. What a team!

We’ve also seen reading pen access arrangements notation updated several times to be more specific, more inclusive, and allow more learners than ever before to access reading pen support in exams. That includes leading the charge for centre-delegated status for the easy use of a reading pen if it’s become the student’s Normal Way of Working, meaning that there’s far less legwork involved for SENCos and exams officers all around!

The shift in accessibility we’ve created together means that more and more learners can break down the literacy barriers that otherwise might have compromised their success.

And speaking of reading pens…

Empowering change with the education experts at Scanning Pens

Scanning Pens are Empowering Tech’s resident reading pen and education experts, who work tirelessly with schools and colleges all over the country – and the world – to ensure that no reader ever has to go into an exam hall feeling like they won’t be able to understand what the question paper is asking of them.

Vital assistive tech tools like C-Pen Exam Reader 2 have flipped the script for thousands and thousands of students every year, ensuring that whatever happens on the day, one thing they won’t need to worry about is decoding and comprehending the test paper. It’s as simple as scan, listen and understand: just move the tip of the pen across the question booklet to hear the words read back in crystal-clear, discreet audio.

And with school budgets under pressure, higher exam costs and more learners than ever before set to do resits (…maybe even about a third of the cohort), it’s more important than ever before to make sure that everyone has easy access to the tools they need to succeed, that costs remain as low as possible for exam centres, and that the process is streamlined for administrators and exams officers.

Support needs are on the rise— so provision needs to rise to the challenge.

According to the folks at the National Association for Exams Officers (NAEO), during the 2022 – 2023 academic year, well over 120,000 student candidates were granted approval for the use of a reader in their exams. That’s a pretty big increase, too: the approved cases for a reader have increased by 27% since the 2018 – 2019 academic year. These are huge numbers of learners, and without the support that reading pens, dedicated exams officers and The Exams Office give, so many of them wouldn’t be able to go forward into further education and the courses and careers they want.

…But it’s unlikely that these numbers are going to cap at 120k.

53% of Gen Z identify as neurodivergent. Gen Alpha are the most neurodiversity-positive generation yet, so there’s a chance that for them, the number may be even higher. And due to the growth of dyslexia awareness, a huge increase in diagnoses and a continued requirement for Grade-4 passes in English and Maths at GCSE, we’re going to see a lot more learners in upcoming cohorts asking for exam-time support. That means the system has to be open, accessible and supportive for everyone in it, and agile enough to administrate so that exams officers can work their magic for each and every student who needs it.

That’s why we’re so proud to work with organisations like Scanning Pens and The Exams Office, who are out there, championing greater accessibility every day. The best way to future-proof is to never stop pushing for greater inclusion, and for learners with reading needs, that means making sure that the door to the exam hall never feels like a barrier, and that they can tackle those papers with confidence, every time.

To find out more about how reading pens can boost confidence, support reading and eliminate low exam confidence for students, check out Scanning Pens’ website at www.scanningpens.co.uk.

To explore The Exams Office and the great work they do in supporting exams officers and exam centres across the UK, head on over to www.theexamsoffice.org.