THE MOBILE CHEATS
NEARLY HALF OF ALL PENALTIES HANDED TO GCSE AND A LEVEL STUDENTS WERE FOR USING A PHONE DURING EXAMS
More than 2,000 students across England and Wales were punished for malpractice during their GCSEs and A Levels last year - mainly for using their mobile phones during exams.
New figures from the Department for Education and Qualifications Wales show that 2,945 penalties were handed out by examining boards for wrongdoing in the 2018 summer assessments.
An individual student can be penalised more than once and by more than one exam board if they commit malpractice offences when sitting more than one assessment.
A student may also receive one penalty for multiple offences.
Nearly half of all incidents were related to a student using a mobile phone or other electronic communications device in the exam room, with 1,390 penalties handed out for this type of infraction.
That’s up from 1,140 similar incidents in 2017 - the first year that this particular figure was reported.
Further breakdown is not available for Wales, but in England other penalties related to the use of other unauthorised materials, such as notes, study guides and personal organisers (380), exchanging information with other students (105), plagiarism (50) and cheating (20).
Penalties were also handed out for disruptive behaviour (195), and the inclusion of inappropriate, offensive or obscene material in scripts coursework or portfolios (225).
Loss of marks was the most common penalty imposed for malpractice
overall, with 1,540 cases resulting in this type of punishment.
Meanwhile, 945 warnings were handed out, and 460 students were disqualified - either from one exam, a specific subject, or from the entire qualification.
It wasn’t just students who were punished for malpractice during GCSE and A Level exams, however - school or college staff were also given penalties.
In total, 635 penalties were handed out to staff for bad behaviour during the 2018 summer exams, mainly for maladministration (230), giving improper assistance to students (130) and for breaches of security (125).
In most cases, the member of staff was given a written warning (345), but
in other instances they were expected to complete extra training or mentoring (165), and in some cases they were suspended from future involvement in exams or assessments (30).
Meanwhile, a school or college itself was given a penalty for malpractice on 105 occasions last year.
Again these were mainly for maladministration (60), but also for security breaches (30) and failure to comply with regulations for access arrangements, reasonable adjustments and special consideration (five).
Most schools and colleges were given a written warning (65), but others were set up to be reviewed and reported on (30), and others put under additional monitoring or inspection (10).