Iansl2020

Hi Riley, we have a few at our school too. I have emailed the DFE. Did you manage to get into them or are they for the bin? Thanks, Ian

But, with it saying at the end that.... "However, the candidate will not have access to marks awarded for spelling, punctuation and/or grammar unless he/she has independently dictated spelling, punctuation and/or grammar," I then don't understand why they would ever be given software that does the spellcheck, punctuation and grammar if they will not receive any marks for it? Im getting lost here!

Just to follow up on this, this is an extract from the current JCQ regulations that seem to indicate that Grammar and also Predictive Text is allowed for some students (but no mention of punctuation?). It doesn't mention whether a Thesaurus is allowed or not but it is looking as though I may need to look at using Word for some students, maybe with some hacking to stop certain functionality.... "Use of speech recognition technology 5.7.4 Where the centre has approval for the use of a scribe and where it reflects the candidate’s normal way of working within the centre, as appropriate to his/her needs, the candidate may alternatively use: • a word processor with the spelling and grammar check facility enabled; (NB This arrangement will not be permitted in ELC, GCSE and GCE Modern Foreign Language specifications. See paragraph 5.7.6.) • a word processor with predictive text/spelling and grammar check facility enabled; (NB This arrangement will not be permitted in ELC, GCSE and GCE Modern Foreign Language specifications. See paragraph 5.7.6.) • speech recognition technology with predictive text when the candidate dictates into a word processor. Software (a screen reader) may be used to read back and correct the candidate’s dictated answers; (NB This arrangement will not be permitted in ELC, GCSE and GCE Modern Foreign Language specifications. See paragraph 5.7.6.) • computer software, producing speech, which is used to dictate to a scribe. However, the candidate will not have access to marks awarded for spelling, punctuation and/or grammar unless he/she has independently dictated spelling, punctuation and/or grammar, and this has been recorded on the scribe cover sheet."

Thanks for confirming my understanding. I work in IT but i'm pretty sure the requirement is for SPAG rather than just spelling however, I will check again with our XL department as it is them that assess the pupils and then dictate the requirement to our Exams department. As you say, locking down Word is a dark-art! Something that I have tried to achieve in the past and it has been messy to the point I gave up, went with ExamWritePad and have never looked back until now when the PAG aspect has cropped up!

Hi people, We have students here that need a Word Processor for exams. Most of the time the requirement is for spell-checking to be disabled in which case we use the excellent ExamWritePad software. It would also be great to use this for those that require spell-checking to be enabled but the full entitlement of these students is described as Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar checking (SPAG). My understanding is that ExamWritePad does not have the Punctuation and Grammar checking aspects. So, my immediate thoughts are to give these Students Microsoft Word instead but does anyone know if this is acceptable? Word contains functions such as Thesaurus, Translation etc. that I suspect are not in line with what the exam boards allow. Any thoughts from other schools out there? Many thanks, Ian

Thanks for that. Our catering manager contacted DayMark directly and got no reply. I will suggest he goes via Birchalls. Thanks.

Many thanks. It would be great to know if they are happy with it and what it is they are using. Ian

Hi, many thanks. I think our catering manager was looking at this or a similar model but we couldn't find any information about the software to see if it would be suitable. Its good to know that another school finds it is sufficient. Ian

Hi all, Apologies if this is not the right place and mods, feel free to relocate it. Our school catering manager is after some easy to use software that will produce labels showing nutritional information for the meals each day to stick on sandwiches etc. We would be interested in any solution/software that any of you have tried and tested and are generally pleased with - free or otherwise. This could be just a software package or a full solution of maybe a tablet, app and label printer. Many thanks, Ian

Hi, thanks for that. I am using 3750 but cannot see that config option. It must be right in front of my nose but can you help me find it? Thanks, Ian

I have only found one small issue. I have the config forced to save the file immediately after completing the exam credentials. When this initial save is done, a notification pops up to say it has saved successfully and it somehow manages to make a notification bong noise even though the sound is muted on my PC (set to a volume higher than zero but muted) and I have mute the sound selected in the config file. I guess this will only generally happen at the beginning of the exam and I am planning on sliding the volume down to zero on the PC's to prevent it anyway so not a biggie. Thanks again for the software, Ian.

Sorry this does not add to the development of EWP (other than a morale boost maybe!) but I just wanted to thank the author/authors? of this excellent, very well written and thought out piece of software that I am hoping to begin using in our school. I have only one comment that I struggled to find an answer to on the EWP website - it doesn't look like there is but can I clarify, is there a cost to use it? Thanks once again from our staff and students! Ian