Juliet England: Why I’m suffering from exam stress – without sitting a single paper

Juliet England jumped at the chance to do some exam invigilation work recently – but how would she get on with a hearing loss?

Ah, exam time. That season is approaching again. And while the time since I sat one myself can be measured in decades, I was chuffed to have the chance to invigilate for some professional papers. (I’ve decided not to name the professional body involved here.)

Memories of squeakily shod teachers squelching up and down airless exam halls on interminable soporific June afternoons came flooding back as I agreed to the gig.

Of course, the pesky old hearing loss was a potential hitch. But I’m sure I mentioned the problem when initially expressing interest, although, somehow, since then I’ve almost come to doubt myself.

Anyway, I reasoned. Walking up and down a few rows of desks after saying ‘You may start writing now’, and then saying ‘You must stop writing in 10 minutes’. How hard could it be?

Er, more complicated than I’d realised, actually, as it turned out…

The afternoon before my first shift, I spent an hour sitting around the town-centre hotel that was the exam centre, one of those featureless, corporate gaffs, waiting for the supervisor (we’ll call her Emma) to rock up and discuss the work.

Thanks to a miscommunicated text message over timings, she never showed. (Text messages were clearly not her preferred means of communicating.) I gave up and caught the bus home shortly before she arrived, assuming she wasn’t coming.

I was left feeling somewhat disgruntled. (Have you notice how no one ever says they’re gruntled by the way?) And it did get Emma and I off on to something of the wrong foot.

Emma, despite knowing about the hearing loss, evidently thought I’d still be able to hear the voicemail she subsequently left. In fact, it was too garbled even for a friendly local librarian from whom I sought help to make head or tail of it. So, no pre-exams meeting.

Next day, I did finally got to meet Emma. One of the first things I explained was that I’d take a pen and paper to candidates who called me over, so that they could write down what they wanted. Emma didn’t seem to like this idea.

And it’s true that one or two of them seemed initially bemused, but complied anyway. Scrawling down Paper please, after all, how hard can it be? One scribbled I’ve finished! (Now look here, young man, I wanted to say but couldn’t, you have a whole hour left of this exam, you’re going nowhere.)

Anyway, I quickly realised that almost all the time, candidates would only want one of two things – an escorted loo trip or more writing paper. Or, at a push, a new exam booklet. These were all requests I could easily follow, without any writing down, and each candidate had everything they needed at all times.

During the first hour of the first exam, Emma, in fairness, did write me a longish note, apologising for everything being so busy, and explaining that she was driving some distance each day to the exams. She also explained that she was sorry for having missed me the day before. OK, I thought, excellent practice. This is going to work out fine

How naive can you be? Later on, after everyone had shuffled away from their exam, relief and exhaustion etched on their poor little faces, I was asked to lay out the next day’s writing paper and exam booklets. Clearly I hadn’t quite caught the instruction and the things were on the wrong desks. So I did the obvious thing and put the stuff on the right ones. Hardly the end of the world.

I also admit I grappled with getting back in the room when using the pesky credit card-type ‘key’ to get back in if I took someone to the loo, but, again, it scarcely seemed to disturb anyone or matter that much.

So I have to admit to a certain surprise to hearing from Emma that, after three shifts rather than the arranged five, my services would no longer be required, due to a ‘change in circumstances.’

I stared at the email for a while. True, the invigilating was only ever going to be a few casual shifts, and no great shakes in the grand scheme of things. Even so, I had arranged my week around them and cancelled other things. Equally, an apology for the change of plan might have been nice.

I still believe the hearing loss was the main reason my final two sessions were (needlessly) cancelled, and that Emma, in the perhaps understandable stress of running the exams, the daily travel to the centre and so on, simply couldn’t cope with someone occasionally needing a little extra support and patience.

I tried quizzing her about the problem as I left after what turned out to be my last session. ‘Circumstances changing,’ she shrugged. (Again, no apology or explanation.)

No one likes to feel unfairly treated in a casually dismissive way like this, and particularly not because of an additional need which, in my case, was hardly that great anyway. Emma, or others, may think it’s OK to treat someone like this. It really isn’t. It really matters. So I’ve emailed the Professional Body that Shall Be Nameless my concerns semi-officially to express my, er, disgruntlement – I’ll let you know how I get on.

Juliet England is a partially deaf freelance writer