Extra time & access arrangements
Does my child automatically get extra time with ADHD or dyslexia?
Not automatically, no. A diagnosis of ADHD or dyslexia opens the conversation, but exam arrangements are granted on evidenced impact - how the difficulty actually affects timed written work - and on what is already the student's normal way of working in class. The menu is wider than extra time, too: rest breaks, a reader, a scribe, a laptop, a separate room. The school's SENCo decides under JCQ rules, so start there, early.
Last updated 8 September 2026 · Written and fact-checked by the GCSEwiz team
Why a diagnosis is the start, not the answer
This is the gap between how the system feels like it should work and how it does. A diagnosis names the difficulty; the exam rules ask a different question - what does it actually do to this student's work under exam conditions? Two students with the same dyslexia diagnosis can be affected completely differently: one reads slowly but writes fluently, the other decodes fine and loses everything in spelling and structure. The JCQ framework the boards share is built around evidenced impact, assessed within the school, rather than diagnosis alone.
That is genuinely fairer than a diagnosis-based rule would be - it matches the support to the actual need, and it protects the arrangements' credibility for the students who rely on them. But it does mean a clinic letter, on its own, settles nothing. What settles it is the school's evidence of how your child works.
Does ADHD get you extra time in exams?
Not automatically, and often not extra time at all. ADHD qualifies a student for exam arrangements when the school can evidence that it affects their work under exam conditions: unfinished papers, attention that collapses partway through a long sitting, processing that runs slower than their understanding. Where the evidenced difficulty is sustaining attention, JCQ guidance now points schools towards supervised rest breaks first, because stopping the clock to reset helps more than another quarter of an hour of the same struggle. Where the evidence shows slow processing or writing speed, 25% extra time is the arrangement that fits. Some students end up with both. The decision sits with the school's SENCo, made under the JCQ rules and backed by what the student normally does in class, so the route to any of it is the conversation in the last section, started early.
The menu is bigger than extra time
Extra time is the famous arrangement, but it is one item on a longer list. Depending on the evidenced need, schools can put in place:
- 25% extra time - for evidenced slow processing, reading or writing speed.
- Supervised rest breaks - the clock stops while the student pauses and resets.
- A reader or computer reader - the paper read aloud, for an evidenced reading difficulty.
- A scribe or a word processor - for when getting words onto paper is the barrier.
- A separate or smaller room - fewer people, less noise, lower stimulation.
- A prompter - a tap on the desk to bring a wandering attention back to the paper.
For ADHD and anxiety, rest breaks often come first
A shift worth knowing about: recent JCQ guidance steers many ADHD and anxiety cases towards supervised rest breaks as the first arrangement to consider, before extra time. The logic is sound - if the difficulty is sustaining attention or managing overwhelm rather than raw processing speed, more minutes of the same struggle helps less than the ability to stop the clock, reset, and return. Many families arrive asking for extra time and discover rest breaks fit the actual difficulty better.
So go into the SENCo conversation open about what the need is, rather than fixed on one remedy - the arrangement that helps most may not be the one you came in expecting.
How to start the SENCo conversation - and when
Early. Arrangements must reflect the student's normal way of working - used routinely in class and mocks, not produced for the first time in the exam hall - and building that track record takes time. Ideally the conversation starts in Year 9 or 10 for GCSEs, or at the start of an A-level course; exam season itself is usually too late to establish anything new.
Come to the meeting with specifics, not just the diagnosis: homework that takes triple the expected time, classwork that collapses under time pressure, teachers' comments about unfinished papers. Share any reports you have as context. Then ask three plain questions: what does school's own evidence show, which arrangements fit that evidence, and what needs to happen - and by when - to have them in place and in daily use before exams. A good SENCo will welcome exactly that conversation; it is the process working as designed.