These courses are designed for anyone involved in the access arrangements process in their centre, and for Access Arrangements Assessors carrying out assessments for access arrangements or the disabled student’s allowance. Communicate-ed is an Authorised Assessment CPD provider for the SpLD Assessment Standards Committee (SASC). Most of our SBCPD courses are SASC approved core hours for renewal of SpLD Assessment Practising Certificates. Please see the ‘What does the course cover’ tab for more information.

Communicate-ed has developed a number of short courses about assessing for access arrangements and the administration and interpretation of a range of tests. All courses with a * are SASC approved for Core CPD hours. Each course is worth one core hour (even if the course itself is longer).

Courses about Access Arrangements in Exams:

1. Providing Evidence of Normal Way of Working: 75 mins Lia Castiglione examines the JCQ interpretation of ‘normal way of working’ and explores resources used in a variety of centres to provide evidence for differing needs.
2. Using Assistive Technology in Exams: 75 mins Malcolm Litten presents the types of technology that a candidate can use in exams, with suggestions for specific software.
3. *Assessing Students with English as an Additional Language for Access Arrangements: 60 mins Caroline Read and Gurinder Grewal outline the issues faced when assessing candidates with English as an Additional Language for Exam Access Arrangements. They make suggestions for how to decide whether their difficulty is due to EAL or an underlying learning difficulty.
4. *Collating/Interpreting Evidence for Access Arrangements: 100 mins Caroline Read takes delegates step by step through how to collate and interpret the evidence needed to decide what Access Arrangements a candidate needs and qualifies for.
5. Understanding the Impact of Neurodiversity on Examinations: 100 mins Lia Castiglione gives an overview of the main Neurodiversity and makes suggestions for appropriate Exam Access Arrangements.
6. The Equality Act 2010 and Examination Access Arrangements for General Qualifications: 75 mins Caroline Read explains the requirements of the EQA 2010 in relation to qualifications, what the Act says and how awarding bodies and centres can be sure that they are complying with the law.

†Courses covering the administration and interpretation of individual tests:

1. *Adult Reading Test 2: 60 mins
2. *British Picture Vocabulary Scale 3: 45 mins
3. *Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing 2: 90 mins
4. *Detailed Assessment of Speed of Handwriting: 70 mins
5. *Dyslexia Portfolio: 70 mins
6. *Diagnostic Reading Analysis 3: 55 mins
7. *Gray Oral Reading Tests 5: 70 mins
8. *Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Third Edition (KTEA-3) 120 mins
9. *SPaRCS 50 mins
10. *Test of Word Reading Efficiency 2: 30 mins
11. *Test of Memory and Learning 2: 90 min
12. *Wechsler Individual Achievement Test III UK: 120 mins
13. *Wide Range Achievement Test 5: 50 mins
14. *Wide Range Intelligence Test: 110 mins
15. *York Assessment of Reading Comprehension: 90 mins
16. * Woodcock Johnson IV UK and IRE edition: 120 mins

Please note, we have a few other short courses available as webinars that we ran live but recorded for future bookings. These include:

• Presentation by the authors on the DASH-2
• Presentation on the TOSWRF-2, TOSCRF-2 and TOC-2
• Exploring Alternatives to the SDMT
• Presentation on the DTVP-A:2
• The use and interpretation of the TOMAL 2 in diagnostic assessments

Please click here to view and book these webinars.

†If you have access to a copy of the test(s) you have chosen you will find it helpful to have the manual to refer to during the presentation. However, this is not essential as the presenter will show the appropriate pages on the screen. Most of the tests have record/examiner forms produced by the publishers; you will need an original copy of the appropriate form(s) for each test you have chosen. We can supply you with a form for a small fee, please click here for an order form (164 KB pdf).

The course tutors are Caroline Read, Lia Castiglione, Ally Howes and Malcom Litten.

Caroline Read

Caroline is a Specialist Teacher who has practical experience in all areas of the Access Arrangements process and trains for LAs, Universities and SEN Services. Caroline contributed to the PATOSS/JCQ publication ‘Dyslexia: Assessing the need for Access Arrangements’, has been published in academic journals and has worked with various publishers to develop tests. She was part of the working party which set up ‘Access Arrangements Online’ and has been involved with other DfE and Ofqual training and policy projects.

Lia Castiglione

Lia has been teaching and supporting learners of all ages for over 30 years and in varying educational settings. She is a specialist teacher assessor who is highly experienced in all aspects of access arrangements, has held a current Assessment Practising Certificate since 2008 and regularly assesses in schools and colleges. An accomplished educational trainer, Lia is the co-creator of a postgraduate access arrangements assessor course and is the author of the Patoss/JCQ book, ‘Assessing the Need for Access Arrangements’. She works as an independent educational consultant through her company ‘Castiglione Consulting Ltd’.

Ally Howes

Ally is a Specialist Teacher who has assessed pupils across various age ranges and settings, as well as working as a SENCo in a large mixed comprehensive school. Ally has led on both literacy and numeracy interventions working with pupils with a range of special educational needs. She has been part of a team of experts working with NFER to develop the National Reference Tests.

Malcom Litten

Malcolm is a Consultant in dyslexia and assistive technology. He worked for more than 40 years as an English teacher, the majority in a specialist secondary school for children severely affected by dyslexia. He developed uses for text-to-speech software in the development of reading and writing skills and was an early user of speech recognition software with students. Malcom currently undertakes research into the use of assistive technology in schools, trains teachers and individuals in its use and campaigns for its wider adoption. He is a member of the British Dyslexia Association’s New Technologies Committee.

These courses are available online for you to access at a time and place of your choice. Delegates will have 10 consecutive days from their selected start date to watch all of the courses they book.

​When you select your courses and book below, you will select a start date. You will get 10 consecutive days access to the courses from this start date, and you can watch them as many times as you like until the end of the 10 days.

These courses are not assessed.