Frequently Asked Questions

A. No, students do not need any prior attainment to do this course.

A. No, there are no prohibited combinations for this award.

A. We award GCSE qualifications on an eight grade scale from A*–G, with A* being the highest. For students who fail to attain a grade G, we report their results as unclassified (U).

We report the results of individual assessment units on a uniform mark scale that reflects the assessment weighting of each unit. We determine the grades awarded by aggregating the uniform marks obtained on individual assessment units.

A. Yes, students must show the quality of their written communication. In particular, students must:

• ensure that text is legible and that spelling, punctuation and grammar are accurate and appropriate, so that meaning is clear;
• select and use a form and style of writing appropriate to their purpose and to complex subject matter; and
• organise information clearly and coherently, using specialist vocabulary where appropriate.

Examiners assess the quality of students’ written communication in their responses to questions or tasks that require extended writing.

A. This specification provides opportunities for students to develop the following Key Skills:

• Application of Number;
• Communication;
• Improving Own Learning and Performance;
• Information and Communication Technology;
• Problem-Solving; and
• Working with Others.

A. Reports may be handwritten using black ink, or where possible word processed.

A. No candidates should carry out this work under formal supervision. The teacher must collect the unfinished work at the end of each session and store it securely.

A. The nature of any guidance and the details of any feedback must be clearly recorded. The final work must be solely that of the candidate. Any advice given to individual candidates over and above that given to class as a whole should be recorded. Quality of written communication is assessed in the report which includes spelling, punctuation and grammar.

A. Research and investigation is carried out under a medium level of control; i.e. informal supervision. Therefore candidates can work together to gather research but as they are assessed on this, the work they produce must be their own.

A. If some help has been given, this needs to be clearly defined in the annotation and taken into account during moderation. It is also important to include annotation to show how marks are arrived at for each sub-task. This is best done on the students’ work but can be recorded on the candidate record sheet.

A. No – the marks are based on the content of the PowerPoint only. It may be a good classroom practice to present the PowerPoint in a professional way, but it is not taken into account in the final marking.

A. The specification requires that the candidate identifies 3 sources. It should be noted that by initially identifying the World Wide Web as a source this is likely to lead to a number of websites being identified. For material taken from the internet, any reference must show the precise web page, not the search engine used to locate it.

E.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/16/sosteacher/history/40766.shtml.

Candidates should be encouraged to state the actual date when the material was downloaded.

A. Whilst it is no longer a requirement by the specification, candidates would be advised to use it.

A. There are 3 acceptable forms of action plan, outlined below:
(a) a formal breakdown of required actions and target dates with a working log of actions taken;
(b) a web history log showing evaluation of websites, and
(c) a screen dump of websites used, including annotation on reasons for using and some detail in notes.

A. Yes they can use the same format if they wish, but teachers may want to encourage a different approach as the format should reflect the purpose of the task i.e. target audience for the report.

A. Marks are awarded for performance. Therefore the moderation will be based on quality and not quantity. If the criteria in the mark scheme is met, candidates will receive appropriate marks. The use of tables and PowerPoints for example may reduce the word count.

A. There is currently no facility for this.

A. In the first instance teachers must inform candidates of theca regulations concerning malpractice. Full information can be found on the JCQ website.

If irregularities are discovered prior to signing the declaration of authentication this should be dealt with under the centre’s internal procedures.

If irregularities in controlled assessment are identified after the candidate has signed the declaration of authentication, the head of the assessment centre must submit full details of the case to CCEA at the earliest opportunity.

A. Teachers should be able to accommodate the occasional absence of a candidate by ensuring that an opportunity is given to them to make up the missed controlled assessment; but under the same controlled assessment conditions.

A. It may in some cases be possible to accept a reduced amount of work without penalty, as long as all the assessment objectives have been covered at least once.

In any case no adjustment to the marks should be made by the centre. A special consideration form, Form 10 - JCQ/SC should be submitted to CCEA, attached to the breakdown of marks across the assessment objectives.

NB: If you cannot find the answer to your question further detailed information on conducting controlled assessments is available on http://www.jcq.org.uk

Further guidance and support for this specification is available from http://www.ccea.org.uk/llw