Online Focus on Assessment course: Writing

Please note, if you have been asked to write candidate example scripts, please jump to section 2.

We are asking for your script selections to be sent back to us as soon as you can. This allows us time to perform the relevant edits we need to make and get these uploaded the courses.

The number of scripts and Papers/Components you have been asked to select from are provided in the brief sent out to you as part of your commission.

All of the scripts, QPs, MSs and the syllabus have been uploaded for you onto Base Camp.

If you are a new user for Base Camp - you will have been sent a message from the system with the subject line: 'You're invited to join our project management and collaboration system'. Please follow the link in the email to set up your credentials.

When you are ready, please complete the script selection sheet and return it to us at professionaldevelopment@cambridgeinternational.org

In some cases (because the introduction training is always delivered before first sitting) it may be necessary to create example candidate answers for any Papers/Components that have changed significantly.

Please write your example candidate answers on a Word document. Make sure each is clearly labelled so we know which Specimen Paper the work relates to.

We will transfer the text you produce onto the PDF specimen papers once you have submitted it to us.

The marking feedback is vital to allow course participants to understand how marks are gained and lost. Please note the following key points:

• It must be clear in your explanations why the candidates were awarded.
• The marking feedback must have enough detail that they do not require any further explanation from the course tutor. The reason for this is that participants will take these resources away with them. They need to be able to look back at this information and get everything they need from it without any reference to course discussions etc.

• Procedure change: We are now using the standardisation scripts for you to select from. Marks in the standardisation scripts cannot be changed so you will be unable to request for these to be reviewed. If for any reason we are unable to send you the standardisation scripts, and have to use a more general selection, we will let you know.
• EXCEPTION: If you are dealing with script examples which schools submit using SFA, these are raw centre marks and you can alter them as necessary. For example, speaking tests, PE and Drama video submissions and GP projects.

Writing a new PERT summary

To help participants to identify key elements of the assessment that they may need to consider they will be provided with a summary of the key themes identified in the PERTs.

Please read the PERTs from the past few years which have been sent to you on Base Camp and summarise the key repeating themes and challenges from these PERTs as a bullet list. 

You may find it useful to provide your summarised list in sub-sections to cover individual papers or as a single list covering the qualification as a whole, according to the needs of your subject. Please see the examples provided as a guide to your approach.

Participants will be discussing and developing formative feedback for one of the scripts they have marked on the course. They are expected to be explicit about how the feedback would help the candidate to improve and what they might have to do in their classrooms to ensure that the feedback is effective.

1. Identify one of the lower performing scripts from those you have selected or created above for participants to focus on in order to develop their formative feedback.

2. Provide a paragraph suggesting which areas of the scripts that participants may want to focus on and brief reasons why. There is an example paragraph provided in the template below.

   
   

When you have completed all of the commission, please save all of the documents into one folder and then zip this.

Before you zip the documents:

• Have you fully identified any scripts selected?
• Have you checked that the source material relevant to the scripts you have selected is available in the exam paper or insert?
• If you have created example candidate script answers is each clearly labelled and covers all relevant questions?
• Have you written the marking feedback handout?
  
• Have you completed a PERT summery, or checked and revised the existing document?
• Have you selected a script to be used in the formative feedback section of the course?
• Have you provided a paragraph to guide participants through your selected script for the formative feedback activity?

If you answered yes to all the questions above, you can then upload this zip file in one action to Basecamp.

If you do not zip the contents, every file has to be uploaded and then downloaded individually which takes a large amount of time.

You can prompt the system to send an email to notify the colleague who set up the project that you have uploaded your files.