Getting ready for the summer 2016 GCSE languages controlled assessments submissions
This update contains a reminder of the guidance available to support you as you process the GCSE controlled assessments submissions from your centre. It includes references to the deadline submission date, a reminder of key support documents, FAQs and submission checklists.
Final date for submission of GCSE controlled assessments for the speaking and writing units
The final date for submitting your marks and samples of work for the summer 2016 series is 15 May 2016. This affects GCSEs in the following languages:
- Chinese
- French
- German
- Italian
- Spanish
- Urdu.
Speaking (Unit 2)
Submission requirements
You must submit your controlled assessment marks to Edexcel via Edexcel Online and send your sample of recordings (visible on Edexcel online from mid April) to the moderator allocated to your centre no later than 15 May 2016. Your moderator’s name and address should be available on Edexcel online from mid-April.
On Edexcel Online, from mid April, you'll see a tick next to the names of those students whose work needs to be sent for moderation. You also need to send the work of the highest and lowest scoring candidates in addition to the requested sample. If any of the called-for candidates have been withdrawn or have incomplete submissions, please provide additional candidates' work of a comparable level, along with a covering note.
Administration
Full instructions about how to input marks via Edexcel online or via OPTEMS is given in the GCSE administrative support guide for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Urdu - please refer to pages 13 -14 and Appendix A. A useful submission checklist is also provided on page 22.
FAQs
For each of the languages with controlled assessments, you’ll find several examples of marked student work available to help exemplify the mark scheme on our website. These appear in the ‘Controlled Assessments’ section on the language-specific qualification page and should help to inform your marking decisions.
Principal Moderators' Reports also contain lots of useful guidance and comments. These are also on the relevant qualification pages under 'Examiner reports'. Every year, some centres have their marks changed as a result of the moderation process, so please make sure that you read the moderators' reports carefully.
If there is more than one teacher for each language, it's essential that you carry out internal moderation before you finalise the controlled assessment marks. You should consider sample double-marking - selecting mark points within the same band from different teaching sets. The double marking should continue until you are satisfied that you have achieved comparability. If there is only one teacher who has undertaken the centre marking, there is no need for internal standardisation.
You should not attempt to grade the work; you should be marking the work by applying the marking criteria in a consistent manner. The controlled assessment grades will be awarded at the end of each examination series using the standard code of practice awarding process.
Writing (Unit 4)
Submission requirements
You must submit your students’ controlled writing assessments for external marking to the examiner allocated to your centre no later than 15 May 2016. The examiner details should appear on Edexcel Online from mid-April.
Administration
Some elements of administration can hold up the marking procedure. Please see the following instructions from a senior examiner:
- Both the teacher and the candidate must sign the front sheet to authenticate the work; without the two signatures the marking process cannot be completed.
- Work should not be submitted in plastic wallets but each candidate’s submission should be secured with a treasury tag, staple or paper-clip. On no account should the work from a centre be sent without each candidate’s work being secured separately.
- The submission for the whole centre must be sent in candidate number order rather than in teaching group.
- The two tasks submitted should be presented in the same order as they appear on the front sheet.
- It helps greatly if a word count for each unit is included, although this is not mandatory.
- Where all candidates have been given the same stimulus task, please only include this once.
- Teachers must not mark the work in any way.
Please familiarise yourself fully with the GCSE administrative support guide for Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Urdu. A useful submission checklist for the writing unit is provided on page 31.
Please note that the Unit 2 moderator and the Unit 4 examiner allocated to your centre will be different. You must not send materials for both units to one person or to a central Pearson Edexcel address.
I hope you've found this update useful. If you have any further questions about the submission of controlled assessments, please do not hesitate to contact me
Best wishes,
Alistair Drewery.
