Sample controlled assessment material
- The 'guidance for teachers' section details the requirement of the task, the time available and how students should go about completing the task. You can share this information with your students at any time you deem appropriate.
- Texts can be selected for a task on the basis of both your department’s resources and your students’ interests.
- The assessment criteria will remain unchanged throughout the life of the specification, ensuring consistency across the department.
- The language used in the Assessment Objectives grids is straightforward with consistent terminology used within bands to help you assess students’ work.
Sample assessment material
- Units 1 and 2, Sections A and B
- Questions are structured in three parts for the Reading assessment. This structured approach has proved very popular with pilot centres over the last four years as it allows candidates of all abilities to achieve their best.
- Questions follow a framework which will remain the same for the life of the specification. One question will require students to show knowledge outside the extract.
- Questions are written in clear and accessible language with direct command words and bold text used to identify the limit of the question.
- At Foundation Tier, students are given supporting bullets to help shape their answers. At Higher Tier, students are asked to explore language features, without the supporting bullets.
- Units 1 and 2, Section C
- These sections contain familiar writing questions which will allow you to use existing teaching resources to prepare your students. In both questions offered, students will be given bullets to support their answers.
- Unit 3
- You are given the opportunity in the Poetry task to choose a form of response that will most engage your students in poetry and allow them to achieve their best.
- Students will respond to one Literary Heritage poem and two poems from their chosen collection. There is no requirement to compare the poems.
- The Creative Writing tasks offer a variety of written forms so you can choose the form (for example, description, diary, monologue) in which your students will write best.
- You do not have to study any of the poems in the collection for the writing response, but you may find that some of them will interest your students and help with the writing task.
- You will find the Creative Writing stimulus materials, along with the tasks, on the Edexcel website at the start of the academic year, giving you plenty of time to plan and prepare students for this task.
- The Speaking and Listening tasks are familiar activities which allow you to continue using existing resources:
- Sample Speaking and Listening tasks are offered for guidance. You may wish to create your own based on your current practice.
- Unit 1 themes, texts from Unit 2 or the poetry you have chosen from Unit 3 can also be selected as a stimulus for your students’ tasks.
- You may decide to use an oral response to poetry for controlled assessment in Unit 3.
Mark scheme
- Indicative content sections give details of possible responses specific to the text chosen and to the question being asked. This is guidance for the examiner and is not exhaustive.
- Descriptions of the likely features of students’ work are provided for each mark band.