Understanding the NEA Assessment Bands

Four parts, and not four equal parts

Your non-exam assessment is worth 100 marks and half of the whole qualification. It has four parts: Investigate, Design, Make, Evaluate. Before you read on, guess. If you had to split a hundred marks across those four, how would you do it? An even split feels like a natural starting point. The real split is not even at all, and the difference is worth knowing early, because it tells you where the marks you are working for actually are.

Where the hundred marks sit

Here are the four parts with what each is actually worth.

What each part is asking for

Two parts out of four

Design is worth 42 marks and Make is worth 36. How many of the 100 marks sit in those two parts together?

The guess, and the truth

Seventy-eight of the hundred marks are in two of the four parts. Put the even guess next to what is actually published.

The order of the project

Put the four parts into the order a project actually runs.

• Investigate: analyse the need and write the specification
• Design: generate, develop, communicate and review ideas
• Make: select materials and manufacture the outcome
• Evaluate: test what you made and judge it

Six marks for Evaluate

Evaluate is worth 6 marks out of 100. What follows from that?

• Evaluating does not really matter, so it can be left until the last evening
• It should take roughly the same effort as the other three parts
• It is worth doing properly but is not where the project is won or lost
• It is a mistake in the specification, since evaluation is normally worth more

Small does not mean absent

It would be easy to read six marks as permission to skip evaluating. It is not, for two reasons that are both in the specification. First, reviewing your chosen design is marked inside Design, worth 6 marks of its own, and that is the same habit of looking hard at your own work. Second, the objective those marks sit under is split between the project and the written exam, so the thinking you practise here is tested again on paper. The section is thin. The skill is not.

Inside the 42 marks

Design is split across five numbered sub-criteria, each with its own level descriptors. Which two of these are true?

• Communicating your design ideas is marked in its own right
• Each sub-criterion is marked against its own level descriptors
• The whole project receives a single holistic mark
• Design is worth the same as Make
• Only the finished product is marked, not the work leading to it

One student, planning backwards

A student lists the four parts with their marks and notices two things. Design and Make hold 78 of the 100 marks. And Evaluate holds 6. So they decide their folder work will be built around developing and communicating a design, because communicating is scored in its own right, and they will not leave the making until there is no time to do it carefully. They still plan to evaluate properly. They simply stop treating it as a quarter of the job, because it is published as six marks out of a hundred.

Two of these are true

Four of these statements about the assessment are false. Tap the two that are true.

• Each sub-criterion has its own level descriptors
• The whole project receives one holistic mark
• The four parts carry different numbers of marks
• Every part is worth about the same
• The contextual challenge is the same every year
• Evaluate is the largest of the four parts

The numbers, in a sentence

The project is worth _____ marks in total. Investigate takes _____, Design takes _____, Make takes _____, and Evaluate takes _____.

Say the priority out loud

A plan you can justify is one you can say in a sentence. Choose the option in each gap.

Three plans to fix

Three people in your class describe how they are going to tackle the project. Respond to each.

• The first says: I will spend a quarter of my time on each of the four parts, so nothing gets neglected.
• The second says: evaluation is only six marks, so I am not going to bother with it.
• The third says: I will put everything into the finished product, because that is what really gets marked.

Plan it on the marks

Somebody starting their project asks you how they should divide their effort across the four parts. Write your answer, using the published marks rather than your own preferences.

• Name where most of the marks sit, and give the numbers
• Say what that means for the part worth the fewest marks, without telling them to skip it
• Mention at least one thing inside Design that is scored in its own right
• Do not argue from which part is most enjoyable or most visible