Using the 10 Supervised Hours Effectively

The hours nobody can help you through

One thing about this module first, so you know what it is and is not. It is about the exam rather than about art. There is no instruction here on how to make anything, which technique to use or how to handle a material, because that is your teacher and your own practice, and because those hours are yours to work in your own way. What this module is about is the situation you are in during them. The supervised hours are the only part of your whole course where nobody can help you. Your teacher cannot advise, cannot suggest and cannot rescue. That changes what preparation is for. The other module on this topic covers choosing a starting point and preparing properly, and it is right that the exam is really decided in January. This one starts from the moment that preparation meets the day, because plans meet reality: a material behaves differently, something takes longer than it did in practice, or you can see the work will not be finished. A plan cannot make those decisions for you and there is nobody to ask. Being able to recover on your own is the skill these hours actually test.

Words for the supervised hours

Five terms for Component 2. The figures here are the only ones this module uses.

Match the problem to the move

What you may and may not do

You are two hours into the supervised time and something is not working. Which of these is available to you?

• Your own preparatory work, and any decision you can make yourself
• A quick word with your teacher about which option is better
• Extra supervised hours, if the work needs them
• A different starting point, if the one you chose is not working

What a plan can and cannot give you

Preparation is the sibling module's subject and it does most of the work. But it is worth being clear about the part of the day a plan cannot reach, because that is where this module lives.

Which two are allowed

Select the TWO things a student may legitimately do during the supervised hours.

• Change their approach partway through, using their own judgement
• Refer back to the preparatory work they brought in with them
• Ask a teacher whether one of two options would score better
• Continue working on the response outside the supervised hours

This module is about the exam, not the art

Worth repeating, because it is the most useful thing to be clear about. Nothing here tells you what to make or how to make it. That is not an omission and it is not because those things do not matter; it is because they are yours. Your teacher, your practice and your own preparation decide them, and no revision module could improve on that without knowing your work, your starting point and your materials. What can be taught, and what students are rarely taught, is the shape of the situation: ten hours, no help, a plan that will meet reality somewhere around hour four, and a fixed amount of time in which whatever happens has to be dealt with. Every part of this module is about that. If you want to know how to do something artistic, ask the person who has seen your work. If you want to know what to do when it goes wrong at hour six with nobody to ask, that is here.

The first two hours in order

The opening two hours are taken consecutively and they set up everything after. Put these into a sensible order for that first sitting.

• Set out your preparatory work where you can see it while you work
• Confirm what the outcome is going to be, before touching anything
• Begin the part that everything else depends on
• Check against your plan how far you have got and what remains
• Leave the work in a state you can pick up cold next session

The supervised time in a paragraph

AQA releases a paper with _____ starting points and you choose one. The preparatory period is open from early _____, and during it your teacher can still help you. The supervised time is _____ hours, and the first _____ of them are taken consecutively. Once supervised time begins there is no further teacher _____, which is why anything decidable should already have been decided.

The wrong way to react

Four students hit a problem during the supervised hours. Select the ONE whose reaction will cost them most.

• Ravi finds the surface is not taking the medium as it did in practice, so he switches to an approach he has already tested.
• Nadia is behind schedule, so she reduces the size of the piece rather than rushing every part of it.
• Tom keeps repeating the step that failed, hoping it will work on the fifth attempt, and loses an hour to it.
• Aisha decides a planned stage is no longer needed and uses the time on the part that will actually be seen.

A recovery, worked

Here is one worked through. The starting point is invented for this example and is not from any real paper: suppose it were the single word Boundaries. A student has prepared thoroughly, tested her approach, and planned an outcome she is confident she can complete. Two hours in, one element is not behaving as it did in her preparation. Here is what a good recovery looks like, in order. First she stops, rather than repeating the thing that failed, because repeating a failure is the most expensive habit available in a fixed time. Second she asks what she has already proved she can do, and finds an approach from her preparatory work that reaches the same intention by a different route. Third she decides what to give up: the original element is dropped rather than half-attempted, and the time goes to the part of the work that carries the idea. Fourth she notes, briefly, that she changed course and why, because a considered change is evidence of judgement rather than of failure. What she does not do is press on hoping, and she does not spend the remaining hours making something she has never tried before. Recovery means falling back on proven ground, not improvising new ground with no help available.

Write the contingency

A contingency is one sentence you write during preparation so that you do not have to think it up on the day. Assemble one.

When something goes wrong

You are in the supervised hours. Nobody can advise you. Take the decisions in order.

• An hour in, a step you practised is not working on this material. What do you do first?
• Your alternative will take longer than the original plan allowed. What gives?
• At hour eight it is clear one planned element will not be finished. What is the better choice?
• You changed course twice. Does that count against you?

Plan for the hours you cannot be helped in

Think about your own project and the approach you intend to take in the supervised hours. Write a contingency plan for yourself. Nobody else needs to read it.

• Describe briefly what you intend to make and roughly how you would divide the ten hours
• Name the one part of it you are least certain will work on the day, and say why
• Write the contingency for that part: if it does not work, what will you do instead
• Explain what you already know you can do reliably, that you could fall back on
• Say what you would give up first if you were running out of time, and why that one
• Explain what you would do differently from a student who repeats a failed step hoping it will work