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Teacher guide

Edexcel GCSE Art and Design revision

These activities are mapped to Edexcel GCSE Art and Design. Ten of them, thirteen to eighteen minutes each. Art is the subject where the usual idea of revision stops working. The course is made work, and no screen teaches a student to draw, print or photograph better. So none of these ten tries. What they do instead is the other half of the grade. The specification's own structure is four assessment objectives, not a body of content, and students lose marks in the space between good work and a portfolio that shows its thinking. These activities cover exactly that: what each objective asks for, why annotation is scored rather than optional, how a portfolio is structured and moderated, and how to plan the supervised sessions.

This page lists what we actually have for Edexcel GCSE Art and Design. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

A specification made of objectives

Open the specification expecting topics and there are none. Its structure is four assessment objectives: developing ideas through investigation, refining through experimentation, recording ideas and observations, and presenting a personal response. Then two components, the Personal Portfolio and the Externally Set Assignment.

There is no content to know. There is only evidence to produce, and criteria it is judged against.

That is why every other page on this site can list what a student should revise and this one cannot, at least not in that sense. It is also why the thing worth revising turns out to be the criteria themselves.

Where the marks actually go missing

Most Art teachers can name the pattern. A student produces genuinely good work and does not get the grade for it, because the portfolio shows the outcome and not the thinking: no recorded sources, no evidence of experiments that failed, annotation that describes what is on the page rather than explaining a decision.

None of that is a lack of ability. It is not knowing what the assessment is looking for, and unlike the making, it can be taught away from the studio.

So that is what these ten do. Two of them are about the portfolio and the moderation of it directly. One is entirely about written annotation and why it carries marks rather than being decoration. Two more cover the Externally Set Assignment: developing a response to the theme, and planning the supervised sessions rather than arriving at them and improvising.

They fit every endorsed title

Edexcel runs six titles here: Art, Craft and Design, Fine Art, Graphic Communication, Textile Design, Three-dimensional Design and Photography.

They share the same four assessment objectives. Because these activities sit on the objectives rather than on any one medium, all ten apply whichever title your department runs. A photography student and a textiles student need the same understanding of what AO2 wants from them, and they are examined against the same words.

That is worth knowing if you run more than one title, which many departments do.

What the activities ask students to do

All ten include a written element, which is unusual on this site and right for a subject where the assessed evidence is largely written around the work.

The three embedded below are playable here without an account: the annotation one, the marking and moderation one, and the planning of supervised sessions.

Using them

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. The activities themselves, with the recall goal spelled out, are described in ready-to-run revision activities, and since Art students spend most of their time working alone on their own projects, independent revision students actually keep doing is the closer fit for how these get used.

Design and Technology sits next door and has a different problem, which is coverage across specialist materials: Edexcel GCSE Design and Technology.

To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint. Everything else we have, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

What this page does not do

Nothing here teaches making, and making is the course. That is the honest headline. These activities are for the assessment literacy around the work, and a student who does no practical work has nothing for them to help with.

It cannot look at a portfolio. The activity on moderation explains what moderators look for; it does not tell a student whether their own portfolio has it. That judgement stays with you.

Ten activities across a two-year course is a supplement, not a scheme of work.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Art and Design activity for Edexcel

11 activities, all mapped to Edexcel GCSE Art and Design (1AD0 Art, Craft and Design / 1FA0 Fine Art / 1GC0 Graphic Communication / 1TE0 Textile Design / 1TD0 Three-dimensional Design / 1PY0 Photography).

Good for tutor time (1)

See all 11, by topic

Try it with your class

Edexcel Art and Design 15 minutes

Written Annotation: Why It's Scored, Not Optional

12 steps, 8 interactive, 8 activity types.

Best used for
Starter Homework Independent study
  • Starter: Short enough to open a lesson and still leave time to teach.
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

Two students annotate the same photographic test print. Which annotation earns the marks?

Edexcel Art and Design 18 minutes

How Portfolios Are Marked and Moderated

14 steps, 9 interactive, 8 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Independent study
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

A student writes notes analysing how a chosen artist used colour and composition, pinned next to printouts of that artist's paintings. Which AO does this mainly evidence?

Edexcel Art and Design 18 minutes

Planning Your 4 Supervised Sessions

14 steps, 9 interactive, 8 activity types.

Best used for
Homework Independent study
  • Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.

Try one question

For Edexcel Art and Design, when is the ESA starting point made available each year?

Common questions

Can you revise for an Art GCSE at all?

Not the making, no. What can be revised is everything around it: what each assessment objective actually asks for, why annotation is scored, how a portfolio is structured and moderated, and how to use the supervised sessions. That is what these ten activities do.

Do any of them teach students to draw or design?

None of them. A screen cannot teach making, and pretending otherwise would waste your students' time. Even the activity called Drawing as a Recording Skill is about what recording means for AO3, not about how to draw.

Does this work for our endorsed title?

Yes, for all six. Edexcel runs Art, Craft and Design, Fine Art, Graphic Communication, Textile Design, Three-dimensional Design and Photography on the same four assessment objectives, and these activities sit on the objectives rather than on any one title.

What is actually covered?

Two activities on AO1, one on AO2, two on AO3, one on AO4, two on the Personal Portfolio and two on the Externally Set Assignment. Ten in total, thirteen to eighteen minutes each.

Who is this most useful for?

Students producing decent work who are not getting the marks for it, usually because the portfolio does not show the thinking behind it. That gap is assessment literacy rather than ability, and it is the one thing here that can be fixed from a screen.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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  • Edexcel GCSE Design and Technology revision Every live Edexcel GCSE Design and Technology (1DT0) revision activity, with a clear line between the core content every student needs and the specialist material section, where we currently cover timbers and nothing else.
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