Tag Archives: controlled assessments

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miniCPD – one day Controlled Assessment and Programming skills (Sat 2 May)

One of the things we try and do is vary the format of our courses so that we can offer something to suit as many teachers as possible. Some prefer weekly classes, others prefer intensive week-long, some are able to take a day from work for study, others aren’t. One thing teachers have asked us for is help with controlled assessments and so we’re trying out new ‘miniCPD’ one-day sessions.

The first will be on Saturday 2 May and will be held at King’s College London (Waterloo Campus). The cost for the day will be £30 for London teachers thanks to funding from the Mayor of London (£60 for non-London teachers). The miniCPD course will run from 10-4pm.

The new one day course ‘Preparing Pupils for Controlled Assessment‘ uses Python to program solutions to problems of a similar type to those set in GCSE Controlled Assessments. The aim is to make teachers feel confident about tackling these problems and programming solutions themselves, so that they can pass their knowledge, experience and confidence on to their pupils. Teachers should already have some knowledge of the basics of Python; strings, arithmetic, ‘if statements’ and loops. This is not a course for complete beginners.

Eventbrite - KCL: miniCPD - Preparing Pupils for Controlled Assessment (Python) - Saturday short course at King's

About us

Teaching London Computing, is a successful partnership between Queen Mary University of London’s Computer Science Department and King’s College London’s Computing Education team which has been running courses and workshops for the past two years helping Computing and ICT teachers to deliver the new Computing Curricula at GCSE and A-level.

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OCR exam board apparently removes Controlled Assessments from GCSE Computing, via @tonyparkin

Updated 1 July 2014 2.30pm – the OCR has agreed to let students continue with their controlled assessments. More information available at http://www.ocr.org.uk/i-want-to/subject-information-updates/# (look for July 2014 » + GCSE Computing (from 2012) – UPDATE)

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Updated 30 June 2014 1.30pm – the OCR will contact centres tomorrow to give their final decision.

 

— Original post below —

A few excerpts from the post OCR assessment shock hits GCSE Computing students are included below; there is a lot of Twitter discussion on the #withdrawnCA hashtag.

“In a major blow to thousands of students taking the OCR’s Computing GCSE, the exam board has withdrawn the controlled assessment task for June 2015 that many of them have already completed – and in some cases have already submitted.”

…

“In a surprise twist just after 9am this morning (Monday June 30), the notification letter was suddenly taken down from the OCR website, without any explanation. Whether this marks a shift in thinking at OCR, or merely means that the letter was posted too early online, as indicated by its curious July dateline, will no doubt emerge shortly.”

…

“As news of the letter reached the teachers involved, a storm broke online as they took to social media and web forums to discuss their reactions over the weekend. Prominent among them was Drew Buddie, well-known as @digitalmaverick on Twitter, who has started the #withdrawnCA hashtag to bring together the online discussion, and offer support from NAACE. Drew is currently Naace senior vice chair on its board of management.”

Further reading
Computing assessment scrapped amid fears of cheating (30 June 2014) tesconnect.