GCSE Art and Design, marked against the real criteria

GCSE Art and Design has no written exam. It is assessed entirely on a portfolio and the Externally Set Assignment, judged against four assessment objectives, and we do not mark artwork. What this helps with is the part of the subject made of sentences: what each objective rewards, and how to write annotation and artist research that carries marks instead of filling space.

Open it, free, no card

What "marked against the criteria" actually means

There is no paper to sit and no mark scheme to check an answer against. The grade comes from the portfolio built over the course, worth 60 per cent, and the Externally Set Assignment, worth 40, both marked by your teacher against the same four objectives and moderated by the board. Nothing here marks a drawing: a picture is judged by a person standing in front of it.

What can be worked on in writing is the writing. Annotation and artist research are how the objectives are evidenced, and a page describing what the pupil did reads, to a marker, as a page with no thinking on it. That is the commonest way a sketchbook of competent work sits low.

The same shape repeats through the sketchbook. "I mixed blue with white and painted the sky" describes an afternoon; "the first sky was too even, so I dragged the second with a card edge" describes a decision, and the decision is what is marked.

The four assessment objectives, and what each rewards

All four carry equal weight — on the AQA Externally Set Assignment, 24 marks each out of 96 raw, and the portfolio is assessed against the same four. There is no objective for neatness and none for finishing.

AO1, develop. Ideas developed through investigation, with critical understanding of sources. This is the artist research, and the word doing the work is critical: a judgement about what the artist did and what you take or refuse. Two artists argued with beat six summarised.

AO2, refine. Refining ideas by experimenting with media, materials, techniques and processes. The evidence is the experiments, especially the failed ones, annotated with what each material did and whether it served the intention. Binning a failure destroys the proof that refining happened.

AO3, record. Recording ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions as work progresses. First-hand sources outrank images off the internet, and as work progresses means recording dated through the project, not assembled the week before the deadline.

AO4, present. A personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and connects visual and other elements. The final piece — but the marks are for its visible link back to everything above, which is why an outcome from nowhere scores badly however well made.

Why annotation is assessed at all

Three of the four objectives are about process rather than product, and process is invisible in a finished page. The annotation is the only evidence a marker has that the development happened in your head rather than by luck.

So annotation is not labelling: "watercolour study" under a watercolour study tells a marker what they can already see. Useful annotation answers three questions and no others — what was I trying to find out, what did this actually do, and what am I doing next because of it. That is two or three sentences at the end of a lesson, and it does the work of a whole objective. Say plainly when something failed, because refining requires something to have been wrong.

The Externally Set Assignment and its preparation period

On AQA the assignment is available from 2 January. Then comes the preparation period — research, artist study, material experiments, planning — then ten hours of supervised unaided work, the first two consecutive. Once supervised time begins you may refer to your preparatory work but not add to or amend it. Edexcel and OCR set assignments of the same shape on different dates, so confirm yours with your teacher.

Two consequences follow. The preparatory work and the supervised outcome are assessed together against all four objectives, so the sketchbook carries most of this component. And the ten hours are for realising an intention you already hold, not for deciding what to make, so the sketchbook has to be finished before the first session.

The assignment is a short list of starting points — single words or short phrases — of which you answer one. The real ones are the board's copyright, so the practice material here uses original starting points in the same form, which is the part worth practising: taking a word and finding the reading of it that is not the first one everybody reaches for.

What is in here

7 sets of format practice, one for each board and year above. Plus 1 more that is not tied to a board or a year. Everything here is written in the boards' own format and judged against their published criteria; the papers themselves belong to the boards and are not reproduced here.

Try it on your own answer

Open a paper, write what you would have written in the exam, including the wrong bits, and read what comes back. It is free to start and does not ask for a card.

Open GCSE Art & Design

The other subjects

Twenty-three in one place, aligned to AQA, Edexcel and OCR.