Diploma Specs

I thought that a good place to start this blog properly might to look at the specs. In the meetings I've been going to at the borough council, we've been loking at the OCR version, though apparently there are Edexel and AQA formats too. If you want to see the level 2 specification (which is what I am personally most interested in, you can find them at http://www.ocr.org.uk/Data/publications/key_documents/Diploma_Creative_Media_Level_2_Specification.pdf

What should strike you at first is how generic they are. "Plan a creative project for a chosen idea. Use one of the ideas generated to plan a creative project, considering constraints". This vagueness is quite deliberate, because the diploma is meant to fit into whatever medium or art form that you are working in. Those students doing film making are working to the same structure as those doing fashion design. Some of you might be thinking that therein lies the problem, but we'll come back to that later. This is meant to be the strength of the Diploma and it is also meant to allow, especially at Level 2 to work across different media and art forms quite easily and to combine them into single products or projects. Ok so far so good, but remember that the student isn't just doing this kind of task in one art form or medium - at level two they are meant to be doing it in at least four across the diploma and at least two in each unit. Budding filmmakers can't just work in film, they have to be doing game design, audio production and music promotion (or whatever) as well.

In terms of assessment, the other slightly sneaky thing appears to be the stipulation of "controlled conditions" for all but two of the units. Some teachers might have been making favourable comparisons with BTEC courses in the way in which the diploma requires students to produce evidence that they have met the assessment criteria. That is until they see the frequent appearance of the following statement

"Wherever possible, all assessment evidence must be produced under controlled conditions so that the overall level of control ensures validity and reliability, provides good manageability for all involved, and allows tutors to authenticate candidates’ work with confidence."

Presumably this is going to be checked by some kind of external verifier, but it seems clear that this is not going to be like my current BTEC First Diploma class where I have different students working on different units for different asessment all at the same time.

I believe in accentuating the positive though and the benefit of the diploma is meant to be that it allows you to play to your strengths as teachers, schools and students. If you have a very strong tradition of teaching film making in your centre, then the idea is that you teach the diploma through that medium. The concomitant part of this is that other centres in your consortium have strengths as well and you send your students there to receive tuition in those areas. This is where the real controversy with diplomas arises. Schools are meant to be acting as part of a consortium, so the succesful delivery of the diploma relies upon a whole load of planning factors that schools and colleges have to get right. Choice of subjects, common timetabline, shared facilities, transition from Level 2 to Level 3, transport links, staffing etc etc. The list goes on. This planning bit is where I am at personally right now, as next Thursday I am meeting with managers from partner schools in our consortium to put down on paper exactly what we all have to offer and what our individual strengths are. It should be interesting.......

SC