|
ORGANISATION OF THE SDA SCHEME
ASSESSMENT, MODERATION AND AWARDS Using the assessment criteria The assessment criteria are intended to be sufficiently rigorous to allow teachers to decide whether or not a student has understood sustainability issues sufficiently to be given an award. However, their primary function is to provide a checklist for teachers and students, against which they can check their work at each stage of the relevant unit of the syllabus. It is intended to be helpful to students more than anything else. It should provide cues for them to think about how they are tackling their work and perhaps to re-assess what they have done. The assessment criteria have been designed to sit alongside the criteria used by individual exam boards. An example of an assessment of part of a pilot student’s folder is given to help understand the assessment process (Coming soon). Deciding on awards and moderation You will see that alongside each of the assessment criteria there are two tick boxes. These are intended for students and teachers to use as their assessment record. Students could complete the first box and you could then check them yourself when looking at folders to see whether or not students have met the criteria. Suggestions for the number of criteria that need to be met for an award to be granted are given for AS and A2 levels at the top of each set of criteria. We firmly believe that if teachers have understood the principles behind sustainability issues, then they will be able to assess students’ understanding very easily. When teachers have completed their assessment of students' work, they should send a list of successful AS and/or A2 students’ names to either ITDG or CAT as appropriate. Assuming no moderation is necessary, schools will be sent completed SDA certificates to give out to students. We may hold an Award ceremony at the DATA conference to which some students would be invited. Check the News and Events page for details. We also hope to celebrate students’ work on the website. The News and Events page gives examples of students’ work from the pilot phase and this will be updated each year. We understand that exam board moderation must take priority. We also believe that teachers will have sufficient objectivity to decide on whether a student’s understanding of sustainability shown in their work merits an award. We hope moderation can also be done internally by another teaching colleague. However, in order to ensure credibility, we reserve the right to ask for students’ work to be posted to us, or downloaded onto the website, or seen during a personal visit to your school by one of the partners. We do not want this system to be in any way onerous. |
|
About SDA
|
