Vocational Education Tasks - PDST

5. Recommendations for teachers and students
Arrangements for assessment of Vocational Education Tasks
• All material for assessment including products/artefacts should be clearly labelled, collated
and made available to examiners on arrival at a centre. A running order of candidates for
assessment should also be provided.
• Accommodation provided by the school should be appropriate for the assessment process,
i.e. a comfortable and quiet environment.
• Examiners should be made aware of candidates with special needs in advance of the
assessment, particularly if the special needs may have an impact on the interview component
of the assessment e.g. speech and language difficulties etc.
Process of selecting and undertaking tasks
• Tasks undertaken by candidates should be relevant to the vocational specialism being
examined and consistent with the time recommended for task completion.
• Opportunities for the meaningful and relevant integration of the mandatory areas of crosscurricular
application should be fully exploited and developed in the Vocational Education
Tasks.
• An appropriate balance should be struck between teacher guidance in task selection and
preparation, and the individual responsibility of candidates.
• In group tasks, all candidates should be allocated an adequate and clearly identifiable role to
facilitate appropriate engagement and subsequent awarding of credit for individual
contribution.
• It is essential that each participant in a group task has an appreciation of the nature and
objectives of the whole task, together with a clear understanding of their own role.
• The contribution of each individual candidate to a group product-type task should be clearly
marked for easy identification by the examiner.
• Candidates involved in a group task should present an individual task report focused on their
own contribution only. The use of a diary/logbook to record the nature and progress of an
individual's input to the group task work would help to provide such a focus in task
preparation.
Task reports
• The importance of including relevant evidence and materials to support research, planning
or investigations undertaken should be further emphasised.
• Candidates should be encouraged to be selective about what they include in their task
reports, and should not rely solely on photocopied materials, transcription and the
indiscriminate use of information downloaded from the Internet.
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