AVCE ICT - No wonder AQA are dropping it

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AQA is not dropping AVCE ICT. It's going to be called GCE Applied ICT (changed it name to bring in line with other non-vocational A-levels). Therefore, the vocational ICT will still be there. http://www.aqa.org.uk/qual/gceapplied/ict.html

I havn't been marked down on my coursework. Our teacher marks them properly. Our school hasn't had coursework marks marked down before.

Reply 2

Shycho

Trev i went to the same school as LLOYDJE, my work was marked by the school i got about 6 A's and 2 B's.

When AQA moderated it i got 2A's 4B's 2C's, and some work i resubmitted after i improved it actually got less marks than the first time even though it had the same work plus more of what are teacher said AQA examiners wanted in the Units.

Not only that but AQA decided not to even mark 2 of my units, so instead of lowering my grade and sending off my results to the relevant people, they just gave me my result and left it not telling anyone, luckily i went home to check that i had been accepted, which i hadn't. Why? simple AQA told the University the Only grade i had was An E in Business Studies, they didn't tell them about my 2 C's in ICT, and therefore my place was originally given away.

This happened to another friend, but he didn't check UCAS, because he knew he had the grades needed, however again AQA didn't release the results and his place given away, it's only because i told him to check that he realised this, if i didn't tell him it could have been too late, and AQA would have ****ed up his entire life, as it stands i spent what was meant to be the happiest day of my life phoning and faxing, and although my place is now confirmed i am still trying to get accommodation sorted, and let me tell you one thing is for certain AQA will be paying any additional expenses, and i am currently considering sueing these Dicks who so nearly destroyed my life, and ruined the what was meant to be a good day, and put my entire family under unbelieveable stress.

Oh and one last thing if i only have 29 pages in my powerpoint presentation, how does that make me any less competent in powerpoint than someone who has 30 slides, doesn't content matter, i should have guessed not, i haven't met a microsoft employee who has needed to know how to insert clipart into 30 slides.

I think AQA should seek a new occupation if they think they can mess with people like this, the Local Education Authority is not impressed, with these incompetent morons, who are allowed to get away with this.

Reply 3

i did a avce ict double award to get into uni, they cocked my first year of uni up because of the whole covering A grade critera but not being marked for an A. I was predicted a AB/BB i got a DD. My college claimed it was there fault, they didnt teach the silabus correctly, but i think edexcel has a part to play in it too.

I ending up doing a hnd instead of a degree for the first year, im on the degree now but i had to work hard to prove myself and they took special consideration into account, because of what has happened 12 months earlier.

Reply 4

AMathStudent

When I started I was predicted EE, based on my small number of GCSEs (all A*, A or B, but only a total of 7, 3 of which didn't "count"). About a month later the prediction was changed to AA. I worked damn hard the whole two years. One module I was given 97% by the teacher, but it came back remarked as a D (about 54% I think). I was told I could redo it, but then it was 'accidentally' sent off twice more (coming back first as a D, then a C) without me even seeing it, let alone being allowed to work on it. My best module in the whole two years, which I read up on and spent a LOT of time outside of classes on (I'm talking several hours most days, and all day every day in the holidays), I was told I had a high A. It came back as a D. The whole thing was a complete waste of time. I ended up with BB. If I'd got even a quarter of the marks that were deducted from my original scores I would have got AA. Luckily my course only needed BBC (I got BBBc).

Reply 5

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It's quite strange that AQA and Edexcel make student's marks go down. :frown:

For OCR, they do, but not quite often. It depends if the teacher is marking it properly.

Reply 6

Lloydje

OP

It depends if the teacher is marking it properly.

But thats the thing, the teachers were marking it properly with the grading sheets they were given by AQA, but when AQA moderated them, more often than not they marked them down because of 'hidden criteria'... such as

For Unit 8 - Multimedia Presentation it says for criteria A2

"produce a presentation which is imaginative in content and coherent for the user"

no where in that criteria, nor the other 5 A grade criteria does it state you must produce 30 slides or more to get an A grade, so how when the teacher marks it - are they meant to know?

And if you keep saying the teachers are marking it wrong - how can so many teachers from alot of schools mark it in correctly? As at the appeals meeting, we were told there were alot of schools with the same questions.

Reply 7

seems to me they have alot more teething problems than they have solved since the start of avce ict 4 years ago. I know for sure i wont recommend that course to anyone. I will either say go for a btech or A2's

Reply 8

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Glory

seems to me they have alot more teething problems than they have solved since the start of avce ict 4 years ago. I know for sure i wont recommend that course to anyone. I will either say go for a btech or A2's

The BTEC is kind of hard though, and more difficult than AVCE. The coursework is more work orientated than AVCE, and the mark schemes are quite detailed as well (more stuff to go through).

Reply 9

trev

The BTEC is kind of hard though, and more difficult than AVCE. The coursework is more work orientated than AVCE, and the mark schemes are quite detailed as well (more stuff to go through).

yeh thats why i would recommend it. AVCE's documentation for criterias and marking for teachers is dodgy at best. The criterias look so simple from the unit sheets where in fact there is so many hidden requirements. You either get lucky and do enough slides for example or you do what you think they are asking for and get marked down. There just simply isnt enough guidence from the exam boards.

My college went back to btech after only 3 years of trialing the avce, my class was the last year. They werent happy with how the subject was supose to progress according to the exam board. I think the teachers spent most of the time guessing how to mark the work. It may well be their fault in part, but they have ran the btech for over 10 years and never had any problems with appualing grades like they did with the avce.

Reply 10

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Glory

yeh thats why i would recommend it. AVCE's documentation for criterias and marking for teachers is dodgy at best. The criterias look so simple from the unit sheets where in fact there is so many hidden requirements. You either get lucky and do enough slides for example or you do what you think they are asking for and get marked down. There just simply isnt enough guidence from the exam boards.

My college went back to btech after only 3 years of trialing the avce, my class was the last year. They werent happy with how the subject was supose to progress according to the exam board. I think the teachers spent most of the time guessing how to mark the work. It may well be their fault in part, but they have ran the btech for over 10 years and never had any problems with appualing grades like they did with the avce.

I follow a different exam board and non of my friends doing AVCE ICT didn't get marked up or down. For the mark schemes we have, there are no hidden criterias. I find it hard to have hidden criterias where students can't find/achieve them. The exam board that we follow have mark schemes indicating how many things to do (e.g. criteria E1 - do at least 3 slides to show a background with 2 images).

They kind of changed the vocational ICT to GCE Applied ICT. I saw the course content for it and some of it has changed and some are still the same in some way. Hopefully, it would be better.

Reply 11

im only going by my experiences which was a year ago with my exam board. I can only hope that they can improve it enough to make things clearer so no-one has to go throught what my college class did.

Reply 12

mrjos

I feel sorry for everyone who has had bad experiences with this course.

I finished this course in 2004 with Edexcel and I the only real trouble I had was with the first unit covered, unit 4, where I hadn't learnt to keep to the criteria correctly and my level of English wasn't at a good enough standard.

After that I didn't have any problems, although some people who studied with me had their work marked down mine always stayed close to the level it was at when the tutor's marked it.

I'm a little shocked by how far people's marks have gone down though, when I did the course the maximum moderator's could adjust a scpre from a piece of unit coursework was 2 marks (from a 24 mark scale) which was about 8-10% depending where on the scale you were originally marked.

The college I went to has since changed to another course instead of AVCE ICT, which could be because of the course although they seemed to have it pretty much cracked when I was there.

Reply 13

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