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Coursework

Coursework is part of GCSE and A level qualifications in most subjects. It can include a wide range of activities, including practical work and projects.

In 2005, we published a review of GCE and GCSE coursework, which evaluated its effectiveness as part of these qualifications. We canvassed the views of a wide spectrum of stakeholders including students, teachers, parents, senior examiners and moderators, and awarding body staff. They agreed that coursework is indeed valuable for assessing skills and knowledge that are harder to assess through written examination papers. It is also a powerful motivator for many candidates, since it gives them a chance to study an area in greater depth and to take more responsibility for their own learning.

Our study found that many improvements need to be made, namely:

  • ensuring teachers can confirm that work they mark is the candidate's own. We recommended that there should be further research into using technology to detect plagiarism
  • clarifying what help from teachers and parents is acceptable
  • giving a higher profile to malpractice penalties 
  • standardising marks within a centre to ensure that internal standardisation is consistent across all centres. Our recommendation is that awarding bodies need to carry out further checks and provide better guidance
  • clarifying the purpose and format of feedback from moderators to meet centres' needs
  • looking at the value of coursework assessment subject by subject to improve the way in which coursework is designed and assessed in the future.

We established a taskforce to look at how we could strengthen arrangements for the authentication of coursework for the summer 2006 examinations series. The work of this taskforce led to the publication, in March 2006, of teachers' guidance on authenticating coursework. We also produced guidelines for parents and candidates to explain clearly the difference between legitimate family support for coursework and excessive parental input or plagiarism.

Controlled assessments

In October 2006 we announced:

  • Controlled assessments will replace coursework in the following subjects: business studies, classical subjects, economics, English literature, geography, history, modern foreign languages and social sciences.
  • Controlled assessments will be taken under supervised conditions and will either be set by the awarding body and marked by teachers or set by teachers and marked by the awarding body.
  • Controlled assessments may involve different parameters from those used in traditional written examinations. They may, for example, allow access to sources such as the internet (but under supervision).
  • In art and design, design and technology, home economics, music and physical education, internal assessments should continue with stronger safeguards.
  • Decisions about English and ICT should be made once the role of functional skills and their assessment arrangements are clearer.
  • Mathematics coursework will be removed from GCSE criteria.
  • Coursework arrangements for science will remain unchanged, due to the revised programme of study at GCSE introduced for first teaching in September 2006.

The changes will be introduced in September 2009, with the exception of mathematics where changes were introduced from September 2007. New requirements on awarding bodies will be monitored.

We published a report (Controlled assessments, June 2007) outlining the regulatory view on the new controlled assessments that are to be included in revised GCSE qualifications from September 2009. The report includes an explanation of the process of developing controlled assessments, as well as case study examples in different GCSE subjects. It should be read in conjunction with the revised GCSE criteria. The development of controlled assessments and related issues are described in more detail in the independent report, Improving GCSE: internal and controlled assessment (March 2007). Both reports can be downloaded from this page.

Ken Boston, Chief Executive of the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, said:

'The current system of GCSE examinations and coursework is robust. QCA has provided both teachers and parents with further information on the help that they can provide and how best to authenticate a candidate's coursework. We have a responsibility to ensure that assessments in high stakes external examinations, such as GCSEs, continue to be valid and reliable. We are confident that the changes we are making to coursework will ensure that the GCSE remains fit for purpose, and ultimately reduces the assessment burden on both students and teachers.

'QCA will work with partner organisations and teachers to ensure that the new controlled assessment elements are rigorous and manageable.'