Make sure that you plan for each stage of the assessment in the process, the key assessment points:
Exploration and experimentation of materials, techniques and processes
Purposeful development
Refinement
And consideration and evaluation (backwards and forwards facing)
Make sure that you can evidence each of these in your sketchbook regularly right the way through your project.
For more help on this, read the illustrated Google document which you can find at:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R6cFTrgp_0Ohg5qcUIkG_fqykFTTwq1bXf8UxsewE2E/edit?usp=sharing
Write down lists of what you need to improve on each page
Use page numbers in your annotation to explain where the evidence is for the judgments you make in your evaluations
AO1 Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
AO2 Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
AO3 Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.
AO4 Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.
Pay particular attention to these words
AO1 Develop ideas sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
AO2 Reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
AO3 Reflecting critically on work and progress.
AO4 ..Realises intentions and makes connections between visual elements.
These are the areas that highlight the need for critical evaluation that is regular and repeated throughout the project lifecycle.
You need to make sure that there is sufficient critical evaluation in your work.
At the last moderation, there was an exam moderator and an area moderator reviewing and reflecting on the moderation process. The area moderator reviews what the ordinary moderator judges and compares that to recent moderations at centres nearby and in other parts of the country.
The area moderator can establish the comparative values of lots of centres and see where one centre is stronger or weaker than the others.
When asked what was the single thing that needed to be considered and addressed by staff and students to improve the work undertaken at the Lewes centre, she replied without hesitation:
‘Critical evaluation’.
This tells you how important the exam board and its moderators think that evidence of critical evaluation is to the work and the grading of all students in Fine Art and all Art and Design A levels.
When you work on a formal exam in an exam room, you answer all the points and questions in the paper , one by one. You do the best you can to answer each question. If you have time at the end of the exam and you want to get a better grade, you go back and look at your answers and try to improve on them.
In Fine Art, you should regularly go back through your sketchbook and see where you can make improvements
Check your pages agains the four AOs. Try to see where you have the evidence and more importantly, where you are missing evidence
Ask your teacher for a sketchbook review
Ask a friend in your class to review and listen to what they say - don't get defensive, what they say could help you achieve a better grade
Ask someone in the other year or another group to look at your sketchbook and tell you where you could add evidence