Advice for staff supervisors
There are 5 elements to the supervisor role:
- Meeting with the student in a university tutor style format to help guide the student through their project.
- Approving the student's project title.
- Attending the student's presentation.
- Marking the final project.
More detail about each of these elements is outlined by AQA and below.
Approving project titles
All students must have their project title approved before they move onto the main section of the research.
The stages in getting the title approved are as follows:
STUDENT: Meet with their supervisor to discuss their initial ideas and fill in the ‘record of initial ideas’ in the production log.
STUDENT: Use the feedback from their record of initial ideas and any further background research to help them come up with a candidate proposal.
STUDENT: Fill in ‘Part A candidate’s proposal’ in the production log.
STUDENT: Meet with their supervisor to make sure that their supervisor is happy with their candidate proposal.
SUPERVISOR: Fill in ‘Part B supervisor’s comments’ on candidate proposal in the production log.
SUPERVISOR: Advise the centre coordinator (Ms Simmons) and the relevant lead teacher (either Ms Mckenzie or Dr Buckley) that this has been completed.
CENTRE COORDINATOR: Fill in ‘Part C Centre Coordinators approval’ of candidate proposal. Email the supervisor and the student to confirm that they have approved the proposal.
Once this process is complete the student can continue with the planning and research for the project.
There are examples of titles here, along with some advice about coming up with an excellent title.
Meetings with students
There should be a minimum of 5 meetings between the student and the Supervisor through the course. Meetings are ususally around 15 minutes long. There might be occasions where a student or supervisor decides that an additional meeting would be helpful. Students should contact their supervisor to arrange meetings. If a Supervisor is concerned they might contact the student to arrange a meeting. Each meeting on the list links with a specific section of the Production Log.
Meeting 2: Developing a working title
Students must complete "Part A Candidate Proposal" in their produciton Log and have their title approved between meetings 2 and 3.
Meeting 5: Project product review
There might also be a meeting to disucss the student's presentation although this is not a necessity as students will have a practice run through of their presentation as a part of the taught sessions where they will receive feedback on presentation improvement.
Production Log
Students should share their Production Log with their supervisor. There are 4 sections that the supervisor needs to complete. they should be completed in the order of the list below; note that the sections are not presented in the production log in the same order as this list.
Part B - supervisor's comments on the candidate proposal: This should be completed once the student has decided on a working title and before they begin the main body of research. Please email the centre coordinator once you have completed this section.
Presentation Record Part B: Complete after watching the student's presentation.
Submission Checklist: Complete after the student has submitted their final project.
Record of marks: Complete using the marking guidance.
Student Presentations
Students must deliver their presentation in a lecture style to an audience of at least 2 members of staff. AQA provides guidance on the format and content of the presentation. As a part of the presentation students must answer questions from the audience. These could be about the subject matter or what they have learnt about themselves and the research process as a result of completing the project.
Following the presentation, supervisors should complete the production log section "Presentation Record Part B".
Marking the project
Once the students have handed in their final project, supervisors will mark it and then the centre coordinator will standardise the marking. The final project will include:
Production Log.
Written report (including a bibliography).
Evidence of the presentation (slides/speaker notes).
Evidence of the artefact if the student has opted to create one.
Student timeline/to do list.
This link takes you to the assessment objective guidance for the projects.
Use this guidance to help you mark the final project and check that you have filled in the supervisor sections of the production log.