GCSE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY: RESISTANT MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY 45602 Report on the Examination 4560 JUNE 2015 Version: 1.0
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – GCSE D&T: RESISTANT MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY – 45602 – JUNE 2015
Since last year, teachers from more than 200 centres across the UK and further afield have attended CPD events organised for DT: RMT by AQA. These have included online and face to face events to help teachers getting started in the subject, and feedback on work seen in the last year. The examples of work highlighted in these events have helped teachers to prepare their students successfully for presenting high quality, focussed and creative work. Centres are to be congratulated for continuing to encourage such innovative work. If you are interested in booking onto one of these events (and there are events scheduled for the autumn term), please visit the AQA website, where full details can be found. Candidates across the country, and in our foreign centres, fully embraced the design and manufacture of individual products in response to the twelve controlled assessment tasks. An ever increasing number of candidates submitted their design work by electronic portfolio. A popular format used by most centres was PowerPoint. (Please encourage your candidates to compress images used, to make file sizes smaller). Where work is submitted on paper, it is preferred that a candidate’s work is all on the same size i.e. all A3 or all A4, rather than a mix. Also candidates do not need stick pieces of wood (or other materials) in folders. It was pleasing to see centres encouraging candidates to adopt a range of techniques and strategies successfully. The highest scoring candidates produced innovative products, supported by comprehensive and detailed designing and evaluations. In some centres, candidates wrote excessive volumes of text. This extra content generally did little to enhance candidates’ marks, and often affected their overall score due to a failure to be concise. More able candidates improved their marks by designing the detail through annotated sketches, models and CAD. The top candidates showed creativity and innovation in their work. All twelve controlled assessment tasks were attempted by candidates. The ‘eco jewellery’ task continued to be the least popular of the twelve, whilst docking stations and lamps were designed by the largest number of candidates. There were even fewer requests to contextualise the tasks this year; and in most of these cases, the suggested changes could have been accommodated by ‘focussing in’ the design within the existing controlled assessment tasks. Centres are reminded that to use the latest controlled assessment tasks for 2015 and 2016 certification. These were amended slightly from those used in 2014 and 2013. The tasks can be found on the secure part of the AQA website e-AQA. Some centres presented candidates with all twelve design tasks to choose from, whereas other centres offered a limited selection. Even where only one task was undertaken by all the candidates from a centre, there was still opportunity for creativity and individuality. In a few centres, however, restricting candidates to one task resulted in very similar products being designed and made. Assessment Criteria Criterion 1: Investigating the Design Context Many candidates successfully analysed their chosen task and identified relevant areas of research that would help them to design an appropriate product. Candidates’ research remained concise, relevant and very focused, and it directly influenced the creativity of designs ideas and development of the product. Many candidates began by profiling their client or target market, which helped them to focus the rest of their research. The client was consulted throughout the design process in the best examples seen. A high number of candidates were less focussed in their investigation of the context, sometimes omitting a client profile completely, and gathering irrelevant information that did not influence the design of the product.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – GCSE D&T RESISTANT MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY – 45602 – JUNE 2015
A significant number of candidates successfully carried out research at relevant points throughout the designing of their product. All candidates need to ensure their research is brief, focussed and relevant so that it can be used to directly influence their design ideas. This section account for 8 marks out of 90; a number of candidates continued to spend a disproportionate amount of time on this aspect of the task. To achieve top marks for this criterion, candidates are reminded that their research needs to ‘promote originality in designing’. Criterion 2: Development of Design Proposals (including modelling) Moderators were delighted to see that the majority of candidates were using a range of strategies to produce creative solutions to their design briefs. Photographs of other products or items from nature were used to inspire creativity, as well as scruffitti and similar techniques. Although the number of candidates adopting these techniques has increased, it was disappointing that, for some candidates, early creative ideas were then completed ignored in the development of the final design! It is important that the creativity is carried through to the final product, rather than just being and exercise set for the sake of it. Most candidates conveyed initial ideas through sketches, and a small number of candidates successfully used CAD from the outset. Other candidates used modelling extensively to convey initial ideas and develop them. A number of models were often made, each being photographed, printed and then enhanced with sketches and annotation. This approach allowed candidates to develop their ideas very thoroughly. In some centres, the candidates were less successful in using modelling to refine their ideas, with candidates only producing one model only, which was not then annotated. Candidates have been able to produce fully dimensioned orthographic drawings using CAD software to convey their final design. Some candidates are able to draw each part of the product separately, to the correct sizes, and then present them as 3D exploded drawing on Sketchup CAD software. 2D Design was also popular, with some candidates using the 3D facility with this programme. 2D Design and Coral Draw were implemented to produce designs for laser cutters. Where laser cutters were used, few candidates evidenced knowledge of settings for different materials; a “screen dump” is an easy way to achieve this. Other CAD software was also used successfully. A number of candidates produced a range of initial ideas and then a final idea, but did not show how the initial concepts had evolved, been refined, improved or constructional information detailed. There was little evidence in these folders behind the choice of materials, consideration of alternative methods of joining, shaping and forming them, or details of calculating the size of parts. For the manufacturing specification, candidates are required to provide sufficient information to enable a 3rd party to make the product. This could be conveyed successfully through some sort of formal drawing/sketch/CAD with measurements, a cutting list and a plan of making. Exploded sketches and CAD drawings are becoming increasingly popular, and are a really successful way of conveying comprehensive information about each part of the product. Flowcharts were a popular and successful way of producing a plan of making. Other approaches can also convey the same information. It is not necessary to include a diary of making, although key points where modifications to the design are made during manufacture could be usefully explained.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – GCSE D&T RESISTANT MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY – 45602 – JUNE 2015
Social, moral, environmental and sustainable aspects for criterion 2 were generally either not addressed, weak or shown as a generic page without specific focus. Students who were more successful in this aspect often related these issues to their choice of materials, and the impact of their product at the end of its life cycle. Criterion 3: Making A huge variety of products of all shapes and sizes were produced by candidates. In the top mark band, work was of excellent quality, demanding and creative. Wood again proved the most popular material, with an increasing number of candidates using it in combination with other materials, particularly where there was access to CAD / CAM equipment. Many candidates demonstrated great creativity in their use of wood and wood based products, for example, lamination of curved parts proved very popular. Plastics were used by a large proportion of candidates, with acrylic dominant, particularly for laser cut work. Metals were used by a relatively small number of candidates. Making marks were enhanced by candidates who successfully worked with other materials and advanced making skills, including machining fabric parts, soldering circuits, and casting concrete parts. Composite and smart materials are yet to feature in any quantity. It was pleasing to see the high number of innovative and creative products designed by candidates. As the price of 3D printers falls, these machines are increasingly common in centres, with students successfully designing components of their products to be 3D printed. Criterion 4: Testing and evaluation Testing and evaluation has continued to improve this year. A greater number of candidates have evidently dedicated more time to this aspect of the design process since it carries 12 marks out of 90. Many candidates tested their product in its intended environment, gathered target market feedback and tested the product against the design criteria. In addition, some candidates justified the modifications made to their designs, together with suggestions for how the product would need to be altered for commercial production. The highest scoring candidates also evaluated their designs throughout the development process and sought 3rd party opinions. Candidates who did not carry out these actions did not score so highly on this section; this was possibly due to poor time management. Criterion 5: Communication Centres generally assessed this criterion accurately which provides a good understanding of the requirements. Conducting Controlled Assessment Tasks Centres are reminded that feedback given to candidates should be generic, i.e. feedback given to the whole group. Detailed guidance about conducting the controlled assessment can be downloaded from the secure area of the AQA website, e-AQA. This section of the website also
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – GCSE D&T RESISTANT MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY – 45602 – JUNE 2015
contains the very useful enhanced results analysis service, which enables centres to analyse candidate performance after the publication of results. Some centres have made use of scaffolding, frameworks, and templates to assist pupils with the controlled assessment. Whilst this support successfully ensures candidates respond to all assessment objectives, it has proven to sometimes hinder creativity of mid and higher ability candidates. Teachers are reminded that standardising materials are now available as interactive folders on the Teacher Online Standardising system (T-OLS) on the e-AQA. All members of staff can access TOLS and work through the exercises individually. The marks inputted by the user are not recorded. The standardising materials are updated annually in the autumn term. Administration of assessments The majority of centres’ marks were within tolerance and thus in line with the AQA standard. Where centre assessments were inaccurate, it was usually in criteria 2 and/or 3. Development of Design Proposals (criterion 2) was an area where centres may need to improve due to some products lacking detail in relation to sizes and how they would be constructed. When candidates did include this information, however, it was usually not accompanied by the developmental evidence to support the decisions made. Where Making marks (criterion 3) were over-assessed, it was often because the outcomes awarded the highest marks lacked the quality of finish / construction necessary to justify those marks. Many centres used the Candidate Record Form suitably to explain the marks awarded and clarify if any help had been given to candidates e.g. routing, welding and setting up machines. Most centres were prompt to dispatch candidates’ marks and requested folders. A few centres did not send all folders even though there were 20 candidates or less, as required. Moderators did notice a number of data errors, e.g. transfer of marks to the Centre Mark Sheet, or addition errors on Candidate Record Forms. A few candidates included videos in their evaluation of the product and some provided narrated videos of the outcomes. Many centres very helpfully provided clear photos of outcomes, thus aiding the moderation process. Thank you.
Mark Ranges and Award of Grades Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results Statistics page of the AQA Website.
Converting Marks into UMS marks Convert raw marks into Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks by using the link below. UMS conversion calculator
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