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btec level 3


EdG

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Well there are really dull generic ones, but usually for those units, you build the assignment to suit what productions are upcoming, and the content to suit the group and the facilities you have. It's very, very rare that one centre's briefs fit another, because apart from the viability of the task, the style and paperwork design is usually different. I also assume you're on the last group of the old spec units, and not the new spec - because the format is different, as are the criteria.

 

Are you looking for one huge assignment to cover every criterion, or are you doing a staged part 1,2 and 3 type?

 

I guess a few of us could write one for you if you give us details of how clued up the students are, what their 'real' ability is and your inventory, production details and other stuff - but the point of BTEC is that assignments are custom designed for the job. Very rare to be able to use the same one with a different group - unless you want dull, boring and pointless ones!

 

With the internal IV system, it's also quite usual for the content, format and style to need to conform to centre devised, not BTEC, rules. Although I've pinched a few great ideas over the years, I have never been able to steal an assignment and just use it.

 

Are you very new to this? If so, I'd steal a colleagues assignment and just modify it.

 

You have sound, lights and stage management - so presumably have a team of people with real roles? The only common element is a production - what have you got planned that is meaty enough?

 

If you are crafty - you can break down the requirements into four areas - use the DSM unit as an example. The first area is that they need to have looked at the role of the DSM - so a paper exercise in working out what skills DSMs need to function properly. The next area is to be the DSM during the rehearsal period, then the next is the same but for the show. The final bit is all about H&S, sneakily sticking in the requirement for them to be able to advise others!

 

Snag wise - one student per show, or try to job share (which is a bit daft) so for this unit, the feeling would be that you need to create a system to allow everyone to be a DSM for at least one production. The crafty colleges with music departments might let the prod arts people manage their music events - so you need to probably have multiple different assignments to get them all through. Your colleagues might get away with an entire cast on one production - one assignment. If you have ten students, then you need ten productions for the DSM, if you follow professional practice. I guess you could have one DSM for Act 1 and one for Act 2, but that's just a fudge.

 

You need to seek events to work on, take them over, make them happen and track everyone. Some colleges frown on individual assignments, and this is even more a problem on the new version of the spec where paperwork is lord and master. You may have no option. Some colleges merge the classes, sharing time, so you can have some working on lights, others stage management and the others on sound and set building - if you can manage it.

 

See the snag with trying to use somebody else's assignment.

 

If you have written anything and want a second opinion, I'd be happy to look them over - since I no longer work for Edexcel at all, it would be just an opinion - but I've seen so many bad ones, I can spot them quite easily. Feel free to PM me if you want to. Paul

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I have lots, but as Paul has said, they'd only ever make sense in the context of the establishment in which I work and for the scheme of learning or events we were undertaking at that point in time.

 

Do think carefully about how to break up the criteria across tasks. Read up carefully on the new assessment guidelines, as these have significantly changed working practice, and make some of our more practical criteria very hard to write tasks for.

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I'm now working for a different organisation who are rolling out Performing Arts in a similar manner to BTEC 15 years ago - quite exciting to be honest, because I get to do visits again and will actually get to see and talk to live people - and they have hugely simplified and sensible paperwork. The new BTEC looks simply dreadful, and as Jon says, the rules have been tightened to make it much harder to do our kind of stuff. If you were a DSM and didn't have a problem to solve, or had endless problems, top grades look very tricky to get. One shot, and that's it - so many of the colleges on the pilot are doing 'practice' assignments that don't count - they have to be approved in advance, and this means nothing 'tomorrow', because of the hoops that need jumping through. One of my local colleges has swapped already!
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