Cambridge Nationals: NEA FAQs - What feedback can I give to students?

Can I give ongoing feedback to my students when they are completing their assignments?

Refer to Section 6.3 of the Specification.

Once summative assessment has begun (so once students have started working on the live assignment), teachers are only able to provide generic feedback to students. It is acceptable to provide generic feedback on an ongoing basis. 

What is generic feedback?

Generic feedback is feedback that can be given to all students. It would usually be verbal feedback that the teacher gives to the whole class but may also be to individuals. It may act as a general prompt or reminder to students but must not give them specific advice that would tell them what they should do to meet given marking criteria requirements.

For example, teachers can say to students:

• “Remember we had a lesson on XX topic. You could look at your notes from this lesson before you start this task.”
• “Remember, the words in bold in the marking criteria are the command words. All command words and their meanings are in Appendix X at the end of your assignments. Your work will need to meet the command word for each strand of the marking criteria. Remember we had lessons where we talked about the sort of evidence that may meet each command word. You could look at the notes from that lesson before you start the task today.”

What might be considered as improper assistance (over-direction)?

Feedback must not provide specific advice to individual students or the whole class to help them complete the tasks. Some examples of specific feedback that would be considered improper assistance (over-direction) may be:

Providing specific feedback to students would compromise their ability to independently complete the tasks they are doing. This would be malpractice.

What personalised feedback can I give to students when they have handed in completed work and I have marked it?

When students have handed in their completed assignment work, teachers can mark this and provide students with individual feedback before final marks are submitted to OCR. This feedback must be recorded. If you agree that students can make changes to their work after this marking and feedback process, it is classed as a reattempt (see What is the difference between a reattempt and a resubmission)

What personalised feedback can I give to students?

Feedback given at this stage must still adhere to the guidance in Section 6.3 of the specification. This is because students are allowed to reattempt their work to improve it, considering the feedback provided, so feedback must not unfairly advantage or disadvantage any students.

Constructive and useful feedback should allow students to understand:

• strengths of their performance
• limitations of their performance
• where work could be improved, but not how to improve it.

Feedback should be recorded against the topic area and marking criteria to help students understand how the assessment decision has been made/arrived at. (See Section 6.7 of the Specification and How do I record feedback for more information about how to record feedback.)

Individual feedback must be factual, with the teacher telling the student what they have observed, rather than telling the student what to do to improve work.

This feedback would be acceptable:

• “Review MB3 criteria in terms of the aims of the market research. You are currently in MB1 (1-4 marks). In the lesson we had on this topic, you offered more insight into market research and sampling methods, which you could reflect on to improve your marks.”

Feedback must not tell students what they need to do to improve their work. This feedback would not be acceptable:

If students wish to, they can consider the feedback given and reattempt their work to improve their marks at this stage, before you have submitted the marks to OCR.  

Can I mark my students’ work after each task?

Refer to Section 6.4.4 of the Specification and to the Student guide to NEA assignments.

The Specification states that marking and feedback should not be an iterative process.

The Student guide to NEA assignments also tells students that teachers cannot mark work in stages.

What does an iterative process mean?

An iterative process of marking and feedback is where work is submitted to the teacher and marked in small sections, bit by bit.

Teachers should not:

• Mark work in sections (for example after each task has been completed) and then provide students with the marks for, and feedback on, this section.  
• Mark work and provide those marks to students in a way that allows students to keep improving their work as they work through the tasks. Marking work ‘bit by bit’ gives a student the opportunity to reflect on their work in a more focussed way than they would if they received their mark for the whole set assignment and could lead to incremental changes to improve their result. Marking ‘bit by bit’ may potentially advantage students as they could tweak their work more easily than other students.

When can I mark students’ work and give them their marks?

Students should submit their assignment evidence to teachers for marking when they have completed the summative assessment (consider this to be their first draft work).

Teachers can then mark this and provide marks and feedback to each student, based on the completed work students have submitted to them.

What feedback can I give my students when I’ve marked their work?

Feedback given to students must adhere to the guidance in Section 6.3 of the specification. Please see the responses to to our questions on ongoing and personalised feedback above and the examples given to show what is acceptable feedback and what might be considered as improper assistance (over-direction).

Can my students have another attempt at their assignment when I’ve given them their marks and feedback?

Students are allowed to reattempt the assignment after it has been marked as a complete assignment. This is detailed in Section 6.4.4 of the Specification. They should not be getting marks and personalised feedback task by task and being allowed to work on those in an iterative way.

• See What is the difference between a reattempt and a resubmission which explains the difference between a reattempt and a resubmission.
• See also What if my students can't get started for how to record feedback where students cannot get started on an assignment. In this case, feedback should be recorded on the student’s work and/or URS.