GCSE, AS/A Level and Entry Level PE: NEA advice and guidance for summer 2021

In line with the consultation outcome, centres should continue to deliver and assess non-exam assessment (NEA) with their students as far as possible.

As moderation is not taking place in summer 2021, marks do not need to be submitted to OCR or the moderator. Usual deadlines for submitting marks no longer apply. The completion of NEA just needs to fit in with your internal school/college approach and timelines ahead of teacher assessed grades (TAGs) submission by 18 June.

Why should we continue to carry out NEA?

The purpose of continuing NEA is:

• To complete exam board set tasks (or similar equivalents) which will help inform your TAGs
• For the benefit of students in terms of their progression.

The Ofqual guidance on the types of evidence which centres should use in determining teacher assessed grades recommends the use of “non-exam assessment (NEA) work, even if this has not been fully completed”.

For OCR Physical Education NEA, we would therefore advise that you do the following where possible and depending on how much NEA you have covered so far.

Practical activities

We advise you to:

• Continue to assess these and gather evidence where you can
• Take stock of what filmed evidence you currently have; although you are not being moderated, having a reasonable range of filmed evidence for at least some candidates and activities will help you to:
  • • internally standardise
    • establish a rank order
    • and underpin how you factor in practical NEA to your final TAGs for each student.
• If you are running practical PE/Games lessons in your centre, these can be an opportunity to continue to observe candidates and gather evidence to back up your TAGs. If filming (some of) these is not possible, some written observation records could be kept.
• Where you have limited evidence (or in some cases possibly knowledge) of certain students and/or activities, then consider if you can improve that situation and gather enough evidence or information to enable you to ensure NEA can be a part of the evidence towards the TAG, for example:
  • • Get them to record/gather some evidence for you
    • Explore if it is feasible to set up some kind of practical session which you can observe/record or someone else can film for you
• Gather what other forms of evidence you can:
  • • You could speak to any external coaches if relevant.
    • Make sure logs of competitive performance are as complete as possible – training times/performances could be included for some activities, e.g. swimming, athletics.
    • Compile documentary evidence of participation and performance over the past 2 years

How do we assess the practical?

We advise you to:

• Base your assessments on the aspects from the criteria which you can make a judgment on from those which the criteria focus on:
  • • Range of skills
    • Quality of skills
    • Physical attributes
    • Decision making
    • Effective performance
• Continue to use a ‘best fit’ approach, e.g. best fit using only range of skills, quality of skills and physical attributes if that is what you have evidence of and/or have been able to observe (note there is not a minimum number of the aspects needed – however, like with the TAG process overall, you need to feel that you have seen enough to arrive at a secure judgment for the overall level of performance)
• What aspects of the criteria can you use for each candidate:
  • • within each activity
    • across the whole cohort?
• Centres will need to decide whether to take a consistent approach for the whole cohort or within each activity, but you should aim to be consistent within an activity as a minimum wherever possible without disadvantaging any student(s)
• Performance tables for A Level – use them if you have the information, you think it is helpful and you think it is reflective of something close to the student’s 'normal' level of performance
  • • again, consider consistency in your cohort and the activity – if you cannot use performance tables for all candidates in that activity, then it may be more appropriate to just assess based on technique so that you take the same approach for all assessments in that sport.
    • you need to assess the impact of any decision on consistency of evidence on all students affected.

Analysis/Evaluation of performance tasks

We advise you to continue to complete and assess these. If completing these for your cohort is unrealistic in the time available (e.g. as they have not been started yet and/or due to the number of students) then consider whether a shortened version could be done, for example:

• Entry Level Analysing Performance
  • • If several students are all being assessed in the same activity, could consider letting them all observe the same filmed activity and then analyse that
    • Consider if written or verbal response will be easiest to deliver in the circumstances (as both are permitted)
    • Remember that there is a task sheet which can be used for this in the Guide to NEA for R463
• GCSE AEP
  • • Provide some fitness test data or similar rather than students have to gather it themselves
    • Provide completed ‘Observation sheets’ to use instead of watching performances
    • If any theory not covered (e.g. movement analysis or skill acquisition, then could omit that section (could even top this up later with a ‘topic test’ using exam board provided materials)
    • Prioritise being able to do the action plan section (even if a shortened action plan to 2-3 weeks)
• AS/A Level EAPI
  • • Be consistent within your centre; it is better to deliver something from the EAPI than not do it at all as it is a separate ‘strand’ of Assessment Objective 4
    • You could use the AS rather than the A Level EAPI for H555 students
    • You could do the analysis of performance (strengths and weaknesses) plus one of:
      • the development plan (or AS action plan)
      • the application of theory aspects
    • You could let the student choose if they want to do the application of theory OR the development plan – it could be their preference
    • Focus on assessment rather than filming all your EAPIs, but having at least a few EAPIs in whatever form these have been delivered filmed is advisable as evidence of your internal processes (e.g. top, middle and bottom of rank order or close to this)

Again, being consistent in the evidence you use for every candidate is important, so if you shorten the tasks make sure that everyone is being judged on the same sections or has the same choice on what to focus on.

Gathering evidence and using it for teacher assessed grades (TAGs)

Remember that the NEA is only part of the PE qualification; your TAG needs to be a grade which reflects what each student has demonstrated across the whole qualification

Ultimately, teachers need to make their own holistic, professional judgments about a subject grade for each student which can be supported if challenged, based on what each student has been able to demonstrate during the course and without disadvantaging them based on aspects which they have not been able to access. We cannot prescribe how you do this given how much centre and student situations may vary but hope this guidance provides some helpful advice to assist you.

Please make sure that you retain all the evidence which you use in reaching your TAGs as per the JCQ guidance, as it may still be needed at various stages of the process after grade submission.