1. Need to address the exact demands of the brief to avoid generalising thus catering to the older spec while the new spec requires candidates to approach the brief in higher detail.
"The main misconception is to approach H409 03/04 like the legacy G324 specification, which had rather more generic briefs. These four briefs are specific in the required detail - without addressing the precise demands of the brief candidates cannot reach the higher levels, no matter how creative or technically skilled they may be. Some candidates seem to have not understood the need to produce the tasks as set, perhaps not understanding that these were absolute requirements; for example, in the magazine brief, some candidates produced feature pages rather than contents pages, which demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of the brief."
2. Candidates need to generate their own original content all video, audio and text must be original content. "Candidates should generate all their own original content; work should have no ‘found’ material. Page 30 of the specification says ‘learners must be responsible for the design of the website and all content (such as text, images and audio-visual material) must be original’; the rubric on the front cover of the brief, notes: ‘You must use original footage, images and/or text within your production."
3. A candidate not all the requirements of the brief is a common point of failure. "not addressing all the requirements of the chosen brief, together with the stipulated production detail"
4. Candidates that do not show sufficient understanding of relevant aspects of the theoretical framework is a common point of failure. "not demonstrating sufficient understanding of the relevant aspects of the theoretical framework."
5. Candidates that had no prior experience of the technology used were at a significant disadvantage to those who had. "Candidates who do not seem to have practised using the technology earlier in the course were significantly disadvantaged."
6. Statistically the best candidates undertook individual research into past exemplar projects. "It was noticeable that the best candidates had undertaken individual research into a wide range of contemporary exemplars while less successful candidates produced limited research on one or two centre-prescribed exemplars."
7. The Statement of intent accounts for 1/6 of the available therefore it is very important for it to be included and fully fledged. "Lower-achieving candidates usually had underdeveloped and poorly thought through Statements of Intent. The SOI is a vital stage in planning how to address all the elements of the set brief, including the ways in which the candidate can demonstrate all the necessary knowledge and understanding and how they can construct the relevant representations. Submissions that do not include the SOI automatically incur a 10-mark penalty."
8. The best coversheets featured similar qualities that meant they were better then the rest. "The best coversheets included clear, bespoke, candidate-specific commentaries that referenced assessment criteria and cited examples from student work. This was particularly helpful where candidates had produced projects that took a counter-typical approach to the briefs (for example, music videos that subverted generic conventions of dance while still adhering to the requirements of the brief). Less helpful CCSs lacked depth or detail - such an approach did not really help when identifying why certain marks had been given; this was particularly evident with regard to digital convergence."
9. Lower performing candidates had common features which meant that they were graded lower then similar candidates "However, at the lower end there was usually a lack of awareness of appropriate mise-en-scene, framing and composition; setting was generally the least considered aspect – most of the weakest productions were clearly in a school setting and a significant number of sequences were filmed in front of whiteboards, for example."
10. Weaker Satement tended to repeat the brief thus not being able to classify as a Statement of intent. "The weakest statements tended to repeat the brief without explaining how the requirements and production details were to be achieved while others had clearly been based on a centre-devised model leading to virtually identical documents."
