GCSE Design & Technology Principal Moderator

A GCSE Design & Technology Principal Moderator ensures that internally assessed units meet the required standard and are consistent with the unit specification and assessment criteria. Principal Moderators are responsible to the Chief Examiner for the setting of coursework tasks and the standardising of coursework moderation.

Responsibilities

• Take full responsibility for the award of your allocated unit(s).
• Monitor the standards of assistant principal moderators in your team.
• Produce any assessment materials as required by the Code of Practice relating to your allocated unit(s).
• Ascertain the accuracy of each centre’s assessment of candidate work, checking that their application of assessment criteria is in line with overall standards of the examination.
• Ensure that you are fully conversant with the overall standard of work associated with particular grades in previous years.
• Attend the awarding meeting, advise members on how the unit functioned and recommend preliminary ranges of marks for the judgemental grade boundaries.
• Ensure that enough samples of candidates’ work at the proposed range of marks are available to the awarding committee for reference.
• Be responsible to the Chief Examiner for the setting of assessment tasks and the standardising of their moderation, where required.
• Contribute to the training/re-training of visiting moderators and support the senior team in the collection of relevant training and standardisation material.
• Assist in the collation and preparation of training materials for new moderator training and standardisation meetings.
• Contribute to, and support the process for, effective standardisation of all team leaders and moderators.
• Conduct standardisation activities including standardisation of the marking of assistant principal moderators, team leaders and moderators, as appropriate.
• Report on the performance of moderators and team leaders after standardisation.
• Participate in post-standardisation review activities.
• Be directly responsible for a group of team leaders and indirectly responsible for their allocated moderators, or directly responsible in components where there are no team leaders.
• Monitor, support and advise the team leaders or moderators assigned to you, overseeing all aspects of their work. Contact moderators assigned to your team leaders where the team leaders have not been able to resolve concerns. Refer any concerns that remain unresolved to the Chief Examiner and/or QDAM.
• Maintain regular contact with Pearson and the Chief Examiner, giving feedback on the performance of your team.
• Re-moderate work and prepare special reports on the work of groups of candidates, in connection with enquiries about results (EARs) of an examination within specified timescales to enable compliance with regulatory requirements.
• Complete a report on each examination series if required.
• Advise on the appointment, training and reappointment of team leaders and moderators for the qualification.
• Submit an E10 evaluation report on issues relating to the performance of your allocated unit each series (collated from team leader and moderator reports) to the Chief Examiner.