Introduction

The aim of this hand book is to guide you through the process of designing and making in a way that will ensure you meet all of the requirements of the exam board.

This is a step by step approach and none of the steps should be missed out.

Success is a product of the effort you put in. The majority of students fail because they:

Ø Miss out sections of the project

Ø Do not meet the required deadlines

Ø Produce poor quality, rushed or incomplete work.

Ø Waste time in class when they should be working

Ø Fail to complete work at home for Homework or during holidays.

Your project counts for 60% of the marks and the exam for 40%

How to use this book.

This book can only help you organise your coursework if you a) understand what you are trying to achieve and b) follow the guide in this book.

The deadlines.

The exam board say that the GCSE coursework should take 40 hours of work. This covers the design work in the folder and making your product(s). The making should take more time than the designing. Approximately 17 hours folder and 23 hours making.

40 hours is approximately 43 lessons at 55 mins per lesson., at 3 lessons per week this is some 14.5 weeks, or roughly a term.

NOTE: this is the lesson time allocated and does not include any extra time you use at home for homework or during the holidays.

You will only achieve this if you are organised and work to the deadlines.

On the other hand you will most certainly not achieve this if you do not do any work outside the classroom.

A suitable allocation of the time is detailed on the next page. It is recommended that you make a more detailed version showing the individual tasks required to complete each section.

The rest of this hand book will explain what should be in each section, offer hints and tips on how to meet the highest requirements of the exam board to achieve grades A and B and show some examples of how you might present your work.