With only a few weeks to go before final marks are submitted to OCR for GCSE and A Level Art and Design, schools and colleges will be preparing for their visit from an OCR moderator. As such we thought it might be a good idea to let you know what to expect before, during and after your moderation visit. 

Preparing for your moderation visit

In the weeks running up to the end of your GCSE or A Level course, you will be contacted by your moderator to arrange a date for your visit. The visits will take place at some point after the deadline date for the submission of marks (15 May for GCSE and 31 May for A Level). 

Once you have submitted your marks you will receive a moderation sample request. 

This will usually be for 15 candidates, although only 10 of these will form the sample that the moderator will look at initially – the remainder will form an ‘extended sample’. The moderator will let you know which 10 they will need to see initially before the visit. The extended sample does not need to be displayed but will need to be made available for the moderator to look at as required. Sample sizes do vary depending on size of cohort – see our administration pages for more details. 

Before the visit takes place you will need to fill out a centre marks form for each component. This form can also be filled out before marks are submitted to make sure no arithmetical errors have been made and candidate marks are correct. The moderator will need to have a copy of this form so they can refer to it during the moderation process. This form can be found via our forms finder page. 

The candidate work that makes up your sample(s) will need to be made available to the moderator on the day of the visit in a quiet and private space. 

Work can either be exhibited or laid out on tables – but please don’t leave work in folders. The work should be arranged by component and in rank order for each component (rather than by candidate number). 

Also, please identify the candidates’ final outcome(s) so the moderator can see the realisation of the students’ ideas, exploration and development. 

And, if possible, please provide a desk for the moderator to complete their paperwork on and don’t forget to make sure they have a parking space if they need one! 

On the day 

During the moderator’s visit the teacher will need to be available but not in the room whilst the moderation is taking place. Instead, you may want to make time to ‘walk’ the moderator through the work before they start. 

The moderator will not be able to give you any feedback about the work on the day of the visit. 

As part of our quality assurance process, the moderator may sometimes be accompanied by their team leader.

After the visit 

Our team leaders and senior moderators might sometimes ask for some of your work to be sent to OCR. This work is used for awarding, standardisation and continuing professional development. If a moderator asks for work from your centre, they will provide you with packing materials, labels and instructions so the work can be couriered to our warehouse. The work will need to be with OCR by the first week of July. 

The majority of work sent to OCR will be returned at the end of the summer. 

On results day, you will receive a report by your moderator with feedback about the work they’ve seen. We also publish an illustrated examiners’ report with a summary of the moderator’s findings from the series. 

If you would like to get in touch with us regarding this or any other art and design related queries’ please email us via art&design@ocr.org.uk or follow us and send your tweets to @OCR_ArtDesign.

About the author

Rebecca Wood - Subject Advisor

Before joining OCR, Rebecca taught in post 16 education for 17 years. She also worked as an examiner and moderator across a range of creative subjects. Rebecca has also run workshops for young people as far afield as Brazil and Russia. In her spare time she enjoys travelling, spending time with her two sons and walking her dog.