OCR homepage
This information applies to the following qualifications:
Art exams are public exams and must comply with the JCQ Instructions for conducting examinations, available on the JCQ website.
Question papers are sent on the basis of your estimated entries.
Teachers are not allowed to see the exam paper until its official release date, when they will also be published on the qualification pages of the our website and Teach Cambridge.
The table below outlines the amount of controlled exam and preparation time allocated to a specific qualification. Short sessions should be avoided. Preparation time will either be determined by your centre or, where the tasks are available for the lifetime of the qualification, there is no time limit.
Access to computers and the Internet needs to be monitored and restricted if necessary, this includes student access to cloud-based software such as Photoshop.
Work stored electronically must be stored safely and securely, e.g. candidates must not be able to access it outside the exam.
If candidates save their work using devices such as data sticks, these must be left in the exam room and centres should have a backup procedure in place in case the data stick becomes corrupted.
If your school or college is using online or cloud-based software, remember to remove the risk and opportunity for candidates to work on their digital files in between exam sessions.
The timed examination will normally be invigilated by an Art and Design teacher.
However, as the Art and Design teacher may be required to give technical assistance to an individual candidate, additional invigilators can be used at the centre's discretion to make sure the supervision of candidates is maintained at all times.
For the key things you need to be aware of when invigilating art timed exams, take a look at our blog post.
Each submission, including preparatory work, must be authenticated as the candidate’s own and having been completed in the allocated time.
For more information, see the non-exam assessment page.
Centres must keep all candidates’ work until results are released.
Work must not be released under any circumstances (e.g. for candidates to take to an interview) until the centre is absolutely clear a review of marking is not required.
Once you have submitted your internal assessment marks your allocated moderator will contact you to let you know the date and time of their visit. They will also send you details of the sample required.
As part of our quality checks, a team leader or senior moderator may accompany your moderator on their visit. If this happens, additional candidate work may be selected for training and educational purposes. Only one unit/component of work per candidate will be chosen and this will be collected by a courier. Your moderator can provide you with further guidance on what steps you need to take.
In readiness for your visit, please ensure that candidate work is set out in rank order, by individual unit/component.
See also our guidance on visiting moderator identification.
Entry Level is moderated remotely, which means you will send your sample of student work to us to be moderated. This can be done either by submitting an electronic portfolio via Submit for Assessment or by posting student work to the moderating team.
Once you have submitted your internal assessment marks you will be sent details of the sample required.
The work in the selected sample must be photographed and saved in an appropriate format. Individual candidates work must be clearly identified and separated by component. See our Submit for Assessment page for details on preparing candidate work for submission.
You will be sent the relevant information on where to post your work before the submission date. Work can either be photographed or you can send actual student work. We would recommend large or fragile pieces are photographed and then included in the portfolio. All work must be clearly identified by candidate and component.
Your moderator will let us know the outcome of your moderation and you will receive a centre report from your moderator when results are issued.
Your centre report details your moderator's findings about the sample, any observations and scaling, the moderation display, and the overall trend within your centre. It also contains details about support we can provide.
If you are unhappy with the outcome of your moderation you may request a Service 3 post-results moderation review.
We recommend candidates photograph their work to create an e-portfolio which they can use for reference when applying to college or university and which will help you to build your centre resources.