THE INTERVIEW IS OPTIONAL

Yes, I know, we love the interview. It gives the students a chance to shine, to tell us about their challenges and triumphs, to articulate the way their investigations helped develop their studio work, to explain, justify and provide evidence of their success in some (or all!) of the assessment criteria, etc.

But it doesn’t actually generate any cold, hard bankable marks. It certainly helps and yes, it can provide a deeper and greater understanding of the things that have happened in the previous two years, a better understanding of, for example, how and why the studio work (or investigation workbook pages) were made.

But it doesn’t actually generate any cold, hard bankable marks

When – last year and for the previous 28 years before that (yes, I’ve been doing it that long) the visiting examiner came and interviewed the students – it was almost always a pleasure and a relief. Much anticipated, looked forward to, and a moment of closure, culmination and (in some ways) celebration.

But that was then, and this is now. Now it involves a lot more stress, time and planning, because we (teachers) have to organize the thing ourselves. I won’t go into this because if you are reading this you are probably already trying to get your head around the interview process.

The thing is – you don’t even have to have one.

It’s not, after all, assessed.  It’s not a visual arts requirement and there is no penalty if you don’t record, upload and submit the interview.

This is not news, I know – our proactive and efficient visual arts Subject Manager has already made it clear in her ‘From the Subject Manager’ released on the OCC.

In the first edition (October 2012) there is the statement “should a school not submit a recording the submitted work will be marked, as objectively as possible, against the markband descriptors”.

I will (of course) be interviewing my students in a month’s time – I’ve planned it and the students are expecting and (I think) looking forward to it. But I only have a small group.

If I had a class of 20 or more I might be wondering – if the assessment is based on the uploaded digital files – why would I put myself (and them) through say, 15 hours minimum of interviews, rehearsing, recording, editing, uploading etc etc

Cheers