9-mark answering for AQA GCSE PE

In this week’s blog, I am delighted to announce the official release of a brand-new resource. This resource, the first of thousands of physical resources I will be developing in the coming months and years, is aimed at centres teaching AQA GCSE PE 1-9. This resource is utterly free to all and acts as the celebration of The Changing Rooms blog becoming one year old on this very day and is also supported by my LIVE webinar, available here on catch up. 

The resource is designed to support the writing of nine-mark, synoptic answers. Those of you who teach AQA GCSE PE will know that the nine-mark questions at the end of both Paper 1 and Paper 2 are the most challenging skill that a student needs to perform but also that, if the student gets their structure right, it is a superb opportunity for them to express what they have learned throughout the course.

The resource has already been field-tested in 20 schools and those schools have provided thorough and practical feedback about the resource.

Don't want to read the whole post (I still recommend that you should), download the resource here...

Click the image above to download

  What is the problem and why am I getting involved in this project?  

Put bluntly, most students don’t perform very well on the AQA GCSE PE 1-9 nine-mark questions. If you take a look at the graph below, you can see that the average marks remain worryingly low and that, in fact, the average student performs *at or below half marks on this question type. 

Therefore, it is likely that, in 2023, the majority of students will perform well under half of raw marks on their nine markers and that, in turn, overall student raw mark performance on AQA GCSE PE exam papers will be lower than it should be. This is not acceptable.

This has led to many teachers calling the paper inaccessible or too challenging. I vehemently disagree with this. Educators should always value challenging environments as the best stimuli for causing the most learning. At GCSE PE level, students should be perfectly capable of writing a nine-mark response if resourced well. Furthermore, because nine-mark answering is achieved at low standards in many centres, investing resources into improving your centre’s performance on these questions is an excellent strategic way of making your students perform competitively within this environment. Put simply:

Put another way, whilst 1-4 mark questions are of critical importance to a student’s success, this is the very area where most centres perform better, limiting your centre’s capacity to mark itself out from the pack. The right strategic decision is to nail the 1-4 mark experience with frequent practice and to nail the extended writing requirements of the papers. 

  What’s the state of play?  

I have reviewed numerous resources that freelancers and small businesses have promoted as a possible solution to how a student should answer a nine-mark question. Sadly, none of them come up to scratch and raise rather than answer far too many questions. Therefore, I have decided to disrupt this sector by providing a resource that is not only world-class but is also utterly free. I need to be clear here: I urge every AQA GCSE PE 1-9 centre to abandon the structures they are currently using to guide students on the 9-mark questions and replace it with what follows.

The resource that you will witness below achieves the following four outcomes:

1. It causes the student to perform the skill of the question.
2. It causes the student to apply their knowledge accurately to the movement context of the question. Sometimes this is selected by the student.
3. It causes the student to make developed synoptic links.
4. It causes the student to write, where relevant, a well structured conclusion.

Solutions that attempt to over-structure the writing of a student will always fall down across a range of question types.

These outcomes, in the context of a sound subject-specific knowledge, will raise the performance of students on nine-mark answers and will improve the performance of your AQA GCSE PE 1-9 centre overall. 

  How does it work?  

The planning document has 10 stages:

1. Students receive a nine-mark question and write/stick/place it into the question space on page 3. I strongly recommend that teachers use the full array of past paper question from AQA and the 15 9-mark questions I have provided via ExamSimulator.
   
   
   
   
2. Students complete stages 1-3 of their planning document, which requires them to draw out the key features of their question.
   
   
   
   

3. Students complete stage 4 and 5 of the planning document, which requires them to give AO1 facts about the topics and detail of the practical example that are within the question.
   
   
   
   

4. Students select the relevant indicative language from stage 6 of the planning document.
   
   
   
   
5. Students select either a chunked or a blended format before they begin writing. Chunked format means including all AO1 in one section or paragraph of the answer and then subsequently writing an AO2 and AO3 section before considering a conclusion. Blended responses incorporate AO1, AO2 and AO3 into each section or paragraph.
   
   
   
   
6. Students write their answer in the space provided.
   
   AO1 chunk:
   
   
   
   AO2 chunk:
   
   
   
   AO3 chunk:
   
   
   
   
7. Students complete section 7 of the planning document by selecting at least two content areas for synoptic links.
   
   
   
8. Students refer to the separate synoptic links document and complete their developed links.
   
   
9. Students complete section 8 and 9 of the planning document by selecting their conclusion style and then writing their conclusion.
   
   
   
   
10. Students complete section 10 of the planning document and check that they have completed the requirements of the question.

Now, this order is very formulaic and you will find that students find their own order to complete this process. This is a good thing! Students are different. Therefore, the capacity to adapt the model is crucial.

You will also find that any lists in the document, such as the list of suggestive AO3 language or the section on how to analyse the AO2 practical example or the potential synoptic linking areas which contribute to AO3, are not exhaustive. They are suggestive and indicative. Once again, the student has the capacity to adapt and create in this environment if they choose to.

So, here it is:  my nine-mark answering model for AQA GCSE PE 1-9. This solution has been developed with the student in mind and is aimed at thoroughly demystifying the nine-mark challenge without stripping the student of the right to write how they feel they wish to. You see, most solutions out there, whether for AQA, OCR or Edexcel, tend to over-structure the model by which students write. My model does not do this. It retains all responsibility for writing style in the hands of the student whilst causing them to follow a well disciplined process.

  Download your own copy of the AQA GCSE PE 9-mark answering model   

Click the image above to download

  What happens now?  

This resource will now be used across the PE sector. The version you have access to here is the 2022 release. I will be reviewing feedback and republishing the resource annually.  

Furthermore, I will be providing free online CPD guidance on how to scaffold students using this structure. During these sessions, teams of teachers will be asked to co-mark exemplar answers and to share their experiences. If you would like to hear about these sessions, please ensure that you are subscribed to the blog and that you have agreed to receive marketing emails. 😀 Unless you do this, we can't email you about them. 😔

Thank you for reading the blog and for considering this resource. I would be grateful to receive your comments and observations below.