Coursework Handbook

1. Team Project
Learners work collaboratively in teams of between two and five members to plan and carry out a project. The
Team Project should f ollow the process outlined below:

1. The Team Element (Explanation of Research and Planning / Evidence of Action)

The team selects a topic f rom the topic list and identif ies a relevant local issue.

The team carries out research into the topic and local issue and into different perspectives on the local
issue.

Each team member researches a dif f erent aspect, such as a dif f erent perspective.

Based on their research findings, and through discussion, the team decides on a course of action they might
take to address the issue.

The team plans and carries out the action

They measure the success of their action in addressing the issue.

The team also collaborates to write a planning document – the Explanation of Research and Planning, which
explains their decisions and planned actions.

They collaborate to produce the Evidence of Action.

2. The Personal Element (Reflective Paper)

Each individual team member also produces a Reflective Paper, in which they reflect on the whole project
and their experiences and learning, and evaluate their teamwork and the action taken.

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Team Element – Explanation of Research and Planning / Evidence of Action

The f ollowing information expands upon the process f or the Team Project from the previous page, providing
guidance to help teachers plan f or each stage.
Choosing a topic and issue
When choosing a topic for the Team Project, learners can choose any topic from those listed in the syllabus:

Arts in society Law and criminality

Change in culture and communities Media and communication
Climate change, energy and resources Migration and urbanisation
Conf lict and peace Political power and action
Development, trade and aid Poverty and inequality
Digital world Social identity and inclusion
Education f or all Sport and recreation
Employment Technology, industry and innovation
Environment, pollution and Transport, travel and tourism
conservation
Values and belief s
Globalisation
Water, f ood and agriculture
Health and wellbeing

Learners choose one of these topics f or the Team Project and then f ocus on a local issue within the topic
chosen. The Team Project will involve learners working together to take an action to help improve, resolve, or
raise awareness about the local issue.

The topic chosen should be clearly stated on all the work produced. Learners within the same class, but in
dif ferent teams, may choose the same global topic. The issue f ocused on and the action planned should be
dif ferent f or each team. For example, if the whole class has been working on the global topic of poverty and
inequality, each team should choose a different local issue within the topic, e.g. one team might be looking at
homelessness, another at gender inequality in education or employment and another at f ood poverty.

Researching the local issue and perspectives

Research into the local issue and perspectives on it should be carried out and shared between all team
members before the local issue is confirmed. Each learner should keep detailed notes on the research they
personally completed so that they can present this in their Ref lective Paper. Research f indings should be
shared to inform the decision about an appropriate action that the team can take to address the local issue.

Choosing and planning an action

The team then draw on this research to clarify the local issue they wish to address and the action they wish to
take to make a difference. Each team should choose their own action, their own way of providing evidence of
their activity and their own way of evaluating the success of their project. This action should be practical and
manageable. Advise learners not to attempt a perspective so complex that they might struggle to finish in the
available time.

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Examples of local issues and actions

To reduce food waste in schools: an experiment involving school food services and an advertising
campaign.
To improve the lives of refugees: a drive to encourage school students to become pen-pals.
To change attitudes to pollution: a litter pick in an area and a campaign to guide a town’s population.
To improve disabled access to a local building: design and develop a means giving access to disabled
people.
To support local farmers with irrigation issues: to investigate irrigation globally and work with a local
group of farmers to trial (an) innovative method(s).
To support local equality: to work with local schools to teach basic English to young children.
To support local education: to hold sports events in school where local schools without sports facilities
can learn about and enjoy new sports.
To support local homeless people: to hold a charity event to raise funds for a homeless charity.
To support healthy eating: a campaign involving professional contributions and a school campaign to
encourage healthy eating.
Once a team has decided on their project and their action, they must continue their research to ensure that
their action can be carried out, e.g. using school f acilities cannot be planned without the support of a
Headteacher and maintenance teams, or interviewing people in a town, without parental permission.

Carrying out the action

A key component of ef fective teamwork is communication. Teams should meet as often as is necessary to
carry out their work in a planned way and ensure that progress is being made. Another component of effective
teamwork is understanding each other’s skills and strengths. Each person in a team should have a task that
they are suited to carry out. Tasks should be shared, team members reporting progress at regular intervals.

The action should be practical and manageable and must be something that learners do or produce. All team
members should be involved in the action.

Notes should be kept so that information about what went well and what did not are available to support
evaluations and ref lections in the Ref lective Papers.

Measuring the effectiveness of an action

Because each member of a team needs to evaluate the team’s action, it is important that the team decide on
a mechanism to gain f eedback about how effective their ef forts have been. The team can ask f or f eedback
af ter they have shown a presentation to peers, friends, teachers, family or to the audience. They could produce
a short questionnaire, hold interviews or a pre-post event quiz depending on what issue the project was
addressing locally, f or example, raising awareness or promoting the importance of something. They could
collect verbal f eedback or ref lect on how many had agreed to become involved in a campaign.

As the evaluation of the project is marked on an individual basis, it will be up to individual team members to:

• analyse and evaluate any f eedback gathered

• judge the strengths and limitations of the action on improving the situation
• suggest where and how the action might have been improved.

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Learners should also keep a log of how ef fective the action was, so that when they come to write their
Ref lective Paper at the end of the Team Project, they can include their evaluation.

The Explanation of Research and Planning should include the f ollowing:

• the topic and the chosen local issue

• explanations f or and details about team members’ research tasks
• an explanation of how the team’s exploration of the issue and dif ferent perspectives has inf ormed
decisions about the action
• a short description of the action
• details of roles and responsibilities in relation to the action
• a statement about how the action will be evidenced
• a statement about how the ef f ectiveness of the project will be measured
• a f inal consideration of what, if anything, had to be changed as the project progressed.

As the Team Project is a team ef fort, it should not just be lef t to one learner to organise and write the
Explanation of Research and Planning and/or to produce the Evidence of Action.

It is good practice to do some preparatory work with learners about teamwork, decision-making, creativity and
planning, which all f all under the skill of collaboration.

Collaboration

Throughout the process team members should be actively collaborating.

Aspects of collaboration include:

• communicating clearly with team members

• sharing and developing ideas
• agreeing targets and deadlines
• solving problems
• being f lexible when required
• dividing tasks between team members and recognising all members’ contributions
• completing their own tasks
• asking f or and giving support to others when needed.

Throughout the process, observe teams and discuss the process with learners. At the end of the process,
award the team a mark f or collaboration. Take into account how well the team collaborated, using the criteria.
An individual mark f or collaboration, will also need to be awarded based on the criteria. This mark may be
dif f erent f rom the team mark.

Note: Learners are not expected to collaborate effectively consistently without support. Nor should team
dif ficulties be allowed to prevent completion of a team project. Support teams where difficulties arise, so that
the team can continue to operate. If all team members are satisfied with decisions that are reached through
intervention, a mark of 4 would still be appropriate.

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Explanation of Research and Planning

All team members should contribute to the writing of the Explanation of Research and Planning. There is no
required f ormat for this document. It can be a simple table that takes each line of its descriptor f rom the syllabus
as a stimulus for detailing decisions and explanations. 300–400 words are available f or this document.

Provide learners with a checklist such as the one below to help them check they have done all that is required
f or the Team Element of the Team Project.

Team Project (Team Element)

Topic

Local issue

Local action

Does our local issue allow us to: Yes No Notes

Work as a team to create an Explanation of Research and

Planning?

Research the issue and dif f erent perspectives on it?

Develop, plan and carry out a local action that can be

evidenced and evaluated?

In our Team Element:

Does the Explanation of Research and Planning identif y

the dif ferent perspectives and aspects of the local issue
that will be researched, and who will do this work?

Does the Explanation of Research and Planning contain

an outline of the action and steps taken to plan it?

Does the Explanation of Research and Planning contain

details about the roles and responsibilities of each team
member, how the action will be evidenced and how the
success of the action will be measured?

Does the explanation of Research and Planning contain

notes of any parts of planning that had to be changed?

Have we worked as active and committed team members

throughout the team project? What have I done to
evidence my part in this teamwork?

Is the Explanation of Research and Planning less than the

maximum of 400 words?

Does our Evidence of Action show an aspect of our

action?

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Evidence of Action
One Evidence of Action is required to support the submission. For example, if a team has the stated aim of
reducing the amount of food wasted in their school, they might decide that an appropriate action might be a
series of posters to be displayed around the school. Here are some examples of suitable ways of providing
Evidence of Action:
• photographs of a poster or series of posters
• an inf ormation leaf let or brochure
• an instructional/inf ormative presentation
• a song or poem
• a web page
• a design, model or blueprint f or a product or similar
• a record of an event, e.g. f undraiser (video f ootage or images of the event may be submitted).
Any video f iles submitted must be no longer than 10 minutes. If the outcome is a web page or takes some
other electronic format, learners must embed a link to the outcome in their Explanation so that both the teacher
and the moderator can view it. The Evidence of Action should not include minutes of meetings or evidence of
research.

Personal Element – Reflective Paper

The Personal Element of the Team Project is the Reflective Paper. The Reflective Paper is a substantial piece
of work which attracts most of the marks f or the Team Project component (up to 45 marks in total). This is
written individually and is not a collaborative activity. While it is accepted that learners from a team will have
examples in common in their work, this is the extent to which similarity is acceptable.

The Ref lective Paper should be no longer than 1000 words. Any words beyond 1000 words will not be
assessed.

The Ref lective Paper should be written in the past tense. Once the team elements are completed, learners
explain their evaluations and ref lections, using examples as evidence and making sure that they include all
the elements within the assessment criteria. Key personal research findings should be the research completed
by the individual learner, not the other members of the group. Ref lections on how their understanding has
developed can include what they have learned f rom research into the issue and perspectives on it by other
team members.

This is a paper, or report, rather than an essay. As such, sub-headings could be useful. Example sub-headings
might be:
• Evaluation of the action
• Evaluation of own perf ormance
• Ref lection on learning
• Ref lection on teamwork
• Developing understanding dif f erent perspectives and research
• Key personal research f indings and how they supported the project

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The mark scheme takes into account the degree to which explanations of each of the above are developed,
and the use of specif ic examples f rom the project to support the development of those explanations.

Evaluating the action (AO1 Research, analysis and evaluation)

The completion of the Ref lective Paper depends entirely on the production of an action. In the Ref lective Paper
learners must analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of the action in addressing the local issue. It is expected
that, at the higher levels, learners have access to inf ormation on which to develop their evaluation.

Evaluating their own performance (AO1 Research, analysis and evaluation)

Learners evaluate and analyse how successfully they worked with others in the team, using examples from
this project to develop explanations.

Learners also evaluate how successfully they carried out their own tasks in this project, using an example to
explain their points.

Learning (AO2 Reflection)

Learners ref lect on how their understanding of the issue has been inf luenced by their research and the
perspectives they have explored. They should be clear when explaining where this learning has come f rom.

Learners ref lect on what they have learned about their skills through this Team Project, being clear when
explaining about aspects of the work that have given them this understanding.

Learners ref lect on how they could have improved their performance, explaining how they could have improved
both individually and as a team member.

Learning about teamwork (AO2 Reflection)

Learners use examples f rom experiences during this project to develop detailed reflections on both benefits
and challenges of working in a team.

Experiences from this Team Project are used to develop and explain suggestions about how the team could
have worked more effectively, or about what would be necessary to make a team more effective in the future.

Communicating key personal research findings and communicating clearly (AO3 Communication)
Learners communicate their key personal research f indings, summarising their f indings about the issue or
perspectives on it. They ref lect on how their research f indings inf luenced the project as a whole. Where this
has been secondary research, it is expected that sources will be cited and ref erenced appropriately.

Learners write a Ref lective Paper that is well structured and clearly written.

Provide learners with a checklist such as the one on the next page to help them check they have done all
that is required f or the Personal Element of the Team Project.

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Coursework Handbook

Team Project (Personal Element)

Collaboration Yes No Notes

Have I worked as active and committed team member

throughout the team project? What have I done to
evidence my part in this teamwork?

In my Reflective Paper

Have I evaluated how far the action addressed the local

issue?

Have I evaluated how successf ully I worked with other

team members?

Have I evaluated how successfully I carried out my own

tasks?

Have I ref lected on how my own perf ormance

individually and as a team member could have been
improved?

Have I used examples to explain my evaluations and

ref lections on our action and my perf ormance?

Have I ref lected on the benef its and challenges of

working as a team, explaining them using examples
f rom this project?

Have I ref lected on what I have learned about

teamworking- how we could have worked more
ef f ectively, or how teams in the f uture could do things
dif f erently in order to be more ef f ective, explained
through examples f rom this project?

Have I ref lected on how my understanding of the local

issue has been impacted by research into the issue and
dif f erent perspectives on it?

Have I ref lected on what I have learned about my own

skills?

Have I included details of my research into the issue or

dif f erent perspectives on it and are these clear? Are
these my research findings rather than other members
of the team? Have I explained how my research findings
did or did not support the project?

Have I used citations and ref erenced them all in a

ref erence list at the end of my Ref lective Paper?

Have I added a word count and is this less than the

maximum of 1000 words?

Have I structured my Ref lective Paper using sub-

headings that aid navigation?

Have I proofread and checked my work so that it is f ree

f rom error?

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