For assessors: 1.5 The student planned and organised their time well

For assessors: 1.5 The student planned and organised their time well

Explanation: 


This criterion is about evidencing their plan. For this criterion we want to see something explicit like a breakdown of timings and dates, a timeline or Gantt chart, depending on the project’s Award level. It’s insufficient for students to only state that they planned.

Note that the plan should cover the whole project, from planning and researching; to gathering data; to analysing results and drawing conclusions; to reflecting and presenting the project.

Award level
Criteria breakdown
Examples
Bronze
The student broke down the project into a rough timeline and provided timings. 
I am doing this project alone, so I will have to make sure I know exactly when I will complete my work. I will be taking part in an after-school club. I will use the first 2 hours for planning, then 2 hours for research, 4 hours for my practical and 4 hours for working on my presentation/editing my report. I might run over time, so I’ve made sure that I can go to every after-school club from now to the end of term.
Silver
The student produced a detailed plan for their project – detailing the key tasks, how long they will take, who will do them and when.
We structured our project in three broad sections of work.
  1. Research
  2. The experiment
  3. Writing the project up and evaluating our work
We then produced a timeline for each section of work, see figures 1-3 below.
This shows what the main tasks are, their start and end dates and which team member is responsible for doing them.

Gold
The student produced a comprehensive plan for their project. They demonstrated a high level of understanding of the tasks – the skill, time and dependencies required to complete them, and assigned resources and time accordingly. It is clear what the tasks are, how long they will take, who will do them and when.
I structured my project in three broad sections of work – as I was completing the project alone, but with the help of a mentor, this had an impact on how I was going to run it.

I used a Gantt chart to give times and dates for each section of work, see appendix 1. [The Gantt chart shows the tasks – their duration, start and end dates, dependencies and team member responsible]

There are a large number of tasks that will be affected by my main experiment, so I have allowed a good amount of extra time (2 weeks) as a contingency in case I face difficulties.