It’s a good idea to have a look at the standards with someone who works with you in school. If you get the chance, work through them together and think about what they mean and what you do in school already that shows you are meeting them.

You also need to read the Handbook for Candidates. This will give you a good idea about what’s actually required for the assessment..

It’s a good idea to think about what you want to get across in your tasks, and you need to start completing F2 as part of your Pre-session task, but your preparation days will support you in how to complete the response forms and what all the headings mean.

You may want to start collecting hard evidence of what you do in school, but don’t get carried away. Keeping copies of naturally occurring documents is fine if you think they will be useful, but it’s not necessary at this stage to do any more than that.

You will need to complete your pre-session task that will be sent to you in your welcome pack. Follow the instructions on the task and get the support of your colleagues in school to help you.

• Following the feedback you were given on Day 2, you should have a clear idea of what’s required in your tasks. You may feel happy with what you’ve done already or you may feel that you need to change them drastically – everyone is different.
• It’s important to remember that there is no perfect set of response forms or portfolio – get them to a point where you feel you have done your best and then put them to one side ready for your assessment.
• At this point, you also need to get your evidence organised and your grid completed. Be careful with this as it is essential signposting for your assessor.
• You should have mentioned each standard at least twice throughout your tasks, but not more than 4 times.
• You will have two pieces of evidence for each standard, but one piece of evidence can be used against up to six standards, depending on what it is.
• When you put your file together, you need to think about how the assessor will navigate through it. Feedback from assessors is that clearly labelled and annotated evidence is very useful in making their judgements.
• Ideally, each piece of evidence will be labelled with the standards and tasks that it relates to and annotated with a comment as to why it has been included as evidence for a particular standard.
• It’s good practice to photocopy extracts from policy documents etc and highlight the parts that relate to what you have done. When you are including documents like lesson plans, please make sure that the author is identified and, if you have made notes on them, it’s a good idea to initial your comments.
• Your file should be no bigger than 5cm thick, and ideally you need to have between 30 – 60 pieces of evidence.
• The assessors work to a very limited timetable and you are looking for quality of evidence, not quantity.
• Once your file is completed, and you have filled in your grid, it’s a good idea to get someone to check that it’s all labelled and cross referenced correctly. Mistakes can delay assessors and could affect the outcome of the assessment.

• There may be staff in school who will also support you, but remember that all files and response formats are individual, so don’t look at someone else’s file and think that yours should look the same.
• It’s often useful at this point to share your work with a “critical friend” – preferably someone who doesn’t work with you. One candidate came to Day 2 with very strong response forms with lots of detailed description because she had asked her husband to act out what she’d written to make sure she had it all in!