Final Assignments
Final Assignments are the culmination of your and your students’ hard work throughout the course. They are a challenging, university-style piece of work, pitched one key stage above the students' current level in school. This final piece of work represents a significant academic challenge and students should be prepared to find the final assignment difficult yet rewarding. For many, this will be the first time they have completed an assignment like this, so the guidance and encouragement you offer will support them to do the best they can. The following table contains an overview of core final assignment tasks for tutors.
| Student Submissions | Students submit their final assignments via the Hub. The deadline for submissions is set by The Brilliant Club and students have to submit before midnight to submit on this date. The deadline varies by term and is shared with you by your Programme Officer. Students can see the deadline on the Hub, but it is the tutors responsibility to make sure all students are aware of the deadline. In cases where students are not able to use the Hub, they can send work to schools@thebrilliantclub.org, with their school name, your name and their own name in the subject line. |
| Confirming Submissions | The day after the deadline, send your lead teacher an email confirming which students have submitted final assignments and copy in your Programme Officer. |
| Marking | Students should be graded only on their performance in the final essay. External factors, such as effort in tutorials and level of improvement, can be mentioned in the final feedback report but should not inform the grade. Students are marked using a university-style marking policy (1st, 2.1, 2.2). They do not ‘fail’ if they receive less than 40%; instead, their grade is ‘working towards a pass’. For each student, all marks will need to be entered on the Hub. Hub Support Area guidance provides further details. Tutors also need to complete a feedback report (found on our website) for each student and print them for Tutorial 7. Guidance regarding printing expenses can be found in the Finance section of the TSP Tutor Manual. If you have any questions on writing feedback, please review our training on ‘Giving Brilliant Feedback’ and ‘Marking and AI’ on our website. |
| Lateness | To emulate a university experience, students should have 10 marks deducted for late submission if there are no extenuating circumstances. To ensure students have a positive experience, we encourage the submission of outstanding assignments after the deadline so that students gain the satisfaction of completing the programme and receive valuable personalised feedback. Therefore, we ask tutors to support this by marking late submissions. |
| Plagiarism | If you discover that a student has plagiarised part of their assignment, please let your Programme Officer know ASAP. While plagiarism is a serious offence, particularly at university, it is important to remember that the concept of referencing will likely be entirely new to students and therefore some leniency should be applied, depending on the severity of the plagiarism. In most cases, your lead teacher will be contacted and the student given the opportunity to resubmit. If they choose not to, your Programme Officer will work with you to decide the penalty and apply appropriate deductions. |
| Standardisation and Moderation | We are committed to ensuring that all students who take part in our programmes are assessed fairly. Because of that, it is important that we ensure that all tutors who are marking and providing feedback on students’ baseline and final assignments do so in a standardised way in accordance with our university-style mark scheme. As such, we run a national standardisation and moderation process. Dependent on the Key Stage of students, you will be required to either complete standardisation training and/or complete a moderation process. Further details will be sent by our Teaching and Learning team. Please do not share feedback forms or marks with students until marking has been confirmed by your Programme Officer. Once you hear back from your Programme Officer, you can:
Students will not be able to see their marks at any point on the Hub, so feedback forms should be shared via the Hub chat. |
How can I support students to submit their final assignments?
Successfully submitting their final assignment is a considerable achievement for students: it follows university-level academic standards, allows students to apply what they have learnt in tutorials, and, for many, is the longest piece of writing they have completed to date. Currently, more than five out of six students successfully complete their final assignments each year, and more than half achieve a 1st or a 2.1. However, we will always work towards the aim of all students submitting their final assignments, and we ask that tutors support us in this.
Our analysis indicates that Key Stage 5 students have a somewhat lower Final Assignment submission rate that other Key Stages and certain student demographics such as eligibility for Pupil Premium are associated with lower completion rates. Based on these findings, we have put measures in place to better monitor and support students from groups with a lower likelihood of successfully completing the programme. We have advice and guidance on how you can support all students in the appendices, best practice includes:
• Engagement: tell your Programme Officer if you have any concerns about engagement on the programme. They will be able to suggest next steps and can support you in conversations with the lead teacher.
• Ensure that you submit data: (such as baseline assignment marks and registers) on time so that your lead teacher can monitor engagement and progress.
• Homework: work with your lead teacher to encourage homework from all students. If some students are not submitting homework, it might be beneficial to deliver group feedback at the start of the next tutorial. You could take some anonymous examples of good sentences to model to the rest of the group.
• Praise: can go a long way - get used to using positive praise throughout the tutorials and on the Hub. This is applicable for all students, but those at risk of not submitting will benefit more from reminders about what they are doing well.
• IT Access: students might not be forthcoming about a lack of access to IT facilities at home, but we would recommend making the group aware of alternative ways of submitting their final assignments, e.g. photographing written work and emailing it to schools@thebrilliantclub.org.