Assessment

The two objectives

AO1 (15 marks): close knowledge and understanding of the text, a critical style, informed personal engagement. AO2 (15 marks): analysis of the language, form and structure used by the writer to create meanings and effects. Unlike the modern prose exam, there is no context objective here, but AO2 carries the full weight of the play as theatre: staging, doubling, sound, silence, stage directions, the dual timeline. One habit to police from the first lesson, and it is the same one as on the exam text: device-spotting is not analysis. Naming the doubling earns nothing until the student explores what it does to an audience.

The five levels, in practical terms

Paraphrased for planning purposes, always mark against the current published grid from Pearson.

Level	Marks	What it looks like in a Kindertransport essay
1	1–6	Limited knowledge; simple response; little evidence of engagement or analysis; few examples.
2	7–12	Some knowledge, possibly largely narrative retelling; occasional analysis; some examples.
3	13–18	Sound knowledge and understanding; relevant engagement and appropriate critical style; relevant analysis of language, form or structure; clearly relevant examples.
4	19–24	Thorough and sustained: a developed argument, analysis across language AND form AND structure, fully relevant examples from across the play.
5	25–30	Assured and perceptive; cohesive evaluation; discriminating examples; the theatrical dimension integrated throughout, an essay with its own ideas.

The four pitfalls to teach against

• Narrative summary. No credit for saying what happens. Topic sentences should argue.
• Unanalysed quotation. Quote briefly, then work the words, and the staging around them.
• Prose-fiction habits. ‘The reader’ instead of the audience; ignoring that meaning here is made on a stage. Require theatrical terminology and at least four or five distinct dramatic techniques per essay.
• Vague connective phrasing. ‘This shows’ and ‘makes us feel’ without a named, specific effect.

Drafting, feedback and integrity

The workflow: complete first draft submitted (with accurate word count), returned with feedback a fortnight later, final draft submitted. Keep your first-draft feedback within the coursework rules: you may review and comment at a general level, but the redrafting must be the student’s own; annotating corrections line by line or rewriting passages crosses it. Students sign a declaration that the work is their own and that AI has neither written nor edited it; plagiarism means disqualification from the subject. This is also why the site offers students no automated feedback tool: the integrity rules are explained to them in plain language, with the reasoning rather than just the prohibition.

Formatting checklist (for final submission)

• Word-processed, UK English; the play’s title in italics or single inverted commas.
• Short quotations embedded in single inverted commas; longer quotations set out and single spaced; every quotation with a page reference.
• Secondary sources cited (author, page) and listed in a bibliography with URLs and access dates.
• 650–800 words as a guide; language, form and structure all addressed; drama treated as drama.
• Declaration signed; work saved in three places.