BTEC Technical Theatre & Production

[J Pearce]

[off topic]

12 movers isn't a lot for theatre!?

 

12 movers where I work, which is a fairly large producing theatre (or was), would be an extravagant rig.

 

[/off topic]

[w/robe]

Gunnell

 

Welcome to The Blue Room.

Just a word of warning a lot of the membership are middle aged men who don't have a life so we spend our time complaining about spelling, grammar and text speak instead. Try putting any of those terms in to the search function and you will have days of reading ahead of you.

 

Also you have just discovered that you have access, either on TBR or by PM to the person who wrote the course you are studying,

....."cant remember ur name sorry" but the man who wrote the course,

it may be worth remembering his name.

[paulears]

This is something the staff should explain, but here goes. At the end of the course, just as you are about to walk out of the door, never to return they calculate the points. The reason why it's pointless doing it before is that the system is designed to allow you to repeat things to improve the grades. Each unit has a number of criteria that have published 'standards of achievement' - so maybe there are 4. Each one can have a pass, merit or distinction awarded - so for each assignment/project/bit of work you get multiple grades. A big project could give you a grade in each criterion, but a small one might only cover criterion 2 - this is always on the paperwork the teachers provide you with at the start of each assignment/project. The important thing to remember is that a pass is hardly worth the ink it takes to write. A Distinction is pretty hard to get. So in this example, the small benefit you get from being able to repeat things is offset by this nasty rule - at the end of the course, the lowest criterion grade counts as the 'overall' grade - nasty, huh?

 

So at the end if you have Dist for criterion 1 2 and 3, and a pass in 4 - you get a PASS - the others being wiped out. I like this because it stops people from having a poor area that's really important being forgotten about by strong talents somewhere else. You have to be good everywhere! At the end, an overall distinction is worth 18 points, a merit is 12 and a pass just 6. Most employers who understand BTEC grades look for passes - they are not good to have on the certificate.

 

So - If you have a National Diploma with 18 units, you could get a maximum of of 324 points, or scrape through with just 108. 324 would get you 360 UCAS points, while the 108, just 120! There is in the specification a conversion table to convert these into grade boundaries and a UCAS point result. The actual product is complicated because it depends how many hours study your centre have provided you with - It's too complicated to paste up here - so I suggest you go to the BTEC website and download the specification - and the table is at the back.

[MarkPAman]

Are b tec allowed to let students know the points region? as in how many points a D is for a unit? thanks

 

If I understood the question, I could probably answer it! The answer may be 18.

 

Go to the Edexcel website & look up your course. All the info will be there. Note that BTEC points are not the same thing as UCAS points.

 

EDIT: Beaten to it by a much more comprehensive reply :)

[Gunnell]

cheers for the reply :) its quite a confusing corse too start with but I completely agree, people who have straight D's are very good as they can do everything to a very high standard. In regards to your name is it paul? I Dont actually know it thats why I didnt use it, I wasnt being rude. What have you personally done for the corse then? if you wrote alot of it, that must have taken you a very long time. chrisw/Robe ? Does that mean you use Robe products or you work for Robe its self? chris

[david.elsbury]

w/robe = wardrobe = (Mark works mainly in wardrobe)

[Gunnell]

ah right, thought it was some sort of company thing :)

[w/robe]

w/robe = wardrobe = (Mark works mainly in wardrobe)

Mark works exclusivly in wardrobe, either practically or lecturing.

 

With hind sight my first post may have been a bit heavy, I didn't intend it to be I just wanted you to get the most out of The Blue Room.

 

Mark

[Gunnell]

Thats cool, don't worry about it :)

[mfenton]

Going back on topic a second:

I'm a third of the way into my first year on the new specification National Diploma in Production Arts.

I got a distinction in one of my assignments. Please correct me if im wrong and I may have misunderstood you, Paul, but does that mean that if in a subsequent assignment there is the same criteria and I only achive, say for example, a merit does that mean that overall grade for that criteria is a merit?

 

Martin

[iamchristuffin]

No, what it means is that for every assignment, you get a grade, be it Pass, Merit or Distinction. This is for that assignment, which will cover 1 unit. Each unit is a completely seperate thing - One unit does not affect another, and you cannot use the same material for two or more units.

 

What paul means is that for each of the different parts to an assignment, you will be graded a P,M or D. Once each part has been graded, the lowest of all the grades within the assignment counts.

 

Hope this is (slightly) understandable

 

Chris

[Big Jay]

I would like to add, that the way I understand it, as I am nearly finnished the whole BTec course in theatre production, each unit has different tasks within that unit and each task gets graded P,M,D and the overall mark for that unit is the lowest mark so if there is 5 tasks in the one unit, and you get a Merit for the first 2 tasks and Distinction for the rest your mark for that unit will only be a Merit, and the same for all the rest, then at the end of the two years all those grades get turned into points which then becomes your final grade.