Construction Studies

Mk96

Ok a very angry Leaving Cert student here! My construction brief was due the week before the Christmas Holidays and I didnt do it. Only 3 people out of 24 of us handed it up as our teacher provided us with little to no information on the project itself. We all had to do the same project adding out own individual piece at the end. Our teacher explained that this was an easy way to get points as he could help us all with both projects and briefs. However i missed the last day of school before the christmas holidays and so got out of handing up my constuction brief to my teacher.
Today he asked us all for our briefs stating only 3 people handed them up. Again nobody had it completed and he went mad. He said for every day we do not hand it up from now on we lose 1% for our project for the leaving cert! He said he will be the one correcting our projects but i don't understand how this can be. I argued with him explaining we are clueless as to what to do and he has no right to deduct 1% every day considering the dead line for the project is not until May. Is he allowed to do what he said or does something need to be done ?

seavill

Your teacher will be the first person correcting your brief & project, in June then an external examiner visits the school to check the marks for all the projects. There are marks going for your safe use of machines, proper technique in making it etc., things that the examiner could not tell so really does have to go on what your teacher gives, the two people never talk, but the external person will see the teachers grades.

Theoretically the teachers can't dock 1% a day, however when it comes to marking the safe use of machines, your techniques etc. he could mark you harshly on this without anyone being able to question it too much.
In reality I would guess that he said this to scare ye and to try get the work out of ye (being a Construction Studies teacher I can see why).

Your teachers have 5 months left to get your projects completed, get you prepared for your day practical, prepare for mocks and get revision of theory done. From a teachers perspective you need to get the project out of the way to allow for other things to happen. I also know from experience that forcing students to do the brief now is better as you will be under enough pressure later in the year with mocks, orals, practicals, other projects and as a result of all this students that leave their brief until later generally do a really bad job, rather than getting it out of the way now when you have more time.

There is marks in the marking scheme going for planning, time management etc. in a round about way so technically there are some marks there going for that.

The deadline for the projects is Friday 24th April 2015. Technically that is the final day. In saying that most teachers will give their students a deadline to meet well before that. For example I do the projects from the start of the year and give my class a deadline before Christmas, the final date may be 24th April but I finish in November, After that date no more work will be done in class. I ask for the briefs a couple of weeks after that, that way I can go over them give them back to be fixed up etc. all in time for the actual deadline. If I leave it till the 23rd April to collect them I can't go through them and get mistakes changed. So your teacher trying to get these out of you is actually for your benefit, not to make your life more difficult.

To answer your last question (and being a bit smart), yes something needs to be done, you need to do your brief now. There is mountains of information on the internet for anyone that is anyway arsed to find to enable them to do the brief "the teacher didn't tell us anything" is a lame excuse these days in all honesty, and I don't mean to be disrespectful in how I say that.
My advice forget about trying to argue with the teacher and find different ways of extending deadlines, put your effort and time into researching and doing the brief properly and get it done early before you are under pressure from all your other subjects.