Looking for OCR GCSE French advice please- really stuck

[LizzieArcher]

DD has final French OCR GCSE written paper next week. Teacher has been off and now back. DD has dyslexia & sometimes also mishears things. She really wants to do French Alevel yet her grades not been so good this year especially in written French.

I glanced at instructions for preparing for paper (unit A704) & appeared to suggest could write as blog, letter, narrative etc. DD said "oh we ignore that". Tried to find mark scheme to give her guidance but most recent I could unearth was 2015. It did advise though that the 2 pieces submitted should be in different styles and that if they were in the same style eg both narrative, this should be reported.

I advised DD to speak to her teacher today & also emailed teacher myself (not replied). Apparently she told DD it was ridiculous & just do what she has done before.

I am really worried for her. She is very tearful and also undergoing bullying at moment too ( reported to school).I have namechanged because some of this is a bit identifying. I would be so grateful if anyone has experience of this syllabus and what the guidelines are for written.

Is there a penalty for submitting both pieces in narrative? Thanks so much for any advice- reluctant to antagonise the teacher further since DD stressed enough as it is.

I teach AQA not OCR but I can't imagine it's much different.

IME the structure/framework is just that - an artificial construct to explain why the heck you are writing 200 words about your school! So it could be a letter (cher Robert...) or a blog which is just the narrative etc. It doesn't much matter. What matters is the quality and range and accuracy of language and the content of the piece - has she written enough and does it answer the question?

Thanks for your post Clary. Think she will have written enough by the time she finishes. It does seem a confusing approach the way the 'writing information form' is worded:
Topic area- ' work and future plans'
Purpose - 'job application personal profile'

• Purpose could be:Narration/Report/Letter writing/Diary entry/Web blog/Article for school magazine/competition entry/ job application/Interview etc Then a box with Task Title'Write a job application including the suggestions below' Then 6 large questions sub-divided into smaller ones 1)'Do you have a part-time job? Give details of what you do & when. Do you like it? Why? What are the advantages and disadvantages? 2)Give details of a work experience placement. What time did you arrive/ finish. What did you have to do? What did you do at lunchtime? etc so not the sort of thing I would write on a job application. Are they just using some sort of artificial construct to prompt writing? Does she actually have to write it like a job application or just write a few paragraphs about work using the questions as prompts?

It seems a bit wooly to me but perhaps I am a bit old fashioned

YY it is an artificial construct, exactly.

They want her to write 200 words about work and future plans. The sub headings are just to help her think what to write. In AQA these are not even seen by the examiners (written CAs are not marked by the teacher for AQA), they just mark relating to the task title - which I your DD's case is job application personal profile - she needs to make sure she uses all tenses and a range of language and opinions and reasons for them.
No it's not a job application. I imagine the other questions might relate to what she will do when she leaves school - college, subjects etc; what job she would like to do in the future etc.

She just (just!) needs to write as much as she can/can remember, yes, using the questions as prompts. With AQA she would have those questions in English in the actual test as well, along with a help sheet of words from her draft.

Off now to check the OCR spec :)

OK Just checked OCR website, as with AQA, teachers mark the speaking tasks but the written tasks are submitted for marking.

Your DD is lucky as her help sheet (task planning form) can include conjugated verbs eg Je vais instead of just aller, unlike AQA. So make sure she makes the most use of this.

I can't see any reference to the structure of the task, but some of the pages referred to in the spec are no longer on the website - maybe because OCR are not offering MFL after this year.

Anyway good luck to her.

Thanks so much Clary - you have been so helpful. We both get it now!
I really hope she can pull it off - works hard but a bit disorganised. Really appreciate you looking things up!