Almost half of centres mark the NEA outside AQA's tolerance, nearly always too generously, and it is the same two strands that drag marks out of line every single year. If you are the only Media Studies teacher in your school, you have nobody to standardise against, and you find out whether your judgement held only when the moderated marks come back..

This guide is the second marker you do not have. Inside:

·       The two strands where marking actually goes wrong, and why Media Language and Representation are not the problem.

·       The hard caps that pull more centres out of tolerance than anything else, including the found-images rule, the unlisted-participants trap and the new AI rules.

·       The mark-Effectiveness-first workflow moderators themselves recommend, explained step by step.

·       The test that catches an over-marked Statement of Intent in thirty seconds (and why no theorist is needed for full marks).

·       A ten-point pre-submission checklist to run for every student.

·       The known trip-wires in each of the five 2027 briefs, mapped from four years of report failure patterns.

Written by a serving Media Studies teacher. Not affiliated with or endorsed by AQA.