As we had to respond to a number of queries regarding the NEA Awards adjudication process over the past years, I suspect that some feedback regarding this process is long overdue! You are most welcome to respond to it on this page! It seems that the purpose of the NEA Young Performer Awards Competition is not always clearly understood be parents/participants/teachers, although it has been clearly explained in all the relevant documentation. The NEA Awards Competition is the ONLY and BIGGEST Competition of this nature NATIONALLY. (Should you disagree, you should urgently bring this to our attention, either on this pages or email [email protected]). The NEA Awards Competition is NOT another eisteddfod; The NEA Awards Competition is NOT a platform to accumulate point for colours at school (the fact that you may participate in the NEA Awards this year implies that you have already received recognition for the achievement in the relevant item LAST YEAR). A participant should ONLY receive additional points in 2014 if he/she was a quarter finalist, semi-finalist, finalist, junior/senior winner, or an item/phase winner during this years competition. Whether you get 70% of 95% is now irrelevant. What does count is if you received the highest marks in the given session.) The NEA Awards Competition provides a transition between school level participation and the industry. On eisteddfod level the (child-centred) adjudicator acknowledges individual progress and achievement. The development of confidence and self-esteem is of critical importance on this level. On this level we do training and moderation sessions with adjudicators in order to get every one on the same page! However, when you move on to the NEA Awards level the presence of confidence and self-esteem is taken for granted and much harder professional approach to adjudication kicks in and becomes much more like auditioning. The integrity of the adjudication process in this competition is paramount. Although the NEA still support the bridging process in the way we compile the adjudicators panels in the first round (this is also the reason why we brought in a third adjudicator already in the first round), you shouldnt be surprized if your 90%+ as received previously, now suddenly drops to 60%+ (even though your performance might be better than last year)! (I suspect that participants that consider these low marks as unacceptable are not ready to participate in a competition of this nature, except when parents do appreciate the educational value of such an experience and can guide the participant to get to terms with it. Educationally speaking this could have more value than any number of accolades!) The ONLY brief of adjudicators in the first round of the NEA Awards Competition is to select the best performer in each session and the best 5 or 6 performers on a given day (they may even nominate more if and when necessary). But we DO NOT tell them what % to allocate. We do expect them to inform the adjudication process with their knowledge of the industry and to be consistent in their adjudication. This is why when doing the daily final ranking they eventually achieve this by means of consensus. To conclude: please refrain from debating percentages and which panel gave high or low marks etc. etc. You will not be able to tell who is going through to the next round until this list has been compiled.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 10:07:19 +0000