The Community Partner Who Cannot Verify
A student's external assessment folio includes a community action project run with a neighbourhood centre. The centre's coordinator supervised the student for six sessions, but she has since left her role and the centre cannot locate her contact details. The student has a signed timesheet from the coordinator, photographs of the sessions, and a short email from the centre manager confirming the project took place. The folio's community verification section asks for a supervisor statement describing the student's contribution and reliability. The student submits the timesheet and email instead, with a note explaining the situation. The due date for external submission is in five days.
1. Decide whether the submitted evidence satisfies the verification requirement, and explain your reasoning.
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The verification requirement exists so that an external assessor can confirm the student's claimed contribution from a source independent of the student. The timesheet is signed by the supervisor and the manager's email is independent, so there is genuine third-party evidence that the project occurred and that the student attended.
However, the requirement specifically asks for a statement about the student's contribution and reliability. A timesheet shows attendance, not the quality of contribution, and a brief email confirming the project took place does not address reliability. On its own, the substitute evidence is partial.
The correct judgement is that the folio is not automatically disqualified, but the gap should be addressed before submission. Five days is enough to ask the centre manager for a short statement covering the missing points, since the manager has already confirmed the project and can consult centre records. If that fails, the student should document the attempts and the assessor should weigh the available evidence while noting the limitation, rather than treating the folio as unverified.
2. The student asks whether she can write the supervisor statement herself and have the manager sign it. Advise her.
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She should not draft the statement in a way that puts her own words into the supervisor's mouth. Verification depends on the statement being the independent party's account; if the student writes it and the manager signs without genuine knowledge, the evidence is weakened and could be treated as not independent.
A better approach is to ask the manager to write a short statement, offering a list of the points it should cover: the dates, the student's role, the reliability of her attendance and the quality of her interaction with community members. Providing prompts about content is acceptable; supplying the wording is not.
If the manager prefers, a brief recorded conversation or a signed summary of a phone call, written by the manager, would also serve. The student should keep copies of her requests. The principle is that the verification must come from the source, and the student's job is to make that easy, not to author it.