GCSE Digital Media and Film
Digital Media and Film is a high literacy GCSE: learners analyse film, game and news texts including an unseen extract, write comparative and evaluative answers, research and write a Welsh industry case study, script productions and keep a reflective log. Numeracy is light and never calculated in the examination, limited to reading audience and success figures and handling timings for editing, trailers and release schedules. The single biggest thing Key Stage 3 should build is analytical writing about moving image, where pupils name a technique precisely and explain its effect on an audience.
- Awarding body
- WJEC
- Level
- Level 1 and Level 2
- First taught
- September 2026
- Amount of literacy work
- High
- Amount of numeracy work
- Low
- Specification
- Open the specification
How this qualification is assessed
- Unit 1: Exploring key concepts and issues: On-screen examination 1 hour 30 minutes, 60 marks, 30%
- Unit 2: Distribution and exhibition strategies of digital media and film industries in Wales: Non-examination assessment, portfolio based, 18 hours, 72 marks, 30%
- Unit 3: Creating digital media and film content: Non-examination assessment, assignment based, no time restriction, 96 marks, 40%
Skills that use Proofreading, editing and improving
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Keeping a reflective log
Learners produce a reflective log that analyses and evaluates their own work across pre-production, production and post-production, including refinements and appeal to the target audience. Assessment Objective 3 (reflect, analyse and evaluate) carries 30% of the qualification.
Literacy: Proofreading, editing and improving, Planning and organising for different purposes, audiences and context
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- After filming a short sequence, pupils write three sentences on what worked, what did not and what they would change next time.
- Year 8
- Pupils keep a dated log across a poster project, recording each design change and the feedback that led to it.
- Year 9
- Pupils write a 300-word evaluation of their group teaser, judging how well it meets genre conventions and appeals to its audience, then redraft it after peer feedback.
Show the specification wording and the LNF statements
Where it is in the specification: Unit 3, Section 3.1.3, page 24
“reflect on, analyse and evaluate their own work throughout the production process”
Progression step 3
I can reflect on, edit and redraft to improve the quality of my expression, and use a range of strategies to ensure greater clarity.
I can explore different ways to plan, draft and present my work appropriately.
Progression step 4
I can improve writing through independent review and redrafting.
I can select and use appropriate strategies to plan and develop my writing for different purposes and audiences.
Progression step 5
I can improve the content, structure and accuracy of my writing through critical reflection, review and editing, responding constructively to feedback.
I can write with maturity about my thoughts, feelings and opinions in increasingly challenging and contentious contexts.
Good to know
- Unit 1 is an 'On-screen examination: 1 hour 30 minutes' worth 60 marks, with 'objective responses, short and extended answers' including 'unseen media works' (Summary of assessment, page 5), so pupils type their extended answers.
- The specification awards no separate marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar or accuracy of language, and says nothing about calculators, dictionaries or word limits (checked across the whole specification).
- Unit 2 is a portfolio under time control: 'Learners will have 18 hours to complete the assessment' (Section 3.2, page 27), so research and writing must be efficient.
- Unit 3 has 'no restriction on the amount of time candidates spend on the assessment' and requires learners to 'Produce a reflective log' alongside two production pieces (Section 3.2, pages 27 and 28).
- Assessment Objective 3, 'Reflect on, analyse and evaluate own work and the work of others', carries 30% of the qualification, split 15% Unit 1, 10% Unit 2 and 5% Unit 3 (Section 3.1, page 26).
- Pre-production planning such as 'storyboards, scripts, hand drawn or digital mock-ups' may be handwritten or digital (Unit 3, Section 3.1.1, page 23).
- Appendix A (page 32) flags literacy (listening, reading, speaking, writing) in all three units but flags numeracy only against the non-examination units.
Links with other qualifications
At Key Stage 3 this reading and writing work overlaps closely with English film and media units, and the news reliability work links to Humanities and Digital Technology, so a shared analytical paragraph frame across departments would help.
Source: WJEC GCSE Digital Media and Film specification, teaching from 2026, for award from 2028, Version 2, September 2026.