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 Strategic competence
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Working with timings: editing pace, running times and schedules
Learners analyse the pace of editing, study game extracts of about 10 minutes and plan release schedules. In production this means reading timecodes, timing shots in seconds and fractions of a second, and fitting a trailer or advert to a set length.
Numeracy: Measurement, Communicating with symbols, Conceptual understanding, Strategic competence
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils time each shot in a 30-second advert with a stopwatch, list the durations in order and say which shot is held longest.
- Year 8
- Pupils count the cuts in a one-minute action scene and a one-minute drama scene, work out the mean shot length of each and explain how pace differs.
- Year 9
- Pupils plan a 45-second trailer on a shot list with start and end timecodes, checking the durations add up exactly before editing.
Show the specification wording and the LNF statements
Where it is in the specification: Unit 1, Section 1.1.1, page 12
“pace of editing”
Progression step 3
I can time events in minutes and seconds, and order the results.
I can use and interpret calendars, timetables and schedules to plan events and activities, and make calculations as part of the planning journey.
Progression step 4
I can interpret fractions of a second appropriately.
I can use appropriate notation, symbols and units of measurement, including compound measures.
Progression step 5
I can interpret answers within the context of the problem and consider whether answers, including calculator, analogue and digital displays, are sensible.
I can prioritise and organise the relevant steps needed to complete the task or reach a solution.
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.