๐ฎ๐ช QQI Level 5 ยท Collection of Work 50% ยท Skills Demonstration 50% ยท 15 Credits
Communications is core in almost every Level 5 major award in Ireland, which makes it the component most learners have to pass โ and the one they prepare for least. Half your grade is a live skills demonstration where you actually have to speak: a presentation, an interview, a group discussion. The other half is a collection of separate pieces marked as one. Neither is what people expect from a module called Communications.
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Because talking well and being assessed on talking are different things. You can hold a room at work and still lose marks on a skills demonstration, because the assessor is looking for eye contact, controlled personal response, a structured case, a clear question-and-answer section โ specific, listed behaviours rather than general fluency. And the written half isn't an essay either. It's a set of separate pieces, marked partly on how they hold together as a collection, which is a criterion almost nobody realises exists.
Your presentation, interview answers or group-discussion notes get checked against the outcomes while they're still on paper. Fixing a structure the night before is possible. Fixing it after you've been observed is not.
The collection of work is assessed partly on coherence โ whether the pieces read as one body of work with a consistent standard. Learners produce six good items with six different tones and lose marks nobody warned them about.
One outcome covers communications-related legislation alongside health and safety โ data protection, confidentiality, what you can and can't share. In a module about talking, a law section surprises nearly everyone.
You have to justify choosing one communications technology over another for different messages and contexts. Not just "I sent an email" โ why email rather than a call, for that message, to that person. It's a real criterion and it's routinely blank.
A large share of Irish FET learners deliver this demonstration in their second or third language. Structure, signposting and pacing carry far more marks than accent or fluency โ and those are the things we can fix on paper beforehand.
Skills demonstrations are scheduled, not flexible. Priority review lands in 24โ48 hours so a script sent on Monday is rewritten before a Thursday slot, rather than delivered and regretted.
Five patterns turn up in nearly every Communications submission that gets referred โ and none of them are about whether you can hold a conversation.
A report in one voice, a letter in another, a research piece clearly written in a rush. Each acceptable alone, none consistent with the rest. Coherence across the collection is a criterion, and it's the one nobody is told about.
"I emailed the supervisor." Fine โ but the outcome asks why email rather than a phone call, for that message, in that situation. Without the reasoning the criterion is unmet, however sensible your choice actually was.
The outcome names communications-related legislation as well as health, safety and welfare. Data protection, confidentiality and what may be shared get left out entirely, and half the criterion goes unevidenced.
Good content delivered as one continuous flow, no signposting, no clear point being argued, and a question-and-answer section that wasn't planned for. Structure is what's marked, and it's fixable entirely on paper.
Eye contact, receiving and interpreting information, controlling your own response โ listening is separately assessed. Learners prepare what they'll say and nothing for how they'll respond to what comes back.
Four of the five are fixable at your desk. The fifth just needs knowing about before your demonstration is scheduled.
Get My 5N0690 Work Checked โSeven pieces your collection typically has to contain, and what each is actually marked on. Briefs vary between providers, so check yours against this list โ it is the quickest way to spot what you have not started.
Outcome 1
Analyse, not describe. Misinformation, screen time, remote working, AI in the workplace, digital exclusion โ pick one or two and take a position on them, with sources. A summary of "how technology has changed" answers nothing.
Outcome 2
Health, safety and welfare at work, plus communications-related legislation: data protection, confidentiality, what may be recorded or shared. Most submissions cover the first half and forget the second exists.
Reading skills
Skimming, getting an overview, identifying key points, critical evaluation, in-depth analysis โ used on a real text and shown working. Naming the techniques without demonstrating them is the standard mistake.
Written pieces
Usually a report, a formal letter or email, and something researched with references. Judged on register and format as much as content โ a letter that reads like a text message loses marks that have nothing to do with grammar.
Research
Where information came from, whether it can be trusted, and how you checked. A single survey you ran yourself counts as primary evidence and usually lifts this section immediately.
Outcome 11
Give and receive requests, instructions, feedback โ and justify choosing one technology over another for different messages and contexts. The rationale is the outcome. Without it, the piece evidences nothing.
The hidden criterion
Consistent presentation, consistent standard, a contents page, everything labelled to the outcome it evidences. Cheap marks, and the reason two learners with identical content get different grades.
Send what you have with the brief. Every required item comes back marked present, incomplete or missing, with what each one still needs to meet its outcome.
Skills demonstrations are scheduled, so the timing matters more here than on most components. Send the script tonight, get it back tomorrow. No account, no payment until you see the price.
Collection of work, individual pieces, or the presentation and interview scripts, plus the brief and criteria sheet. A rough script is better than a finished one โ there's still time to change it.
A firm price and turnaround before you commit. One piece or the whole collection, priced upfront either way.
Your work goes to someone who marks 5N0690 briefs regularly and knows which award you're taking it inside โ healthcare, early learning, business or disability services.
Each item marked present, incomplete or missing. Every outcome mapped. Coherence across the set checked, legislation verified, scripts read for structure and signposting.
A fix list ranked 50/50 the way your marks fall, with anything demo-related flagged first because that has a date on it. Follow-up questions cost nothing.
Exactly one person reads your work, and it is never a general proofreader. A proofreader tells you a sentence is unclear. An FET tutor tells you your presentation has no argument in it, your legislation piece is missing half an outcome, and criterion 11 has nothing against it. Only the second one changes your grade.
"Nobody is marking whether you sound confident. They're marking whether you signposted, made a case and handled the questions."
"Half the legislation outcome is about data and confidentiality, not hard hats. That half is missing from most collections I read."
"Presenting in your third language is not the problem. An unstructured script is. We fix the structure and the nerves shrink."
"A collection is graded as one thing. Six pieces in six different fonts tells an assessor exactly how it was put together."
From the component specification and typical assessment briefs. Task counts and demo formats differ between providers, so confirm these against your own paperwork.
Half your grade happens in a room, in real time, usually once. It is the part learners lose most sleep over โ and almost all of it can be prepared on paper first, because what's assessed is structure and behaviour rather than confidence.
| Demo element | What learners worry about | What is actually marked |
|---|---|---|
| Oral presentation | Sounding nervous or forgetting words | Signposting, a clear point argued, evidence used, timing kept |
| Question and answer | Being asked something you can't answer | Listening properly, controlling your response, answering what was asked |
| Interview | Saying the wrong thing | Making a case, presenting a point of view, appropriate register |
| Group discussion | Being talked over | Contributing, building on others, persuading, advocating |
| Non-verbal | Not knowing what to do with your hands | Eye contact, posture, visual aids that support rather than repeat |
| Listening | Not usually thought about at all | Receiving and interpreting information, responding rather than reacting |
Say what you'll cover, cover it, say what you covered. Assessors can follow a signposted talk even when the delivery wobbles.
A point of view, not a summary of a topic. "Making a case" is named in the outcomes and a neutral overview doesn't meet it.
Write the three questions you'd least like to be asked and answer them beforehand. The Q&A is assessed, not a formality.
Visual communication is its own outcome. Reading your slides aloud evidences neither the visual nor the verbal criterion.
Timing is usually specified and usually enforced. Running over means the last section, often your conclusion, never gets assessed.
If your talk uses a workplace example, anonymise it. A recorded demonstration is a document that exists afterwards.
It is core or banded in most Level 5 major awards, which makes it one of the most widely taken components in Irish further education. What changes is not whether you sit it โ it is what your assessor expects your examples to be about.
Your examples are expected to come from care settings โ handover, escalating a concern, speaking with a relative. A version written around office scenarios reads as generic and scores lower.
A mandatory component in Level 5 early childhood awards. Your examples should involve parents, colleagues and children โ and the confidentiality section practically writes itself from your setting's policy.
Where the current-issues outcome is easiest โ remote working, AI at work, digital communication overload all sit in your own field. The technology rationale outcome also suits you better than anyone.
Taken alone by people building credits, returning to study or strengthening workplace communication. A valid Level 5 qualification and usually completed in around nine weeks.
Online and self-paced learners usually record the demonstration themselves, which changes the practical problems entirely โ and adds a few nobody warns you about.
5N0690 rarely arrives alone. These are the components learners most often send alongside it.
Five checks aimed at exactly how Communications marks disappear. They come with every order, whatever you send โ no premium tier, nothing charged as an add-on.
Worth โฌ20
Worth โฌ18
Worth โฌ16
Worth โฌ15
Worth โฌ12
A collection full of decent individual work that read like nine unrelated assignments, and the presentation script that was fixed four days before the demo.
V.A. was taking Communications inside a Healthcare Support award while working nights. She had nine pieces finished, written over four months, and a presentation booked for the following week that she had not started. Her tutor's only feedback so far was that the collection "needed pulling together", which she didn't know how to act on.
The nine pieces were individually fine and collectively a mess โ three fonts, no contents page, nothing labelled to an outcome, and a tone that shifted from formal to casual depending on the month she wrote it. Her legislation piece covered manual handling and never mentioned confidentiality or data. Two outcomes had no evidence at all, including the technology rationale. And her presentation topic was a broad overview with no argument in it.
She reformatted the set in an evening, added a confidentiality section, wrote one short piece covering the missing outcomes, and rebuilt the presentation around a single argument. Distinction. โ
Distinction on first submission. Eight of the nine original pieces were kept exactly as written.
A marked-up copy and a ranked fix list, with every outcome noted. Four anonymised examples below show the finding, the fix and the band movement โ three from the collection of work, one from the live demonstration.
What the review found:Individually competent pieces written across four months, with no consistent presentation and nothing labelled to the outcome it evidenced.
The fix supplied:A one-page formatting standard, a contents page template, and an outcome label for each piece โ around an evening's work in total.
Indicative band:Merit to Distinction without a single sentence being rewritten.
What the review found:Thorough coverage of health, safety and welfare at work, and nothing at all on communications-related legislation โ confidentiality, data protection, what may be shared.
The fix supplied:The missing half structured in four short parts, with her own workplace confidentiality policy as the applied example.
Indicative band:Partly met to met, worth roughly a band on the collection overall.
What the review found:A clear account of using email, phone and a team messaging app at work, with no reasoning anywhere for choosing one over another for a particular message.
The fix supplied:One sentence of rationale per example โ urgency, tone, whether a record was needed, who else had to see it โ drawn from decisions he had already described.
Indicative band:Not evidenced to met on a full outcome, from about 200 added words.
Decide for yourself. Six 5N0690 learners below โ a collection nobody could pull together, a presentation with no argument in it, a legislation piece missing half an outcome, a technology section with no reasoning, and two demos that nearly went wrong. Each says what changed. Names shortened at their request.
"Nine pieces done and my tutor just said it 'needed pulling together'. Nobody explains that the collection is graded as one thing. Reformatted it in an evening and got a Distinction."
"English is my third language and I was dreading the presentation. Turns out they mark the structure, not the accent. Got my script fixed and it was fine on the day."
"My presentation was a summary of a topic. Was told the outcome wants an argument, not an overview. Same research, rebuilt around one point, and it went up two bands."
"I'd written all about manual handling for the legislation part and completely missed that data protection was half the outcome. Would never have spotted that myself."
"There's an outcome about why you chose email over a phone call. I'd described what I did about six times and never once said why. Two hundred words fixed a whole criterion."
"Recording my own demo at home and had no idea an audience was expected in shot. Found that out with four days left instead of on submission day."
Send one piece or the whole collection โ 5N0690 breaks into separate items, so a single piece or a presentation script can be checked on its own. Every price below is a starting figure; you get an exact quote in 10 minutes and pay nothing until you have seen it.
| What You're Sending | Standard (3+ Days) | Priority (24โ48 hrs) | What's Included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Presentation or Interview Script | โฌ29 | โฌ39 | Structure, argument, Q&A prep and timing |
| Single Written Piece | โฌ29 | โฌ39 | One item audited against its outcome |
| Full Collection of Work (50%) | โฌ59 | โฌ78 | Every piece checked, plus coherence across the set |
| Skills Demonstration Pack (50%) | โฌ49 | โฌ65 | All scripts and supporting evidence mapped |
| Full Component (both halves) | โฌ89 | โฌ115 | Weighted 50/50, demo items flagged first |
| Referral Re-Check After Feedback | โฌ25 | โฌ35 | Criterion by criterion against your tutor's comments |
Communications is assessed the same way everywhere, but your assessor expects examples from your own field. These are the awards most 5N0690 work reaches us from.
The largest group by some distance. Handover, escalation and speaking with families give you the strongest possible demo scenarios โ and confidentiality examples that write themselves. Your weak point is usually the current-issues analysis.
Parent conversations, team handovers and multidisciplinary meetings are all natural material. Take particular care with anonymity โ a presentation about a child is a recorded document once it's delivered.
Best placed for the current-issues and technology outcomes, because your own working day supplies the material. Meetings and interviews make straightforward demo scenarios with a clear register to aim for.
Strong material for adapting communication to the person in front of you โ which is exactly what the styles and techniques outcome asks for. Advocacy examples are readily available and score well.
You'll usually record your own demonstration, which removes the audience nerves and adds a set of technical requirements instead. Check the recording rules early โ they differ between providers and catch people out late.
ETB, PLC college, private provider or fully online โ 5N0690 is assessed against the same component specification everywhere in Ireland.
Start My Review โTaken from our inbox and from what Communications learners ask in the week before a skills demonstration.
A presentation script with a date on it, one written piece, or the whole collection of work โ send what you have and an expert who marks these briefs weekly will show you exactly which outcomes aren't covered.