The big piece of coding work for your Classroom-Based Assessment starts now. It is called Putting the pieces together, and your result is reported on your Junior Cycle Profile of Achievement, so it is worth doing well.

There are two approaches you can take: a final software project in a team, or a portfolio of your own work. Today you learn what each path asks of you, weigh them against the work you already have, and choose.

There are two approaches to this piece of work. Neither is a shortcut. Pick the one that fits your strengths and the evidence you already have.

Approach 1: a final software project. You work in a team of two or three. Together you research a problem, design a solution, build it, test it, document it, present it, take peer feedback, and reflect. What is assessed is your own part in the team's work: how involved you were, how well you document your learning and your code, your awareness of the ethical and legal issues you met, how you present the benefits of the project, and how you record and respond to feedback.

Approach 2: a portfolio collection. You work on your own. You choose 3 to 5 pieces of your work from across the three strands (for example Scratch or Arcade games, a website or micro:bit project, and Python work), explain why you chose each one, and write a reflection on how your learning and problem-solving grew. Work you completed in first year cannot be included. What is assessed is the range of your coding skills, how your pieces show your learning growing across the strands, your awareness of the ethical and legal issues you met, and how your reflections show your problem-solving and computational thinking.

On either path, good work shows a clear purpose, planning and testing, work another person can follow, and honest reflection.

First, take two minutes to rummage through your own evidence. Open your saved work folder or notebook and star two pieces you are proud of, because your choice today should rest on work that actually exists.

Next, open one of those starred pieces and note in one line what still works and what is broken or unfinished. That single line is what you will weigh your choice against.

Then open the two cards on your screen and read both, thinking about your own strengths and the work you have just been looking at.

You have read both cards. Now hold each one against your own work so far and answer two questions for yourself: which path do your two starred pieces fit better, and which risk on that card worries you most?

There is no better path, only the one that fits you. Be honest about what you already have and where the risk sits.