What I told ACCA Tutors yesterday about CBE resources and what ACCA students can learn.

Working as an ACCA Tutor Guru For SBL has given me the opportunity and to travel and meet with ACCA professors and students from five continents but like everyone else at the moment I am communicating via teleconferencing. Yesterday I was focusing on helping tutors focus on developing techniques to bring more CBE practice into the classroom for Strategic Professional level courses.

Conducting ACCA examinations via the CBE platform was originally a project which was to be rolled out over a number of years but the pandemic accelerated the need and has required its implementation to be more rapid. If the choice is between CBE and exam cancellation due to Covid restrictions you can imagine what is preferable so it is absolutely essential that you familiarise yourself with the functionality of the platform. Too many tutors and students seem to be using Microsoft Word, Excel or any other non-CBE software rather than ACCA CBE software. Remember your exam will be conducted on the CBE platform and no other.

If you are an accounting professor reading this, I would encourage you to log on to the ACCA Education Hub and spend some time surfing around all the great resources that are available there to you to assist you in developing a fun and interesting course. In the SBL section, amongst others I explain how to run an effective SBL course and how to set, load and create exams on the platform. The amount of resource available is vast and ACCA have worked very hard to ensure no stone has been left unturned when designing resources to help make a tutor’s job easier.

As a student you will not have access to the Education Hub but I would encourage you to access the following links available for you to review and enable you to be fully familiar with the CBE format.

The first thing you need to do is access the excellent videos that have been recorded to take you through each step of the process and I summarise them below:

Video explaining the digital workspace used on an SBL exam

To see a series of videos created to help you know what to do before the exam, when you first get into the exam room, how to plan your answers and complete your exam

To start practicing your answers on the CBE platform

This is obviously a lot to take in and you also need to make sure you gets lots of feedback on your performance rather than work in isolation and maybe try and find a study buddy who you can reciprocate favours with.

Alternatively look to find a course which sets exams on the CBE platform and professionally marks them. On my course I not only set questions on the CBE platform and professionally mark them, but in addition also give a full professionally recorded video debrief to the answer. The reason for this is as SBL is as an applied exam, it gives credit for more than one answer approach and it is important for students to understand that there is not just one way. In fact, I give a full video debrief to all case questions I set and there are over 90 professionally recorded videos to review on my course.

The self-assigned questions you can download from the ACCA site are definitely to be recommended and much better than using non ACCA software but remember unlike the real exam they are not timed and you have to be disciplined to control your time. On my course I have embedded my mock exams onto the ACCA platform so that they can be timed and you will be fully aware of managing your time ( which is the main reasons well prepared students fail SBL)

One other thing that may also help you on my course (especially in lockdown) is that I will give you 24/7 WhatsApp support in case you have any questions.

Hope this information helps in your preparation

If you want to discuss your options in more detail email me [email protected] or WhatsApp me direct on 00 44 7946 650793.