The extent to which your teachers can help you is extremely limited. Cambridge OCR provide clear guidance about what is and isn’t allowed. You should read this guidance in full.
The below is quoted from the Cambridge OCR article linked above:
Feedback can be provided but it must not provide specific advice and guidance that could be considered as coaching, as this would compromise the students’ ability to independently perform the tasks they are doing and would be classed as malpractice.
Feedback can:
- identify that the student has not met the command verb. For example, ‘This is only a description, not an evaluation’
- identify what areas of work could be improved, but not detail how to improve. Assessors can remind students about what they were taught but not how to apply it to improve the work.
Feedback must not:
- be so detailed that it provides a step-by-step guide on what to do
- coach the student on how to achieve or complete the task
- provide detail on where to find information/evidence.
In other words, assessor feedback must not direct the student in what to do to improve their work. Students need to decide how to apply their learning.
In essence, your teachers cannot tell you what to do to improve your work. They can identify areas that can be improved—particularly when it is grounded in the command words of the mark scheme—but cannot say what you need to do, or how to do it.
If your teachers help you in ways that goes beyond the limits outlined above, they have to adjust the marks of your work down accordingly.
If your teachers help you with your code (e.g., helping you with a bug), you must cite the conversation and describe the exact nature of the help received. As you can only receive credit for your own work, any areas for which external help was provided may not be credited.