The Joint Council for Qualifications has published their key dates document for the June 2025 exam cycle. Two dates have been set aside as contingency in the event of national or significant local disruption to exams in the UK:

11 June – afternoon session
25 June – full day

• Download the JCQ Key dates in the examination cycle guide

Ofqual have provided information for students about arrangements for regulated qualifications. This explains what your students need to know before, during and after exams and assessments.

• View the Ofqual student guide

For GCSE, A Level and IAL extended response questions which assess AO3 – for example those with ‘assess’ or ‘evaluate’ as the command word – judgements or conclusions are required for the higher mark bands. However this does not mean that a separate ‘conclusion paragraph’ at the end of the response is needed.

In fact, writing a conclusion which simply repeats ideas or arguments which have previously been presented will not gain any credit, and is therefore a waste of time. Good evaluative writing will naturally contain ‘mini-conclusions’ or judgements at the end of each argument made, and this is what the mark scheme is referring to.

Our recent ‘preparing for our exams’ training for GCSE psychology advised that candidates finish their essays with a conclusion, beginning it with the words “In conclusion…”. This is good advice, although it does not mean that such a paragraph is necessary. It ensures that a conclusion or judgement is given in case this has not already been done in the course of previous AO3 paragraphs, but candidates should be advised that such a paragraph should offer ‘something new’. This doesn’t mean it needs to make a ‘new AO3 point’ – rather it should offer some new judgement, for example suggesting that on balance the strengths which have been outlined outweigh the weaknesses and overall the theory is a good one.
 

Yes, although synoptic questions will not assume knowledge of any specific option topic, as long as the content is relevant to the question candidates may make use of their knowledge of the option topics when responding to synoptic questions, such as ‘issues and debates’ questions.

In their response to the scenario, candidates need to use ideas from two different topics. This means that if they were to use conformity and obedience as the two explanations their mark would be limited, as these are both from Topic 5: social influence. Instead they should use, for example, one explanation from this topic, and one from Topic 4: the brain and neuropsychology.

Mark schemes for extended response (essay) questions show bullet-pointed ‘indicative content’ – examples of creditworthy material that could form part of an answer. The number of bullet points always matches the number of marks available, but this does not mean that a mark is awarded for each valid point made.

The mark awarded for an essay, for A Level, IAL and GCSE psychology, is decided upon using the Levels Based Mark Scheme. There is no ‘right’ number of points / arguments / pieces of evidence for an answer of a particular length. Rather, what is important is how well a candidate has developed ‘lines of argument’ and often it is better to use fewer points / pieces of evidence than shown in the mark scheme, but to develop these with commentary and counter arguments.

No, mark schemes show ‘indicative content’ and alternative ideas and evidence will be accepted as long as it is relevant to the question. The specification is the guide to what content needs to be covered because a question can be asked directly on it. However additional research evidence to spport or contradict theories will be needed for effective evaluation. This does not necessarily need to be the same as the studies listed in past mark schemes and teachers are free to use alternative studies to these in their teaching.

Typically, examiners view 'features' of a mental health issue related to the incidence and prevalence of the disorder and how it affects society. For example, statistics regarding how common it is, who is more likely to be affected by it, when is the typical onset of the mental health issue would all be examples of acceptable features. This is the reason for the specimen mark scheme contents.

However, with Q10 on 1PS0/01 for 2023 which was ‘State two features of addiction. (2)’, examiners had to consider the ICD in terms of what it classifies as 'features' as the 1PS0 specification requests candidates need to know the features of addiction according to the ICD (specification 3.1.1). As such, they also accepted responses which included this information.

For example, in the ICD-11 it states that there are ‘essential (required) features’ such as ‘Increasing priority given to the behaviour to the extent that it takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities’, so examiners were instructed to accept these responses.
 

The recording for free online training session, delivered in March, is now available on YouTube, and you can download the delegate pack using the link below the video:

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Download the delegate pack from 'past training materials'.

• View A Level Psychology courses available through the Pearson Professional Development Academy
• View the new YouTube playlist of publicly available past training

The recording for free online training session, delivered in March, is now available on YouTube, and you can download the delegate pack using the link below the video once it has been uploaded to the qualification website:

Play

Privacy and cookies

By viewing this third-party content from www.youtube.com you agree to their terms and conditions, privacy notice and acknowledge they may use cookies and pixels for information and analytics gathering.

Accept

Download the delegate pack from 'past training materials'.

• View GCSE Psychology courses available through the Pearson Professional Development Academy
• View the new YouTube playlist of publicly available past training