Pearson Edexcel GCSEs French (2024)
February 2025 Languages Update
Dear colleagues,
Welcome to the February 2025 Languages update. At the top of this month’s update I am providing you with all the links and information you may need regarding speaking exams for all of our languages qualifications, as I realise these are fast approaching.
Beyond the speaking updates you will find a range of other items from GCSE 2024 support and training to Assessment Associate vacancies and a chance to have your say on our Subject Advisor updates. Please do take a few minutes to respond to this survey so that I can make these updates as useful as possible for you.
As always, if you need support with any of our languages qualifications, please feel free to reach out to me using the contact details at the bottom of this page or utilize our support portal.
Best wishes,
Rebecca Waker
Subject Advisor for Languages
Quick links for the February Languages Update
- Speaking exam support
- Support for Home, Heritage and Community Languages
- Proactive Associate MFL 2024
- Our Credible Specialist team
- GCSE 2024 Support
- Senior Associate Vacancies
- Association for Language Learning - Language World
- Subject Advisor Updates Survey
- Entry Deadlines and Summer 2026 Provisional Timetables
- Keep up to date with Pearson Edexcel
With the speaking exam windows approaching I have brought together all the documents, information and training you will need for speaking exam success for you and your students.
If you have any questions left unanswered about any of the 2025 speaking exams, please do get in touch using my contact details at the bottom of the page.
Assessment Windows
| Qualification | Speaking window |
|---|---|
| GCSE (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Gujarati, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish and Urdu) |
9th April - 14th May 2025 |
| A level (Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish) |
9th April - 14th May 2025 |
| International A/AS levels (French, German and Spanish) This qualification is only available in international centres. |
9th April - 14th May 2025 |
| International GCSE (Chinese, French, German, Spanish, English as a Second Language 4ES2 (New specification)) |
24th March - 2nd June 2025 |
International GCSE The speaking test is optional for these qualifications. |
24th March - 16th May 2025 |
Speaking exam conduct training
International GCSE English as a Second Language
Guidance Documents
Your centre may be offering GCSE and A Level exams in languages which are not taught at your centre. We have put together a range of guides and videos for students, their parents and exams officers. If you have any further questions that these do not answer, please do get in touch.
Congratulations to our first Assessment Associates to have been awarded our Credly badge.
We really value the time and effort that these associates have put into this accreditation. They were required to complete a selection of development activities related to the new GCSE (2024) French, German and Spanish specifications in preparation for first assessment in 2026. Their responses showed a deep level of engagement with the activities, reflecting on what they had learned, the impact on their practice and how they will share this learning with the wider profession.
We hope this work has helped them to feel more confident with the specification, both in terms of teaching and assessment, and they are able to use the credential to support their wider professional journey.
If you examined Pearson Edexcel GCSE French, German or Spanish in June 2024 you should have been contacted about this opportunity. If you need any support with this, please do let us know.
We have a team of local subject specialists who can provide you with 1:1 training and guidance to support you with the new 2024 Pearson Edexcel MFL GCSEs. Take a look at our new guide to get to know the specialist in your area.
GCSE 2024 Comprehensive Support Guide
To help make the transition to this new qualification as seamless as possible, we have put together a full package of support with everything you need to plan and teach our new French, German and Spanish GCSEs. I recommend bookmarking this document in your browser so that you are always looking at the most up-to-date version.
GCSE 2024 Exemplars
We have compiled an extensive range of exemplars to support you with understanding the mark schemes for all our writing and speaking tasks.
These can be found within the Teaching and Learning Materials section of each qualification page.
GCSE 2024 Frequently Asked Questions
We’ve collated all our most frequently asked questions, including those from our drop-in sessions, so you can find the information you need easily.
GCSE 2024 Training
We will soon be opening registration for more GCSE 2024 training sessions including a session focused on speaking.
In the next update I hope to be able to share with you our newest support resource, an on demand training course supporting you to understand our mark schemes for the writing paper.
We currently have some Senior Associate vacancies in our GCSE teams, please see the links below.
On 14th- 15th March we will be sponsoring and attending Language World at the Chesford Grange Hotel in Kenilworth, Warwickshire. The theme of the conference this year is Weaving a rich tapestry: our languages, our world(s).
This year’s programme looks excellent, as always, with a wide variety of speakers on various topics related to languages teaching and learning.
We’re looking forward to seeing lots of you there, so please do visit us in the exhibition to speak about our qualifications and resources.
Have your say about our Subject Advisor updates.
We want to hear from you! Your feedback is important to us, so we’d love to hear your thoughts about our monthly Subject Advisor Updates.
Take our short survey and share your thoughts before 14 February to be in with the chance of winning a £20 Amazon voucher*.
Don't forget to make your summer 2025 entries for GCSE and A Level Languages by 21 February 2025. Late entries will be charged from 22 February, so make sure that you don't miss this deadline.
The entry deadline for International GCSE and International A Level Languages is 21 March 2025.
The Provisional timetables for Summer 2026 will be available on our Provisional timetables web page from Monday 3rd February.
The feedback window will run until Friday 21st March. Please send any feedback to timetables@pearson.com.
Make sure you're following us on socials to keep up to date with the latest news
about our qualifications and services.
Rebecca Waker
Languages
