Earlier in October we delivered our live Exam Insights training on the May/June 2024 exam series. Teachers who attended should now have access to a recording of this event, and this will also be made generally available to all teachers with Edexcel Online logins shortly. To protect details of the recent past papers for use as mock exams later this year we will share a link to an unlisted video in a padlocked resource on the qualifications website under 'past training content' on the 'teaching and learning materials' page.

The presentation slides and delegate pack are available to download now from this location, along with a pdf document that lists the mark awarded to each response used in the training.

As for A Level, earlier in October we delivered our live Exam Insights training on the May/June 2024 exam series for GCSE psychology. Teachers who attended should now have access to a recording of this event, and this will also be made generally available to all teachers with Edexcel Online logins shortly. To protect details of the recent past papers for use as mock exams later this year we will share a link to an unlisted video in a padlocked resource on the qualifications website under 'past training content' on the 'teaching and learning materials' page.

The presentation slides and delegate pack are available to download now from this location, and the marks awarded for each example response used in the training are given on the presentation slides.

Feedback on the May/June 2024 exam series for IAL psychology has recently been published on our YouTube channel. The video is now unlisted, to protect the contents of the recent papers so they can be used as unseen mock exams later in the year. We have updated a padlocked resource on the 'teaching and learning materials' page of our qualification website, so that teachers with an Edexcel Online account can access the video. This document also has links to pre-recorded exam feedback for units 1 and 2 from the January 2024 series (and we plan to add videos for units 3 and 4 soon) - follow the link below to find it - click on 'Past training content' and download the file 'International A Level Psychology Exam Feedback Videos',

Unfortunately the free 'Welcome to Pearson' events scheduled for October have been postponed due to trainer availability, but we plan to run these soon and will advertise new dates in a future update.

Pearson published textbooks for the IAL psychology course will be published in November (see link below), and teachers who have been accessing the free digital trial have queried the absence of two of the optional studies. There is no specification change planned in this respect and teachers can continue to teach the two studies not included in the textbooks. Here is a message from our publishing team:

The optional studies we have not included are:1.3.3 Yi Huang et al. (2014) Conformity to the opinions of other people lasts for no more than 3 days.2.3.4 Sacchi et al. (2007) Changing history: doctored photographs affect memory for past public events.

At the start of the course in Unit 1, we have chosen to examine one of the optional studies in depth in each topic, rather than cover a wider range in less depth. This is to provide students with the analytical skills and insight required to effectively engage with any study. We believe this approach will better equip students to excel and ultimately show a deeper understanding of the course material as they progress through AS-level and to A-level.

We are working on some minor specification changes in response to feedback from teachers. The aims of these are to a) provide greater clarity around the synoptic requirements of Units 3 and 4, and b) to provide teachers that need it with more flexibility around how they teach the psychodynamic approach, avoiding Freudian content that is sensitive in some regions. We hope to publish the details shortly, and they will not affect the preparation of students for exams in January or June 2025. They will also not require any significant change to the way that teachers need to teach the course.

• Find out more about the new IAL psychology textbooks