Key updates and information for new BTEC Tech Awards (2022)

Important updates on registrations, key dates and much more for the new BTEC Tech Awards (2022).

Registrations

If you haven’t yet registered your learners, please read this important guidance to ensure they are registered for the correct Tech Award depending on their year of completion.

In order to help those centres who may need to make amendments to registrations for legacy Tech Awards, First Awards, and new Tech Awards (2022) only, we are delaying the late registration deadline until Friday 18th November for this academic year.

This will ensure that centres who initially registered on time and need to make amendments after the normal registration deadline, as well as those registering late and needing to make subsequent amendments, have additional time to do so without incurring late fees. After the 18th November, standard late registration fees will resume (see Vocational Fees guide p.7). We hope this will help as you finalise your registrations.

Assessment Entries and Moderation

Please remember that as the internal assessments are now moderated within the series, entries must be made for learners wishing to sit the assessment.

December/January Assessment series

The deadline for on-time entries for the December/January moderation series has now passed, so late entry fees apply, but to avoid high late entry fees, please enter before 18th November 2022. This is also the deadline for withdrawing entries.

You can access the PSAs using an Edexcel Online password in the Course Materials section of your subject’s qualification page, under ‘Internal Assessments’. These can be administered to learners to begin assessment at any time, for completion and internal centre assessment before the mark and learner work submission deadline of 15th December 2022.

Moderators are currently being standardised for this series, and will be in contact with allocated centres from early December. Remember, although the final deadline for uploading marks and learner work is 15th December, you will have access to the Learner Work Transfer system from 1st December that date for uploading the work of learners sampled for moderation if you wish to upload sooner. Guidance on LWT can be found on our Support Portal.

May/June assessment series

Basedata will be released on 24th November for making entries for the May/June 2023 moderation series, and entry deadlines can be found in the Key Dates Schedule. Note that learners who sit internal assessments in the December/January 2023 series can be re-entered for May/June assessments after results have been issued on March 23rd, and no late fees will be charged. The entry deadline for these learners is 1st April.

The PSA for the Art and Design Practice is now available for download from the subject Qualification Page. The Performing Arts PSA will be released on 1st December, and all other subjects will be released on 6th February 2023. Further guidance on making registrations and entries for new Tech Awards can be found in our Tech Awards Support Index. For the full list of key dates for the 2022/23 academic year, please refer to the Tech Awards Key Dates Schedule.

Modified Papers

If your centre has learners who require modified versions of PSAs, these need to be requested by the dates given below. All requests require approximately 4 weeks to fulfil; please contact additional_requirements@pearson.com to place your order.

The following deadlines for ordering modified papers are set by the JCQ (Joint Council for Qualifications) and do not change each year:

· 4 October – December/January series

· 31 January – May/June series

Standardisation Materials and Training Events

We have published the initial set of Exemplar Standardisation Materials (ESMs) for teachers to refer to for internal standardisation prior to marking learner responses to PSAs. You can access them using an Edexcel Online password in the Course Materials section of your subject’s qualification page, under ‘Teaching and Learning Materials’. Further ESMs will be added in early 2023 following the first moderation series.

Live online Getting Started training sessions and Marking and Moderation training sessions are being run throughout October and November. They are free to attend and filling up fast, so be sure to book your space. If you can’t attend one of our Getting Started sessions, you can access the recordings, and we will release recordings of the Marking and Moderation training in the coming weeks.

Administrative Support Guides (ASGs) and Assessment Tracker Tools

The ASGs for all subjects are now available to download from the relevant subject qualification pages, for use in conjunction with the PSAs for each series. These important guides detail key dates, supervised conditions, moderation processes and helpful information relating to the administration of internal assessments. Please download now and become familiar with the processes for your subject.

We have also created Assessment Tracker tools for each of the Tech Awards from 2022 to help streamline and manage your internal marking and record keeping. These Excel-based documents include interactive Marking Grids for each internal component and allow you to capture marks, feedback, assessment notes, and export Mark Record sheets for use by your moderator. You can watch this short video tutorial on how the trackers work to help you manage the marking process.

Key Dates and refreshed Quality Assurance

Refer to the Key Dates Schedule for the first academic year of the new BTEC Tech Awards to help you prepare and plan. You’ll find it on the BTEC Tech Awards (2022) landing page alongside plenty of other helpful information, including bitesize videos, links to published resources and information about our streamlined Quality Assurance processes.

We ran several Quality Assurance networking events throughout the summer, and if you missed them, you can watch the video using the On-Demand CPD link on our Quality Assurance webpage.

Updates to Specifications and Sample Assessments

Some clarifications and amendments have been made to our Specification and Sample Assessment Materials (PSAs and External Assessments). Please be sure to download the updated versions for reference before first teach.

Key amendments and clarifications are:

· Where relevant, some Pearson-Set Assignments have added clarification that learners can refer to course notes during task taking sessions.

· Where relevant, some Pearson-Set Assignments have added clarification that monitored use of internet is allowed for the purposes of sourcing audio/visual content.

ExamWizard for External Assessments

You can also now access exam questions through our examWizard service to create your own mock assessments catered to your learners. Questions are taken from the Sample Assessment Materials (SAMs) and from legacy Tech Awards exams where applicable, so you will have a good bank of questions to support your learners right from the start, with further questions to be added in the new year. Travel and Tourism resources are still in production and will be available as soon as possible.

Please note, Exam Wizard is only available for subjects with written external assessments.

We are recruiting moderators for all new BTEC Tech Awards

The new BTEC Tech Awards will be moderated in line with new DFE requirements, and we are currently recruiting moderators across all subjects. Working with Pearson as a moderator brings you

the added benefit of being standardised directly by the Senior Assessment Team in your subject and seeing the work produced by many other schools throughout the moderation process.

Final Assessment for current (2017) BTEC Tech Awards and Extension of current BTEC Tech Award in Engineering

As a reminder, the final registration date for the current (2017) suite of BTEC Tech Awards qualifications is 31 December 2022, with final certification 31 August 2023. The final external assessments will be summer 2023.

The current BTEC Tech Award in Engineering has been extended to 2026 so you can continue to deliver it. However, please note that this will not be included on 2024 performance tables.

From September 2022:

• Learners who plan to certificate in summer 2023 can continued to be registered onto the current qualifications. The current qualifications will run with no change to assessment timelines or Quality Assurance model
• Learners who plan to certificate in 2024 onwards will need to be registered on the new 2022 versions of the qualifications.