General Qualifications Bulletin - International - Issue - 63
Dear Colleague,
This month, as we begin the countdown to the exam season, we’ve got some important information to share with you, including information on question paper despatch and question paper security, Exams Officer support and cyber security.
We have information for you to pass on to your students from Ofqual, JCQ and Pearson, that along with all the support you give them, will help them feel as prepared as possible for their exams, plus a reminder of what they can and can’t take into the exam hall.
Our Facebook groups continue to grow and this month we launched four new Facebook groups, run by our Subject Advisors, to support Pearson Edexcel teachers: International Sciences, UK Sciences, GCSE English and A level English. You can find out how to join these and our other teacher groups below. We’re delighted that so many of you are joining the conversations and sharing ideas.
I appreciate there is a lot of information to digest in this edition of the bulletin, much of which focuses on the forthcoming exam season. Thank you for your support.
As ever, if you need any more information or want to share any feedback with us, you can always get in touch via our support portal. We will always do our best to get you the answers as quickly as possible.
I wish you all a restful break during the holiday season.
Hayley White
Vice President Assessment, Standards and Services
Student support from Ofqual, JCQ and Pearson
Help your students feel as prepared as possible for the upcoming exam season. In addition to all the support you provide, both Ofqual and JCQ have a range of information to help inform and guide your students during this busy time. Please take a look at the information we’ve summarised below and pass it on to your students.
Support from Ofqual
Ofqual has provided information for students about arrangements for regulated qualifications for 2025. This explains what your students need to know before, during and after the exams and assessments.
Read the Ofqual Student Guide to Exams and Assessments 2025
Ofqual also has guidance on coping with exam pressure for you to pass on to your students.
Coping with exam pressure – a guide for students
Malpractice or ‘Leaked’ assessment materials
Every year there are claims of leaked exam papers or assessment materials on social media. It’s important to remember that ‘leaked’ materials are most likely fake, but that all instances of suspected leaks must be reported to the awarding organisation as soon as possible. On the rare occasion where genuine materials are leaked, there are processes to mitigate the impact on students.
Please remind your students that:
- They should not look at any ‘leaked’ materials as they could face sanctions, including disqualification, even if the materials are fake.
- If they spot what are claimed to be leaked materials, they should tell their teacher straight away.
Support from JCQ
The JCQ has a range of information and support for students – from coursework and onscreen exams to written exams, along with a checklist for exam day.
Take a look at all the support JCQ have to offer for students
Support from Pearson
We’d like to share our Getting ready for exams guide that includes some top tips and advice including:
- preparing for exams
- what happens on exam day
- where to find further support
- what happens once exams are over.
Take a look at the guide and please pass it on to your students
Supporting wellbeing during exam season
Everyone's exam experience is unique, and we understand that preparing for and sitting exams can bring about many emotions. Our exam wellbeing support is here to help you, your students and their families navigate this time – from the run-up to exams, to exam days and results days.
Your students may also like to view our #examspelledout videos that explain all about the assessment process from the writing of the exam papers and modified papers to what happens to exam papers once they’ve left the school, grade boundaries and results.
Support for teachers
Please do take a look at the Ofqual guide for schools and colleges. This guide explains what schools, colleges and other exam or assessment centres can expect from awarding organisations regulated by Ofqual and the arrangements for qualifications in 2025.
Download the Ofqual guide for schools and colleges 2025
You can see the support we have for teachers on our General qualifications assessment support page. This includes information about resilience arrangements and contingency dates for exams this summer.
Looking ahead to the May/June series, here’s an update on when you will start receiving exam materials.
You can expect to start receiving standard and modified question papers from the following dates:
- Edexcel Award exams: from 23 April onwards.
- General qualification exams taking place from 6 May and up until 20 May: from 23 April onwards.
- General qualification exams taking place from 21 May and up until 9 June: from 9 May onwards.
- General qualification exams taking place from 10 June onwards: from 31 May onwards.
You will be able to track your standard question paper dispatch for General Qualifications via Edexcel Online.
Please ensure that appropriate colleagues are aware that question papers will be arriving soon and what they need to do with them. Question papers need to be carefully checked to ensure that you have received what you were expecting and that all question paper packs are in good condition. You should report any issues relating to question papers as soon as possible.
Whilst the vast majority of question paper deliveries marked for the attention of Exams Officers are made during normal centre hours, on rare occasions, a courier may attempt delivery when the main reception has closed, so papers cannot be stored securely. We encourage centres to inform staff to refuse these deliveries, and the papers will be redelivered.
Further information, guidance and tools can be found in:
- Sections 1-2 of the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations
- JCQ-Key-Reminders-Infographic-updated-2024.pdf
- JCQ-Infographic-Paper-Journey-Final-version.pdf
- Exam Materials Receipt Log – Point of Delivery
- Exam Materials Receipt Log – Exams Officer
- An interactive training session on question paper security is available on our on-demand e-Learning page.
Attendance registers
You can expect to start receiving attendance registers and labels from 23 April onwards.
Availability of Electronic Copies of Question Papers
Our goal is to ensure that your centre's exams run as smoothly and as stress-free for centre staff as possible. To help us achieve this goal, we would appreciate you making checks outlined below well ahead of your centre's first exam.
If your centre requires access to electronic copies of question papers in the May/June 2025 exam series, for example if you make a late entry or need to print onto coloured paper, they will be available to download on the Secure Download Service (SDS). This also includes audio files and transcripts for listening exams. Our recommendation is that a minimum of two members of centre staff have SDS included in their Edexcel Online (EOL) profile.
If your exam staff do not already have SDS added to their EOL profile, they will need to contact us and be available to receive a secure call-back from our Customer Services Specialist on your centre's main telephone number. Once this call has been performed successfully, access to the SDS platform will be added to their account.
Please see the SDS support guide for further details.
If you have centre exams staff without access to SDS, they should contact us as soon as possible, and well ahead of the summer exam series so that we can update their account.
If you make any entries a week or less before the date of the exam, hard copies will not be sent to your centre. You will need to print the required amount of question papers from an electronic copy.
Electronic copies of question papers will be available via SDS if you are making additional entries. If you are making an entry for the first time this series for a new subject/paper, please contact us to request the question paper to be sent via (Secure File Transfer) SFT.
It is important that all exam staff can access SDS as we will not be able to send electronic question papers via Secure File Transfer (SFT) on the day of the exam without a secure call back to your centre’s main telephone number first. This could result in logistical challenges for your centre at a critical time in the day - with staff required to move between an exam hall and your reception/ exam office. This may result in delays, including potentially impacting the start time of the exam in question. To avoid this please make checks to your exam staff EOL profiles (and specifically SDS) today.
Please ensure that all staff involved in the handling of electronic assessment materials and question papers have familiarised themselves with section 4, Arrangements for handling secure electronic materials, of the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations (ICE).
We’d like to remind you how important question paper security remains to the smooth running of exams in your centre and for the wider cohort.
Take a look at our bitesize on-demand training on question paper security.
This training module covers the importance of question paper security, how to securely handle question papers, from receiving the papers right through to returning the completed scripts to Pearson, and how to recognise and report a question paper breach.
Our EO Support: Spring & Summer Essential Information article is now available to help guide you through the busy months ahead.
Pearson Development Hub and upcoming live EO events
Our dedicated space for Exams Officer training has been created as part of our commitment to you, to offer enhanced support and training in 2024/2025 and beyond.
You can access our library of interactive modules alongside live training, curated support articles, and the most useful documents from our website. We have brought everything you need to one place to save time when you need to upskill or refresh yourself on a topic.
- Pause interactive modules and return to them later.
- Make notes in the notepad that you can refer to and download later.
- Receive email alerts when new content is released.
- Follow curated learning paths for a particular qualification or process.
You can read How to access the Pearson Development Hub in our dedicated support article.
Exams Officer Update live sessions
We have a number of training events taking place in April, May and June where we’ll go through news, updates and processes for the summer exam series and give you the opportunity to ask any general questions.
Register for this and other upcoming events.
If you are unable to attend these events, you can find recordings of previous events and links to sign up in our support article: Exams Officer Update International Webinar Events 2024/2025.
Cyber Security
Whether you’re a new or experienced Edexcel Online user, it's important that we are all aware of the possible threats to our collective data. We would encourage all exams staff, new and old, to visit our cyber security webpage and watch our short training video.
Visit our Cyber Security webpage
Multi Factor Authentication
Although it has now become a standard way of accessing our systems, that we should all be familiar with, it can sometimes present challenges if a smart device is lost or replaced. You can read more information, see a quick start guide and access FAQs and troubleshooting for our authenticator app in our Pearson Portal Authenticator support article.
We’re keen to hear your feedback on the monthly qualifications bulletin. We’re always trying to improve the way we do things and really value any feedback you have. By providing us with your thoughts on these monthly updates, we can make sure they’re as useful as they can be.
It should only take five minutes to complete the survey. We’d appreciate your feedback by Friday 11 April. Thank you for taking the time to tell us your thoughts.
Geography
GCSE Geography - change to the marking of 2-mark calculate questions
As communicated previously, we are continuously reviewing our assessments to ensure they are accessible and fair to all candidates.
As a result, we are confirming a change to the marking guidance for 2-mark 'calculate' questions.
You can read the full details in Jon Wolton’s update
Please note you do not need to change anything you are doing in your delivery or prepare your students differently for 2025 exams and beyond.
Subject Advisor support
Stay up to date with all your subject news by signing up to receive your Subject Advisor newsletters. Experts in their fields, and many of them former teachers, our subject advisors are here to support you throughout the year and can help with all your subject-specific queries.
Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook where we’ll be sharing the latest news, updates and information about our support services across subjects. From our own news to updates from Ofqual and JCQ, follow us on @PearsonEdexcel on Facebook to stay up to date.
Follow us @PearsonEdexcel on Facebook
Join our new Facebook Groups
To provide teachers with subject-specific support via Facebook, we’re setting up a number of subject groups, run by our Subject Advisors.
Created to give you a private, professional space to discuss teaching and learning ideas, ask general questions and connect with other Pearson Edexcel teachers, the latest subject groups are: UK Sciences, International Sciences, GCSE English, A level English.
UK Sciences
Join Irine Muhiuddin’s UK Sciences group
International Sciences
Join Tim Lawrence’s International Sciences group
GCSE English
Join Clare Haviland’s GCSE English group
A level English
Join Clare Haviland’s A level English group
International GCSE English
Join Clare Haviland’s International GCSE English group
Drama and Theatre
Join Paul Webster's Drama and Theatre group
Geography
Join Jon Wolton’s Geography group
Statistics
Join Vicky Wood’s Statistics group
Religious Studies
Join Jenna Wyatt’s Religious Studies group
Art and Design
Join Jaclyn Wiid’s the Art and Design group
Languages
Join Rebecca Waker’s Languages group
Our Key Dates Finder enables you to find all of the key dates for Pearson general qualifications and subjects in one place. Here are those taking place during the next few weeks.
Date |
Qualification |
Exam |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
9 Apr 25 |
A level Chinese, French, German, Italian, Russian and Spanish |
Jun 25 |
Speaking tests can start from this date |
9 Apr 25 |
GCSE Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Urdu |
Jun 25 |
Speaking tests can start from this date |
9 Apr 25 |
International A level Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) |
Jun 25 |
Speaking tests can start from this date |
15 Apr 25 |
International A level, Project and Edexcel Award |
Jan 25 |
Date by which certificates will be issued |
15 Apr 25 |
GCSE Astronomy |
Jun 25 |
Deadline to submit Observation Statement |
18 Apr 25 |
A level Drama 9DR0 02 and GCSE Drama 1DR0 02 |
Jun 25 |
End of practical examination period |
21 Apr 25 |
All general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Last day that withdrawn entries will be refunded |
22 Apr 25 |
All general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Amendment fees will be charged from this date |
22 Apr 25 |
All general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
High late entry fees will be charged from this date |
Don’t forget, you can also stay organised with our new interactive Qualifications Key Dates Calendar. It can also be downloaded and synchronised seamlessly with your own personal calendar, such as MS Outlook.
Take a look at the calendar now
For more information on key dates for post results services please visit our Take a look at the calendar nowPost-results services key dates web page.
