General Qualifications Bulletin - International - Issue - 65
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to the June qualifications bulletin. We are now over half-way through the May/June exam series, and I know you all do an incredible job to ensure that the exams run smoothly. I’d like to say thank you to everyone involved in your centre.
We’ve already had lots of standardisation meetings taking place, with thousands of examiners attending over the last few weeks, and our scanners are working around the clock to get the millions of exam scripts into our online marking system and available for examiners to mark. I know this term is also incredibly busy for you, so this bulletin includes some information and reminders for the weeks ahead.
- May/June 2025 exam feedback
- Looking ahead to the end of exams
- Exams Officer Support
- Multifactor authentication
- Subject updates
- Key Dates
We’re delighted with the number of you that are engaging with us on Facebook. You can follow us on Facebook and join our subject Facebook groups as another way to stay informed over this busy period. Find out more below.
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.
Hayley White
Vice President Assessment, Standards and Services
Now we’re over half-way through the May/June 2025 exam series, we would like you to share your feedback on this year's exam papers.
We wish to provide students with the best possible exam experience, and your insights are crucial in helping us achieve this goal. If you're a teacher whose students have taken any of our exams in the May/June 2025 series, we are eager to hear your thoughts.
Your feedback will play a vital role in shaping the future of our qualifications and assessments. Your input will be shared with our senior examiners and across our subject teams to help us continuously improve future assessments and enhance the exam experience for students.
We really appreciate your participation in this process, thank you. Please take a few minutes to complete this survey.
Whilst results days may seem a long way off, and we wouldn’t want to wish away the summer months, we would like to remind you about ResultsPlus, our online results analysis service.
ResultsPlus is our online results analysis tool that gives you a detailed breakdown of your students’ performance in Pearson Edexcel exams and BTEC external assessments.
Take a look at our short video that explains how you can use ResultsPlus to gain more insight into your students’ results at student, class or cohort level.
Find out more and set up your ResultsPlus account before the end of term
ResultsPlus Group Analysis
We’ve also got our ResultsPlus Group Analysis service. Developed to support multi-academy trusts and groups of schools, this service can provide senior leaders with a clear overall picture of student performance across all their schools in Pearson Edexcel exams and BTEC external assessments. Plus, it can also be used to analyse your mock exam results, making this service a valuable tool for use throughout the academic year.
Take a look at our short video that explains how ResultsPlus Group Analysis will work for you.
We’ll need to set up a separate account for your multi-academy trust or groups of schools, even if your own school is already set up with a ResultsPlus account.
Please ensure you have created a ResultsPlus Group Analysis account before the end of term
Our EO Support: Spring & Summer Essential Information article is now available to help guide you through the busy months ahead.
Modular international qualifications training
If you are new to modular International GCSE or International A level qualifications, we recently ran training on entries and results, with a focus on the topic of how to 'Cash-In'. Cashing-in is the aggregation process that ensures students receive the right results, complete the qualification, and receive their certification. Watch the training on demand to understand the complete process and feel confident that you have made the correct entries in advance of the exams and results day.
Watch the training on demand.
Exams Officer Update live sessions
Our next training event is taking place in July 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 event.
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.
As teachers and Heads of departments, you may not have had to access our secure systems for some time, with the next time you need to do this being on learner results days in August. We’d like to take this opportunity to remind all users of systems such as Edexcel Online and ResultsPlus, that there is now a requirement to authenticate via an app on a smart phone in order to access these systems.
If you haven't accessed these platforms for some time, we would urge you to do so before finishing for the summer, so we can work with you to resolve any issues and avoid any delays in access on results days.
You can get additional support for registering a device and general troubleshooting in our Pearson Portal Authenticator support article.
Geography
The future of GCSE Geography
We are sharing the recommendations we made to the Curriculum and Assessment review so that together we can build an even better approach to GCSE Geography.
Our geography recommendations for the curriculum and assessment review
Change to the marking of 'Calculate' questions for AS, A level, International GCSE and International A level Geography
As communicated previously, we confirmed a change to the marking guidance for 2-mark 'calculate' questions for GCSE Geography A and B.
To ensure these question types are accessible and fair to all candidates, we have extended this change to cover all of our Pearson Edexcel Geography qualifications:
- AS Geography
- A level Geography
- International GCSE Geography
- International AS/A level Geography
- GCSE Geography A and Geography B
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.
Design and Technology
GCSE Design and Technology, Contextual challenge wording update
We have modified the wording at the beginning of our contextual challenges to adopt a more explorative approach to design thinking.
This change aligns with how designers in the industry tackle problems - by using methods that encourage collaboration, open-ended inquiry, and creative confidence. Specifically, we have incorporated the "How Might We" (HMW) phrase at the start of our problem statements to better support innovative and targeted ideation sessions.
Read more and access a support pack
Religious Studies
International GCSE Religious Studies
We regularly review our qualifications and gather feedback from teachers to make sure they continue to be the best they can be, and to ensure we support teachers and students to perform to the best of their ability. We welcome this feedback and strive to incorporate it wherever possible, to ensure our assessments continue to differentiate, allow students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, and get a grade that reflects this.
We contacted centres late last year to gather your views about our International GCSE in Religious Studies. As a result, we have done some work to improve the qualification in line with your comments and to reflect improvements already made to our UK GCSE in Religious Studies. Please, note the amendment was released in March 2025 for first teaching in September 2025 and first assessment in June 2027.
Read about the improvements to International GCSE Religious Studies
Subjct 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.
The May/June 2026 timetables have ow been published on our website.
The Provisional timetables for International A level and iPLSC for October 2026 will be available on our website from Wednesday 11 June.
These can be found on Provisional timetables page
The feedback window will run until Wednesday 9 July. Please send any feedback to timetables@pearson.com.
We're delighted that so may of youare now following us on Facebook. Join us to hear about 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 group is for Pearson Edexcel Pasychology teachers, run by our Subject Advisor, Tim Lawrence.
Join Tim Lawrence's Psychology group
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
25 Jun 25 |
GCSE, GCE A & AS level |
Jun 25 |
Contingency day for examinations should sustained national or local disruption arise during the June 2025 series |
27 Jun 25 |
GCE Art and Design 9AD0/01 (and all linked endorsements) and GCSE Art and Design 1AD0/01 (and all linked endorsements) |
Jun 25 |
End of moderator visits. Marks must be submitted 48hrs prior to the moderation visits. |
5 Jul 25 |
International A & AS level |
Jun 25 |
UCAS learners must have their unit claims submitted in Edexcel Online |
5 Jul 25 |
All General Qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Deadline to submit special consideration requests |
13 Aug 25 |
GCE A & AS level and all other level 3 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Restricted release of results to centres |
14 Aug 25 |
GCE A & AS level and all other level 3 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Release of results to candidates |
20 Aug 25 |
GCSE, Int GCSE and all other level 1 & 2 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Restricted release of results to centres |
21 Aug 25 |
GCSE, Int GCSE and all other level 1 & 2 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Release of results to candidates |
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 Post-results services key dates web page.
