General Qualifications Bulletin - UK - Issue 23
Dear Colleague
Welcome back to the General Qualifications Bulletin and the first edition of 2022. Happy New Year and I hope you have all had a wonderful break.
2022 is shaping up to be another busy year for the education sector and we will be here to support you however we can. We will be hosting monthly drop-in support sessions to share the latest information around 2022 assessments, with the first event taking place on 26 January for UK centres. (27 January for International centres). In addition, our wonderful team of subject advisors and subject specialists will be running sessions for their relevant subjects in January. Find out how to book onto these sessions in the upcoming events section below.
There are also some exciting developments around onscreen assessments and what the future of assessments looks like, alongside our ongoing commitments on diversity, equity and inclusion across Pearson. Look out for more information on this in future editions.
We had A level results day in December and have GCSE results days to come in January and February for those learners that sat exams in the exceptional October/November series. I hope those learners received the results to support them with their next steps and for those that are still awaiting their GCSE or International GCSE results, good luck.
I will keep writing to you on a fortnightly basis via these bulletins and this will be the main place to get all the information you need for Pearson assessments. You can also follow us on Twitter (@ PearsonEdexcel) to keep up to date. If you would like to speak to us directly, you can get in touch with any questions via our contact form, or by calling the relevant team for your role.
Hayley White
Assessment Director
In line with other Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) boards and our usual approach to releasing examination papers and mark schemes, past papers from the October/November 2020 series will be made publicly available on awarding organisation websites from 18 January 2022. We will not be making examiner reports publicly available at this point. This has been a joint decision to support all students, including private candidates, in preparing for exams this year. You will be able to access these materials via the exam materials section on the relevant qualification pages.
We are making some changes to the way we invoice for your qualification entries. Invoices will be sent after the entry deadline and not on a weekly basis.
Entry and deadline information for UK qualifications
Entry and deadline information for International qualifications
This means that you may begin to receive invoices from the week commencing 21 February 2022.
Centres that have made entries for qualifications with visiting components will shortly be contacted by their visiting examiners. If you have not yet made entries for those qualifications, we urge you to do so as early as possible.
UK centres have a choice of assessment in 2022 of either a visiting examiner attending their centre, or digitally via recorded performances (submitted via the Learner Work Transfer (LWT) platform). International centres will not be offered this choice and all work will be assessed digitally.
Please make sure you have visited relevant qualification pages and have read the corresponding guidance.
Subject Advisor Q&A sessions
Your subject advisors are running subject-specific, question and answer sessions on the June 2022 exam series for Pearson Edexcel qualifications. These start on 17 January. Please find the session for your subject and book your place through the Pearson Professional Development Academy.
Book your Subject Advisor Q&A session
General Webinars
We’re also running a series of drop in webinars over the next few months that are designed to help schools and colleges understand what's being asked of them this year. We’ll cover how to prepare for high-stake exams alongside the contingency preparation and the tools we have available to help minimise the impact on teachers.
Participants are encouraged to ask questions during the sessions and upon sign up will also be able to submit questions in advance which we will cover in the event.
This training is intended for centres based in the UK or Internationally and are titled according to who they are suitable for.
This training is not specific to Pearson Edexcel as the arrangements for summer 2022 are common across all awarding organisations. Arrangements for International GCSE will be specific to Pearson qualifications. You do not have to be teaching a Pearson qualification to attend.
Book your place for the January webinar today
We'd love to understand your experience of teaching or learning Maths and English at GCSE level. We are especially interested in the skills that are acquired during the GCSE course and any additional skills that you think would be useful if included.
Please take a few minutes to complete this questionnaire
Please visit the Summer 2022 support tab on each qualification page to find out about the specific adaptations which have been put in place for each qualification. The adaptation and optionality information is available on each page.
You will also find advance information guidance for relevant UK and International qualifications that we released in December. These guidance documents outline the approach that will be taken to the advance information that will be released by 7 February.
Take a look at our frequently asked questions that give you more detail about the adaptations
We’ve also created an interactive document that has all the key links that are currently available. This will be kept up to date as and when new information is released. We recommend you sharing this with your colleagues.
Download the key support document
The final Examination timetables for GCSEs for the October/November 2022 exam series are now available on our exam timetables web page.
Modified papers for learners that require them for the May/June 2022 series can be ordered via the Access Arrangements Online (AAO) and Pearson Access Arrangements Online (PAAO). The deadline for ordering modified papers for the summer series is 31 January 2022.
In September we launched our new on-demand eLearning service for exams officers. This is a fully interactive service, with pre-recorded guidance from our training team with mock web pages and systems so you can go through processes from start to finish.
We have newly released modules available for making entries and requesting modified papers available now.
Take a look at the Exams Officer training today
There is a new FAQ hub and a new Teaching, Learning and assessment page for Vocational and Technical qualifications in 2021/22.
Read vocational and technical qualifications 2021-2022 FAQs
Take a look at the Teaching, learning and assessment 2021-2022 page
You will find the latest information and support for our vocational qualifications on this page, along with links to our regular VQ Bulletin containing all the key updates you need for our vocational qualifications. Please do bookmark this page for future reference.
