General Qualifications Bulletin - UK - Issue 27
Dear Colleague
It has been another busy few weeks in education with many schools and colleges celebrating results from the October/November and January series. We hope that your learners got the results they needed for their next steps.
I also wrote to you last week with an update about some of our advance information documents that have been updated. You can find the table that shows the links to the updated documents on our website. It has also been really helpful to talk to so many of you about the advance information. We have listened to your feedback and have created some more revision support materials that we hope will be useful. You can find out more about these on our advance Information revision support page.
We are always here to support you, so please do get in touch if you have any questions by using the Pearson Support Portal.
Yours sincerely,
Hayley White
Assessment Director
The advance information for all relevant GCSE, A level and International GCSE subjects has now been released.
We have updated some of the advance information documents where minor amendments were needed due to typographical reasons, or to meet the principles of advance information content agreed by all exam boards. The qualifications and type of amendments are listed on the table on the main summer 2022 support page.
To support progression and students' best possible performance in the exams, they will want to revise the whole of the course, but advance information will help highlight where to focus more specific revision. It is important to note that the advance information will not cover everything that is to be assessed, and to ensure that students have a good understanding of all the specification content.
You can find out more about this in the JCQ Frequently Asked Questions for exam centres and JCQ Frequently Asked Questions for students.
We are delighted to announce that we have produced advance information revision support packages that will help you and your students in the run up to the summer 2022 assessments. These include topic-based tests for some subjects, or tools to create your own, and free teachers access to Pearson Revise ActiveBooks* for use in class, available until 20 June 2022.
Since we published the advance information for relevant GCSE and A level subjects, we have been speaking to many teachers across the country to find out what additional support you would like us to provide to help you get the most out of the advance information, and to focus your students’ revision time ahead of the summer 2022 assessments.
You told us that you would like to have support for creating topic tests that will provide useful exam practice and support areas for revision and intervention.
All your advance information revision support, including your free front-of-class Revision ActiveBooks, can be accessed through the subject interactive PDFs on our website. And we have not forgotten about revision support for GCSE Geography and GCSE History, where there is optionality rather than advance information.
If you are a centre that teaches our International GCSE qualifications, further details on the advance information support that will be available for these qualifications will follow shortly.
*You do not have to purchase any published resources to deliver our qualifications. Other Pearson Edexcel endorsed resources are also available.
All your speaking recordings and associated paperwork for languages qualifications will now need to be uploaded to our Learner Work Transfer (LWT) portal. For detailed guidance, please see the following resources:
Recordings must be uploaded within 48 hours of the last speaking assessment for that language qualification being completed in the centre. You can check the speaking window dates on our languages news page.
All UK and International GQ papers will be available to download on the Secure Download Service (SDS) this summer. This includes question papers, audio files and transcripts for listening exams. If you make a late entry, or have requirements to print onto coloured paper etc, you will be able to self-serve and download files before the exam. Modified papers (where orders have been made) will also be available on this service.
As materials will be available to download on SDS, we will no longer be supplying CDs for GCE and GCSE MFL listening, GCE and GCSE Music, and CDs/DVDs for GCE Music Technology exams.
To find out more about SDS (if you do not already use this system) and how to set up an account, please take a look at our Secure Download Service support article.
We will follow up for all centres with entries with further communications and support to ensure you are able to use SDS.
To support multi-academy trusts and groups of schools, we have developed our new ResultsPlus Group Analysis service. This service can provide senior leaders with a clear overall picture of student performance across all their schools in Pearson Edexcel mock exams, high-stake exams and BTEC external assessments.
The ResultsPlus Group Analysis service:
- collates all data on mocks and high-stake exams at the click of a button, enabling senior leaders to see an instant RAG status across your entire group of schools
- provides instant analysis on both mocks and high-stake exam results for individual schools within your group
- enables senior leaders to compare, at cohort level, between different schools and across the whole group, as well as with Pearson Edexcel national averages
- allows you to see how each school within your group is tracking and progressing year on year
- provides question-level analysis that allows you to instantly see strengths and areas of difficulty at school and group level enabling you to share good practice within your group and inform CPD.
Setting up a ResultsPlus Group Analysis Account
We will need to set up a separate account for your multi-academy trust or groups of schools, even if your school is already set up with a ResultsPlus account.
Find out more about ResultsPlus Group Analysis and set up your account.
We’ve been listening to feedback from students, parents and carers and we know they are keen to be kept informed of any changes to assessments this year.
If you’ve not already done so, please take a look at our Students, parents and carers support page on our website. Here we provide information and links to additional support to help students, and their parents and carers, understand any changes for the summer exams and to help them prepare for their assessments. There is also a video you can watch, and pass on to your students, that explains the changes this summer.
Ofqual have also recently released their student guide to exams and formal assessments in 2021 and 2022.
Please do pass this information on to your students, parents and carers.
May/June 2022 Assessment drop-in sessions
We are also running a series of drop in webinars over the next few months that are designed to help schools and colleges understand what is being asked of them this year. We will 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.
The next drop-in sessions are on:
- UK Qualifications: Wednesday 30 March 2022 at 16:00-17:00 GMT
- International Qualifications: Thursday 31 March 2022 at 07:00-08:00 GMT
For further information and to book your place please visit the Pearson Professional Development Academy.
The Key Dates Finder on our website enables you to find all of the key dates for Pearson general qualifications and subjects in one place.
Here are those taking place in the next few weeks.
21 March 2022 – Deadline to request transferred candidate arrangements for May/June 2022 series
21 March 2022 – International Qualifications Entry Deadline for May/June 2022 series
31 March 2022 – Reviews of marking deadline for GCSE and International GCSE November 2021 series
31 March 2022 – Deadline to submit applications for access arrangements for May/June 2022 series
More information about key dates for post results services can be found on our website.
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.
Any units using the Learner Work Transfer system will not need to submit a paper attendance register as it will all be logged through the system. Guidance on how to use the Learner Work Transfer System can be found in our Learner Work Transfer support article.
Please make sure you have read our previous editions of the Pearson Qualifications Bulletin that have shared information about visiting arrangements, plus visited the relevant qualification pages and have read the corresponding guidance.
We have seen some queries specifically related to Art and Design. You can find all the information related to this subject in our Art and Design: International GCSE community hub.
Our team of subject advisors send out regular important updates about their specific subject areas.
The updates contain important information about assessments, support, events, resources and other key areas of information.
Sign up for your subject advisor updates now
Our brand new, user-friendly Pearson Materials website is now live. You can order:
- English Anthologies
- Data books and formula books
- Envelopes
- Additional sheets
- Treasury tags
When accessing the website on your first visit, you will need to enter the access code KEHSY and then click the Log In button. Please visit our support articles if you need further guidance on accessing and creating an account on Pearson Materials, or placing your first order.
When you first register your details, you will be sent a link via email to set your password.
Please check your junk folder if you do not receive this email straight away. Your email may also be blocked by your centre’s Firewall therefore you may need to speak to your IT department to add to your approved senders.
We have unused packs of GCSE Mathematics and GCSE English Language question papers from the November 2021 series that are now available to order from our Past Papers website.
We are making these papers available for all centres. There will be a small charge to cover the administration and courier costs per order. Charges will be calculated at a rate of 20p per paper for orders up to £40 and then at a rate of 10p per paper for orders over £40.
Subject to availability, question papers can be ordered in following denominations:
- GCSE Mathematics (1MA1): 5s and 20s
- GCSE English Language (1EN0): 5s and 20s
To log onto the portal, please visit our Pearson Past Papers website. If this is the first time you have accessed the Past Papers website, you will need to submit the access code: YDGRVSK.
Once the access code has been submitted, you will be able to browse the question papers available to order. You can use the search function to find papers by subject name e.g. Maths, specification code e.g. 1MA1 or paper code e.g. 1MA1/1F.
To make a purchase, you will need to create an account and register your details under ‘My Account’. You can use your existing log-in details if you created an account previously.
Payment can be made by debit/credit card. You will receive a confirmation email once your order has been placed. Past papers will be dispatched within 72 hours of placing your order and you will be provided with tracking details.
There is a new FAQ hub and a new Teaching, learning and assessment page for Vocational and Technical qualifications in 2021/22. You will find the latest information and support for our vocational qualifications on this web 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.
