General Qualifications Bulletin - UK - Issue 46
Dear Colleague
With one week to go before we wrap up this summer’s exam series’ I’d like to say thank you for all the hard work you’ve been doing to enable exams to run smoothly. We’ve certainly had some hot weather during these past two weeks, and I hope you’ve also been able to enjoy some of that.
We’ve had lots of standardisation meetings taking place, with thousands of examiners attending over the last few weeks. Our scanners in Yorkshire are working around the clock to get the millions of exam scripts into our online marking system and available for examiners to mark, and I know it is still a very busy time in schools and colleges as you head towards the end of the academic year.
After this edition, we'll send just one more bulletin before most schools close for a break. This will contain some more detail about post-results support, appeals and what to expect in the build-up to results days. Plus, there will be a special qualifications bulletin in August to support you ahead of results days, providing you with all the support you need.
For those of you that are Exams Officers, we are running some live events in July and August to help you prepare for issuing results in August and navigating the post-results period successfully.
As always, we’re here to support you through the next few months and in this issue of the bulletin we’ve got some important information and reminders to help you during this busy time of year. These include:
- Opening of exam papers – JCQ guidance
- Summer 2023 – preparing for results day
- Exams officer support
- Multi-factor authentication for Edexcel Online
- Subject updates
- Key dates.
Please do get in touch if you have any questions and we will always do our best to get you the answers as quickly as possible.
With best wishes,
Hayley White
Assessment Director
In order to avoid potential breaches of security, care must be taken to ensure that the correct question paper packets are opened. A member of centre staff, additional to the person removing the papers from secure storage, e.g. an invigilator, must check the day, date, time, subject, unit/component and tier of entry, if appropriate, immediately before a question paper packet is opened. This check must be recorded.
Please take a look at the JCQ guidance in their instructions for conducting examinations.
The JCQ has produced a template for centres to use.
With exams almost over you’ll shortly be looking ahead to results. As always, we’ll be here to support you with post-results services and answering any queries you may have.
ResultsPlus
Once you’ve received your students' results, you can get a detailed breakdown of their performance on each question at individual student, class or cohort level using ResultsPlus, our online results analysis tool for teachers.
Included as part of your qualification fees, ResultsPlus 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 this service can help you gain a better understanding of their results.
Find out more and set up your ResultsPlus account ahead of results day.
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, and 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 and be ready for results day.
Access to Scripts
Available from results day, our Access to Scripts* service allows you to view your candidates’ marked scripts online or download as PDFs, providing transparency of marking and to help you make decisions around requests for reviews of marking and inform future teaching and learning.
The Access to Scripts service provides a rich source of information, enabling detailed analysis to inform teaching and learning and support students and giving insights and visibility that performance data alone cannot provide.
Read more about Access to Scripts, along with FAQs and a step-by-step user guide.
The Access to Scripts portal can only be accessed by Edexcel Online users who have the Exam Viewer permission ticked in their Edexcel Online profiles. Exams officers are able to give teachers access to Exam Viewer. Don’t forget to ask your exams officer for access before you break for the summer, to be ready for the post-results period.
*This service is available for any exam paper that has been marked online. Written permission must be gained from candidates before scripts can be accessed.
Support for students ahead of results day
Waiting for exam results can be nerve-wracking for many students, so we’ve put together a guide to Understanding results and grades containing helpful information about what to expect on results day and where to find further support. The guide includes information on:
- dates for results days
- receiving and understanding results
- grades and grade boundaries
- what steps to take if they are not happy with their results
- university applications
- certificates
- where to find further support.
Please pass this on to students, parents and carers.
Stay up to date with all our support for 2023 on our Summer 2023 support page.
This week we have published the fees for all of our post-results services and our post-results key dates for summer 2023.
To help you have as smooth an exam series as possible, we've created a dedicated Exams Officer Support Summer 2023: Exam Administration Essential Information article on our support portal. This collects everything you need to know about popular support topics in one place so that you can find the guidance you need quickly and easily.
Exams Officer Update live July & August: GQ results specials
Our live events in July and August will focus on helping you prepare for issuing results in August and navigating the post-results period successfully. The content of the July and August sessions will be the same, so please book whichever event is most convenient for you.
- Thursday 13 July, 2pm to 3pm
- Tuesday 8 August, 2pm to 3pm
You can enrol on these events using your Edexcel Online credentials on the new Pearson Development Hub. If you need an account on the Development Hub, please fill in this form.
On 19 June 2023 we wrote to all registered Edexcel Online account holders, advising that we had introduced Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) as an additional layer of security to help protect your centre and learner data. While a lot of users have now accessed Edexcel Online (EOL) and successfully gone through the MFA process, we are aware that other roles may not use EOL and other related systems on a regular basis, and the next time to try and log in is on a learner results day.
To make your results days as easy as possible, if you are a user that will need to access any of the following systems during the summer results period, please log into these now to check you can access them successfully. We are here to help you between now and the results period should you need us:
- Edexcel Online (EOL)
- ResultsPlus
- MyBTEC
- Exam Viewer
You can find additional support for multi-factor authentication in our dedicated customer support article: Accessing Pearson Services Using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). We also have these troubleshooting steps.
Onscreen assessments in MFL: our current design and upcoming research with GCSE French
At Pearson we're trying to explore the needs of today's digital learners by better understanding the capabilities and experience of working onscreen in a variety of subjects.
We're currently conducting research into Modern Foreign Languages at GCSE, with a focus on French, and we’d like you to join us on 28 June 16:00–16:30 when we’ll be doing a demonstration of the current platform and how we envisage onscreen assessments might look in future. We’ll also do a run-through of some research we’re looking to carry out with centres who are interested in exploring and helping to develop onscreen and provide information about how to work with us on it going forward.
New podcast on history of apartheid in South Africa
We are delighted to share with you a new seven-part podcast series on the history of apartheid in South Africa which will be useful for teachers and students who do this topic in our A level History specification. The podcast was produced for the Anti-Apartheid Legacy: Centre of Memory and Learning by Dr Natasha Robinson and Professor William Beinart, and is hosted by history teacher Ciara McCombe.
Access our full news item about these podcasts.
Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Maths Examination Papers Feedback | Summer 2023
As part of our commitment to continuously improving our assessments, it’s important we gather feedback from teachers and learners about our examination papers. We would like to invite you to participate in a short survey, which will take approximately five minutes to complete, and share your thoughts on what you and your students think of our recent exam papers.
The link to this survey will be live until midnight (BST) Friday 21 July 2023.
Your feedback will help us understand the needs of your school and your students and will be hugely valuable to us. We greatly appreciate any comments that you may have on the subject.
Subject Advisor updates
The best way to keep up to date with all the qualification news and support for subjects is to sign up to receive regular email updates. You can check out the latest subject updates from our Subject Advisor page.
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 in the next few weeks.
Date |
Qualification |
Exam Series |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
28/06/2023 |
GCSE, GCSE AS & A Level |
Jun 23 |
Contingency day for examinations should sustained national or local disruption arise during the June 2023 series |
29/06/2023 |
GCSE Art and Design 1AD0/01 (and all linked endorsements) |
Jun 23 |
End of moderator visits. Marks must be submitted 48hrs prior to the moderation visits. |
29/06/2023 |
GCE Art and Design 9AD0/01 (and all linked endorsements) |
Jun 23 |
End of moderator visits. Marks must be submitted 48hrs prior to the moderation visits. |
05/07/2023 |
GCSE, International GCSE, AS & A level, AEA and Level 3 Core Maths |
Jun 23 |
Deadline to submit special consideration requests |
For more information on key dates for post results services please visit our Post-results services key dates web page.
The final summer 2024 exam timetables will be available to download from our timetables page on Wednesday 28 June.
As previously communicated, we're introducing a regular International GCSE November series starting in November 2023. The November series is being introduced to best meet the needs of students requiring International GCSE exam opportunities outside of the full May/June series and it will replace the existing January series from 2024. This will result in just a May/June and November series going forward for International GCSE.
Why are we moving to a November exam series?
Due to the pandemic, circumstances meant that we needed to follow a November International GCSE exam series in 2020, 2021 and 2022. As the November series seemed to be well received, we consulted schools to understand whether there was a preference for a permanent November exam series or reverting to January.
November was the preferred option for most schools; not just for resits, but also for learners studying on a January–December academic year.
You can read more information about this on our website.
Visit our new Vocational Teaching, Learning and Assessment page to find out about the enhanced support we’re offering for BTEC in 2023. Stay informed with vocational qualifications by following @PearsonBTECAppr, where we will update you with the latest information.
For responses to any suggestions or feedback you have for us, please visit our Contact Us page. You can also review our past bulletins if you’ve missed any, or sign up to receive future updates.
