General Qualifications Bulletin - UK - Issue 48
Dear Colleague,
I hope you have all had a great break and have been able to take some well-earned time off to enjoy the summer holidays, even if we’ve not quite had the weather we would have liked so far.
It’s been another very busy summer for us. With the support of our incredible workforce of examiners, we have marked over 90 million individual questions, which will ensure that all learners receive their grades on the upcoming results days. I'd like to thank all our examiners for their dedication and hard work this series.
As outlined in the Ofqual blog post on 10 July: Exam results 2023: 10 things to know about GCSE, AS and A level grades, GCSEs, AS and A levels are returning to pre-pandemic standards in 2023, with protection built in to the grading process to recognise the disruption that students have faced. The Ofqual blog outlines 10 things to know about grading and results for GCSEs, AS and A levels this summer and we encourage you to read this and pass it on to your students.
For your students, we’ve got a support infographic for results: Understanding results and grades: a guide for students, parents and carers. It also contains important information about how to access any post-results services, should they wish to use them. The Department for Education have also produced a useful blog on the Education Hub with advice on what to do if students don’t get the grades they need for university and the choices available to them.
There will be lots of information to digest over the course of the next few weeks as everyone heads back to school in September. There will be general updates and also subject-specific pieces of information that will be important to know, so sign up to receive the subject advisor newsletters if you have not already done so.
In the meantime, 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.
Have a great few weeks celebrating the achievements of all your learners; they should be very proud of all they have achieved.
With best wishes,
Hayley White
Vice President, Assessment
The next two weeks sees the release of both Level 2 and Level 3 general qualifications results.
Results should not be issued to candidates until 08:00am (BST) on 17 or 24 August depending on the qualification. Please refer to the tables below for a final reminder of what’s happening and when.
Level 3 qualifications
AS/A level inc, AEA, International AS/A level, Edexcel Award, Level 3 Extended Project (EPQ), Mathematics in Context.
| Date | Time | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday 16 August | 00:01am | Electronic (EDI) results released to centres via A2C |
| 04:00am | Electronic results will be available for centres on Edexcel Online (EOL) | |
| 06:00am | Results files uploaded to Exams Officers' EOL mailboxes | |
| 08:00am | Grade boundaries will be available in the results report menu on Edexcel Online (EOL) | |
| Thursday 17 August | 06:00am | ResultsPlus available to centres |
| 06:00am | Grade boundaries published and UMS calculator available on our website | |
| 08:00am | Post Results system available to centres on Edexcel Online | |
| 08:00am | Results can be released to students | |
| 08:30am | ResultsPlus Direct available to students |
Level 2 qualifications
GCSE, International GCSE, Project Level 1 and 2, Edexcel Award Level 1 and 2, ELC(A), iPrimary and iLowerSecondary.
| Date | Time | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday 23 August | 00:01am | Electronic (EDI) results released to centres via A2C |
| 04:00am | Electronic results will be available for centres on Edexcel Online (EOL) | |
| 06:00am | Results files uploaded to Exams Officers' EOL mailboxes | |
| 08:00am | Grade boundaries will be available in the results report menu on Edexcel Online (EOL) | |
| Thursday 24 August | 06:00am | ResultsPlus available to centres |
| 06:00am | Grade boundaries published and UMS calculator available on our website | |
| 08:00am | Post Results system available to centres on Edexcel Online | |
| 08:00am | Results can be released to students | |
| 08:30am | ResultsPlus Direct available to students |
When results are released to centres, they are confidential to the head of centre, examinations office staff and senior members of teaching staff within the centre, the consortium or Multi Academy Trust. You must not disclose your centre’s results, or information derived from these results, with others, including teachers; candidates or parents; Local Authorities; and the media. Please see the JCQ Notice to Centres: Release of results June 2023 examinations for more information.
You can also find plenty of support for teachers and exams officers on our dedicated results support page.
In May, June and July 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.
If you are a user that will need to access any of the following systems during the summer results period, you should log in to these now and work with us to troubleshoot any issues you may have before results day.
- Edexcel Online (EOL)
- ResultsPlus
- MyBTEC
- Exam Viewer
Our teams will be extremely busy supporting results-related queries during August. If you act now, you will find it quicker to access support should you need it.
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.
There is plenty of support available to help you understand your students’ results, and as always, we’ll be here to support you with post-results services and answering any queries you may have.
Ofqual have published a blog post, Exam results 2023: 10 things to know about GCSE, AS and A level grades, which covers information that you and your students need to know about grading and results for GCSEs, AS and A levels this summer.
We’ve produced a guide to help you understand your students’ results and the steps you can take to get more insight about their grades, and what to do if you’re unsure that the right grade has been given, using our ResultsPlus and Access to Scripts services.
Download the guide now: Understanding your students’ results - a guide to our post-results services.
Grade boundaries will be available for exams officers to download from the Results > Reports Bulk Download menu on Edexcel Online on 16 August (AS/A level) and 23 August (GCSE/International GCSE). Grade boundary documents must be treated as secure and confidential information. They must not be published or distributed wider than to exams office staff and the Head of Centre until Thursday, when grade boundaries and results are available to students and teachers on our website. This ensures there is no undue anxiety to learners prior to the issue of results.
As a reminder, we publish both grade boundaries and notional component grade boundaries for each qualification. The notional component grade boundaries can be useful as an indicator of grade performance when, for example, an examination paper is used as a future mock examination. There is an explanation of how grade boundaries and notional component grade boundaries and scaling work at the start of each notional component grade boundary document. It is useful to review these when considering applying for a review of marking and moderation.
To help centres understand grade boundaries for 2023 we’ve produced a short guide explaining the approach to grade boundaries that all UK exam boards will be taking for 2023.
Understanding grade boundaries 2023 - UK qualifications
We've also produced a guide for those taking our International qualifications.
Understanding grade boundaries 2023 - International qualiications.
The total subject mark for a number of linear AS and A levels may not be the same as the total of individual component marks (“raw” marks). This is due to a process called scaling, where raw marks for some qualifications are given a “weighting” factor to reflect the contribution each component makes to the overall qualification. The raw mark for each component is scaled up or down by multiplying it by the weighting factor.
You can read more about scaling on our support portal, alongside our scaling component calculator.
Dr Jo Saxton, the Chief Regulator at Ofqual, and Clare Marchant, the Chief Executive at UCAS, have written a letter to students receiving results on 17 August this year outlining important information about results.
Ofqual also published a blog post in July, Exam results 2023: 10 things to know about GCSE, AS and A level grades, which covers information that you and your students need to know about grading and results for GCSEs, AS and A levels this summer.
We understand that it can be an anxious wait for students in the run up to results day, 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.
The Department for Education have produced a useful blog on the Education Hub with advice on what to do if students don’t get the grades they need for university and the choices available to them.
You can also take a look at our dedicated results support page for students, parents and carers, where they’ll find all the information they need to understand their results. Please pass all this important information on to students, parents and carers.
To help results days go as smoothly as possible, we’ve created some guidance for Exam’s Officers for all the essential results processes.
Please take a look at EO Support Summer 2023: Results Days Essential Information, covering important topics, including:
- release dates and times
- results reports
- ResultsPlus
- grades, mark schemes aand examiner reports
- UCAS
Our Results, Post Results & Appeals guidance includes information about results and post-results services including:
- post-results services, fees and deadlines
- post-results services availability by unit or component
- Access to Scripts
- how to apply for post-results services
- appeals
When raising any queries with us, please include the name of the product, service, system you are contacting us about in the description or subject line. For example, of you are contacting us about a priority Review of Moderation please use 'RoMM'; or for a missing A level result please use 'GCE result'. This will help us prioritise any queries which are time sensitive and ensure your learners receive the outcomes they deserve.
ResultsPlus
ResultsPlus is our online results analysis tool that gives you a detailed breakdown of your students’ performance in Pearson Edexcel exams. Providing you with the most detailed analysis available of your students’ performance, ResultsPlus will help you to identify topics and skills where your students could benefit from further learning, helping them gain a deeper understanding of their subject.
Take a closer look at ResultsPlus.
Access to Scripts
Our popular Access to Scripts* service provides visibility and transparency of marking and helps to inform future teaching and learning.
You can find out more about Access to Scripts on our website, along with FAQs and a step-by-step user guide. If a paper has been traditionally marked (not online) then these will not be available through Access to Scripts, but you can still request a free copy through the post results section of Edexcel Online.
*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.
We have introduced multi-factor authentication for all Edexcel Online users. Please ensure you have set this up ahead of results day so you have easy access to our post-results services.
Review of marking and moderation services and appeals
You can read about the review of marking and moderation (RoMM) services available to you, alongside our information on post-results deadlines.
We also have a guide to applying for post-results services on our support portal which includes a video walkthrough of requesting a post-results service.
If you need to consider making an appeal after you've received the outcome of a post-results service, you can view our guide to making an appeal on the support portal.
Please take a look at fees for all of our post-results services and our post-results key dates for summer 2023.
To enable us to improve the experience of teachers using our qualifications and students sitting our exams, we gather feedback after each exam series. If you're a teacher, and your students have taken any of our exams in the May/June 2023 series we want to know what you liked or didn't like in this year's exam papers. We'll share your feedback with our senior examiners and across teams to ensure we continue to make improvements to our papers where appropriate so we can make sure your students have the best exam experience.
Please complete our surveys and have your say. Thank you.
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 August and early in the autumn term.
| Date | Qualification | Exam Series | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14/08/2023 | International GCSE | Nov 23 | Entry window opens |
| 16/08/2023 | AS & A level, Extended Project level 3, Edexcel Award level 3, Core Maths level 3 and Advanced Extension Award | Jun 23 | Restricted release of results to centres |
| 17/08/2023 | AS & A level, Extended Project level 3, Edexcel Award level 3, Core Maths level 3 and Advanced Extension Award | Jun 23 | Release of results to candidates |
| 23/08/2023 | GCSE, International GCSE, Project levels 1 & 2, Edexcel Award levels 1 & 2 and Entry Level Certificate | Jun 23 | Restricted release of results to centres |
| 24/08/2023 | GCSE, International GCSE, Project levels 1 & 2, Edexcel Award levels 1 & 2 and Entry Level Certificate | Jun 23 | Release of results to candidates |
| 31/08/2023 | GCSE, International GCSE, AS & A level, Project, Edexcel Award, Core Maths level 3, Advanced Extension Award and Entry Level Certificate | Jun 23 | Deadline to request early certification |
| 01/09/2023 | GCSE English Language and Maths | Nov 23 | Entry window opens |
| 15/09/2023 | International GCSE | Nov 23 | Entry deadline |
| 20/09/2023 | GCSE English Language and Maths | Nov 23 | Final date for ordering modified papers using Access Arrangements Online (AAO) |
| 20/09/2023 | International GCSE | Nov 23 | Deadline to request modified papers |
| 04/10/2023 | GCSE English Language and Maths | Nov 23 | Entry deadline |
For more information on key dates for post results services please visit our Post-results services key dates page.
Your Subject Advisors will be providing information and support for results days. If you’ve not done so already, sign up to receive regular communications about your subject area to ensure you have all you need ahead of results day. You’ll receive important information and support about results day and continue to receive communications throughout the year.
Sign up for your subject newsletter today.
Visit our teaching, learning and assessment 2023 page to find the latest on BTEC results. You'll find results FAQs, including how to manage your earlier embargoed results.
Stay up to date and sign up to our VQ Bulletin newsletter, or follow us on social media: @PearsonBTECAppr.
If you need any help or support you can contact us through the Pearson Support Portal.