General Qualifications Bulletin - UK - Issue - 64
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to the December qualifications bulletin.
Incredible as it may seem, we are nearly at the end of 2024. I hope this term has gone well for you and you can soon begin to look forward to the holiday season.
As we look forward, this update will provide you with information and support to help you get started in the New Year and includes details on:
- 2025 formulae and equation sheets for GCSE Maths and GCSE Sciences
- Support for the January GCSE and International GCSE results
- Exams Officer support
- Modified papers case studies
- Key dates and more
I’m particularly delighted to highlight our recommendations to the Government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review. To support this crucial conversation, we’re publicly sharing key points from our response – including recommendations for effecting meaningful change in education. Please read more about this below.
Plus, this year, with more schools and colleges choosing tech-enabled exam options to support their students than ever before, our very own Sharon Hague spoke to i newspaper about how opening up choice in exam formats – including onscreen – can help enhance accessibility and inclusion. Find out more about this below.
For those of you who will be sitting exams with us in the January 2024 window, I wish you and your students all the best.
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.
I wish you all a restful break during the holiday season.
Hayley White
Vice President, Assessment, Standards and Services
Further to confirmation from Ofqual that students taking GCSE maths, physics and combined science exams in 2025, 2026 and 2027 will be provided with formulae and equation sheets, please find below the 2025 versions below.
International GCSE Sciences
We are following the same approach for our International GCSE Science qualifications. The 2025 equation sheets will be available shortly. For now, you can access the equation sheets used in 2024.
Further information and support for 2024/25 can be found on ourGeneral qualifications assessment support page.
Results day for the November GCSE Maths and GCSE English Language series will be Thursday 9 January, and for International GCSE it's 23 January. Our regular post-results support services will be available from these dates.
ResultsPlus
You can get a detailed breakdown of your students’ results through ResultsPlus, our online results analysis service.
Take a look at our ResultsPlus video that provides you with an overview of how ResultsPlus can help you learn more about how your students’ performance compares with class and Pearson Edexcel national averages.
Access to Scripts
You can view your candidates’ marked scripts online or download as a PDF, using our Access to Scripts service.
We hope the November exam season went well for you and your students. If you've not yet had chance to do so, please do share your feedback on the November 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 GCSE English, maths or International GCSE exams this November, we’re 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 the surveys. The closing date is Friday 20 December.
Do take a look at our Autumn & Winter essential information article which provides information and support for the months ahead.
You can also find further support and training modules on the Pearson Development Hub. If you need help accessing the Development Hub, please take a look at our support article.
We’re pleased to have contributed to the Government’s call for evidence as part of the Curriculum and Assessment Review.
Joining the voices of other sector experts, educators, parents/carers and learners, we've shared our research, experience and recommendations with the panel.
To support this crucial conversation, we’re publicly sharing key points from our response – including recommendations for effecting meaningful change in education.
This year, we’ve seen more schools and colleges choosing tech-enabled exam options to support their students than ever before. Alongside more than 91,000 word-processed scripts and 13,000 interactive electronic question papers, over 14,000 onscreen GCSE, International GCSE and International A level exams were taken this year alone.
Pearson's Sharon Hague also spoke to i newspaper about how opening up choice in exam formats – including onscreen – can help enhance accessibility and inclusion.
We're delighted with the response to our new Pearson Edexcel Facebook page. Designed to help and support you with the teaching and delivery of our UK and International qualifications, we’ll be sharing 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. The latest subjects to join are Geography and Statistics.
Geography
Jon Wolton, our Geography Subject Advisor, has launched the new Geography Facebook group to support Pearson Edexcel geography teachers. Created to give you a private, professional space to discuss teaching and learning ideas, ask general questions and connect with other Pearson Edexcel geography teachers.
Join Jon Wolton’s Geography group
Statistics
To support Pearson Edexcel statistics teachers, Vicky Wood, our Maths Subject Advisor, has launched the new Statistics Facebook group. Created to give you a private, professional space to discuss teaching and learning ideas, ask general questions and connect with other Pearson Edexcel statistics teachers.
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
We understand each learner is unique and we’re committed to supporting all learners and enabling them to access exam materials in the way that suits many diverse needs.
Working in collaboration with NASEN (National Association for Special Educational Needs), we carried out research between 2022 and 2024 about modified GCSE exam papers. We’ve been talking to students with additional access requirements to find out their experience to gain a better understanding of how they use modified papers so we can make further improvements to future modified papers.
Our aim is to support all learners, to help them achieve their best in exams, and to ensure every learner’s educational journey is as inclusive and accessible as possible. Real-life stories like those of Katherine, Arthur, Lina, Simon and the students from the Harris Federation inspire us to create a more inclusive, accessible and empowering educational environment.
Read these inspiring case studies for yourself
You can also get in touch at additional_requirements@pearson.com to discuss any special requirements that your students may have.
Please note student names have been changed to maintain confidentiality.
In October we launched our new customer support portal. The site has been designed to provide an improved experience for contacting our customer services teams via live chat, and for users to leverage our support article library to effectively resolve their queries.
We value your feedback to shape future developments, so it would be fantastic if you could please complete this short survey to tell us about your experiences using these features.
Art and Design
The Component 2 externally set assignments for Art and Design will be released:
- 2 January for GCSE Art and Design
- 1 February for A Level Art and Design
To support teachers with their planning and delivery, we have published a new Component 2 bitesize video:
Papers will also be available for secure download from the qualification course materials page:
- Edexcel GCSE Art and Design (2016) | Pearson qualifications
- Edexcel A level Art and Design 2015 | Pearson qualifications
Geography
GCSE Geography Teacher Survey
We’ve been continuously reviewing our geography assessments to ensure they are accessible to all students. We would be very grateful if you could complete this survey about our GCSE Geography exams, it should take no more than 5 minutes of your time. At the end of this survey there is an option to take part in future research. Thank you.
Languages
Prior to 2020, we ran local MFL network events. This was a chance for teachers to get together once a term to get support from one another, and Pearson, on delivering our qualifications. These typically ran face to face, 4-6 pm, in a local school.
We’re considering bringing back network events in 2025 and would like your opinions on whether these would be useful and how they would work best for you.
Please provide your feedback, thank you
Drama and Theatre
For GCSE Drama and A Level Drama and Theatre:
Component 2 Assessment Window – 6 January - 25 April 2025
- Centres reminded that live visits will take place from 1st February.
- Any assessment taking place in January will require digital submission via Learner Work Transfer.
- Text Submission Form should be completed no later than 6 weeks before planned examination date.
- Entries must be made at least 7 days before planned examination date.
Component 2 Examiner Allocations
- We are in the process of allocation examiners to centres, and examiners will be making contact with centres in December (A Level from 4 December / GCSE from 9 December).
- Teaching colleagues are advised to inform their exams officer as examiners will contact centres using the contact details registered on Edexcel Online.
Component 3: Live Theatre Statement
- All Centres are reminded that it is a requirement of the specification for all students to attend a live theatre production, and refer to a live theatre production for which they were a member of the audience for the Component 3: Live Theatre Evaluation.
- All Centres are required to complete and submit the Live Theatre Statement to confirm appropriate arrangements have been made.
- For any centres with exceptional extenuating circumstances that prevent students from attending a live theatre production, permission must be sought from drama.assessment@pearson.com to use a digital recording of a live theatre production.
- This applies to both UK and International centres.
Subject 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.
Yes please, take me to the sign- up 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 during September and early in the Autumn term.
Date |
Qualification |
Exam |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
6 Jan 25 |
GCE A level Drama 9DR0 & GCSE Drama 1DR0 02 |
Jun 25 |
Start of practical examination period |
8 Jan 25 |
GCSE English Language and Maths |
Nov 24 |
Restricted release of results to centres |
9 Jan 25 |
GCSE English Language and Maths |
Nov 24 |
Release of results to candidates |
10 Jan 25 |
Project Qualification |
Jan 25 |
Deadline to submit centre marks and moderation samples |
22 Jan 25 |
International GCSE |
Nov 24 |
Restricted release of results to centres |
23 Jan 25 |
International GCSE |
Nov 24 |
Release of results to candidates |
31 Jan 25 |
Edexcel Award & Project Qualification |
Jan 25 |
Deadline to submit special consideration requests |
31 Jan 25 |
GCSE Computer Science 1CP2 |
June 25 |
Programming Language Subset (PLS) available on our website |
31 Jan 25 |
All general qualifications |
June 25 |
Deadline to request modified papers |
For more information on key dates for post results services please visit our Post-results services key dates web page.
We have a number of Senior Examiner roles available for GCSE and A level Japanese and Greek. Please take a look at the information below and click on the links for further details.
Principal Examiner GCSE Japanese
Principal Examiner A level Japanese
Multi-factor authentication was successfully rolled out to nearly a quarter of a million Pearson Portal users last year. Although it has now become a standard way of accessing our systems, that we should all be familiar with, it can sometimes present challenges if a smart device is lost or replaced.
You can read more information, see a quick start guide and access FAQs and troubleshooting for our authenticator app in our Pearson Portal Authenticator support article.
