General Qualifications Bulletin - UK - Issue - 68

In 2024, we imposed sanctions on more than 600 students for bringing unauthorised materials into the exam room. This includes electronic devices, written notes and other unpermitted material. Students must only have access to the materials stated on the front of the exam paper, the stationery list or the specification for that subject. 

Make sure you know what your students can and can’t take into the exam room with them. There are #NoShortcuts

You can now submit your learners’ marks and samples for the summer series non-examined internal assessments. The deadline to upload both marks and sample learner work is 15 May 2025, but we would encourage you to complete this well ahead of the deadline.

Head over to Edexcel Online to submit marks and view selected learners for moderation. You’ll then upload learner work using the Learner Work Transfer portal. 

Find guidance, how-to videos, and FAQs via the Learner Work Transfer index.

Be ready to provide additional samples
As part of our usual moderation process, your moderator or Pearson may request further learner work or documents. If contacted, please upload these through Learner Work Transfer as soon as possible.

Art and Design
Please note that the moderation window for visiting Art & Design begins on 15 May 2025. Centre marks must be uploaded no later than two days before your scheduled moderator visit. If additional learner work is required the moderator will request this during the centre visit.

Need more help? 
We’ll be in touch directly with all centres that have summer internal assessment entries to offer more guidance. You can also reach out to us via the Pearson Support Portal.

Looking ahead to the remainder of the summer series, here’s an update on when you will be receiving exam materials.

You can expect to start receiving standard and modified question papers from the following dates:

• Edexcel Award exams: from 23 April onwards.
• General qualification exams taking place from 6 May and up until 20 May: from 23 April onwards.
• General qualification exams taking place from 21 May and up until 9 June: from 9 May onwards.
• General qualification exams taking place from 10 June onwards: from 31 May onwards.

You will be able to track your standard question paper dispatch for General Qualifications via Edexcel Online.

Please ensure that appropriate colleagues are aware that question papers will be arriving soon and what they need to do with them. Question papers need to be carefully checked to ensure that you have received what you were expecting and that all question paper packs are in good condition. You should report any issues relating to question papers as soon as possible.

Whilst the vast majority of question paper deliveries marked for the attention of Exams Officers are made during normal centre hours, on rare occasions, a courier may attempt delivery when the main reception has closed, so papers cannot be stored securely. We encourage centres to inform staff to refuse these deliveries, and the papers will be redelivered.

Further information, guidance and tools can be found in: 

• Sections 1-2 of the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations
• JCQ-Key-Reminders-Infographic-updated-2024.pdf
• JCQ-Infographic-Paper-Journey-Final-version.pdf
• Exam Materials Receipt Log – Point of Delivery
• Exam Materials Receipt Log – Exams Officer 
• An interactive training session on question paper security is available on our on-demand e-Learning page.

The yellow label service will be in place for this summer series for centres in England to return scripts. Please read the yellow label service guidance for exams officers on the government website.

Attendance registers
You can expect to start receiving attendance registers and labels from 23 April onwards.

Availability of Electronic Copies of Question Papers
Our goal is to ensure that your centre's exams run as smoothly and as stress-free for centre staff as possible. To help us achieve this goal, we would appreciate you making checks outlined below well ahead of your centre's first exam. 

If your centre requires access to electronic copies of question papers in the summer 2025 exam series, for example if you make a late entry or need to print onto coloured paper, they will be available to download on the Secure Download Service (SDS). This also includes audio files and transcripts for listening exams. Our recommendation is that a minimum of two members of centre staff have SDS included in their Edexcel Online (EOL) profile.

If your exam staff do not already have SDS added to their EOL profile, they will need to contact us and be available to receive a secure call-back from our Customer Services Specialist on your centre's main telephone number. Once this call has been performed successfully, access to the SDS platform will be added to their account.  

Please see the SDS support guide for further details.

If you have centre exams staff without access to SDS, they should contact us as soon as possible, and well ahead of the summer exam series so that we can update their account. 

If you make any entries a week or less before the date of the exam, hard copies will not be sent to your centre. You will need to print the required amount of question papers from an electronic copy.

Electronic copies of question papers will be available via SDS if you are making additional entries. If you are making an entry for the first time this series for a new subject/paper, please contact us to request the question paper to be sent via (Secure File Transfer) SFT. 

It is important that all exam staff can access SDS as we will not be able to send electronic question papers via Secure File Transfer (SFT) on the day of the exam without a secure call back to your centre’s main telephone number first. This could result in logistical challenges for your centre at a critical time in the day - with staff required to move between an exam hall and your reception/ exam office. This may result in delays, including potentially impacting the start time of the exam in question. To avoid this please make checks to your exam staff EOL profiles (and specifically SDS) today.

Please ensure that all staff involved in the handling of electronic assessment materials and question papers have familiarised themselves with section 4, Arrangements for handling secure electronic materials, of the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations (ICE).

Our EO Support: Spring & Summer Essential Information article is now available to help guide you through the busy months ahead.

Exams Officer Update live sessions

We have a number of training events taking place in May and June where we’ll go through news, updates and processes for the summer exam series and give you the opportunity to ask any general questions.

Register for this and other upcoming events. 

• Thursday 1 May 2-3 pm
• Thursday 12 June 2-3 pm
  

If you are unable to attend these events, you can find recordings of previous events and links to sign up in our support article: Exams Officer Update UK Webinar Events 2024/2025. 

Question paper security 
We’d like to remind you how important question paper security remains to the smooth running of exams in your centre and for the wider cohort.

Please take a look at our bitesize on-demand training on question paper security. This training module covers the importance of question paper security, how to securely handle question papers, from receiving the papers right through to returning the completed scripts to Pearson, and how to recognise and report a question paper breach.

Cyber Security 
Whether you’re a new or experienced Edexcel Online user, it's important that we are all aware of the possible threats to our collective data. We would encourage all exams staff, new and old, to visit our cyber security webpage and watch our short training video.

Visit our Cyber Security webpage.

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 the next few weeks.