General Qualifications Bulletin - UK - Issue - 70
Dear Colleague,
Welcome to the July qualifications bulletin. As the summer exam season concludes and we approach the end of another academic year, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone involved – senior leaders, heads of department, teachers, exams officers, teaching assistants, technicians, administrative staff, operations teams, and all others who have played a part. Your dedication and hard work have helped ensure a smooth and successful year.
Since the completion of the summer exams, we’ve received over 3.6 million scripts and marked more than 90 million individual items. We also saw a significant increase in onscreen assessments this summer – an encouraging sign as we expand onscreen options across more subjects in 2026.
A special thank you goes to our examiners. Each year, delivering a full exam series and issuing results on time is a tremendous effort across the education sector. Your commitment and professionalism are vital in making this happen, and we deeply appreciate your contribution.
In this edition, we’re pleased to launch The Pearson School Report 2025, which brings together insights from across the education community to highlight what truly matters in schools today. You can learn more and download your copy below.
We’re also inviting feedback on this year’s summer exams, sharing information to help you prepare for results day, and highlighting Ofqual’s new Understanding Grading: Toolkit for Schools and Colleges.
Looking ahead, our August bulletin will be published during the week beginning 11 August. This special edition will focus on results day, including details on post-results services, appeals, and everything you need to support your learners.
As the summer term closes, I wish you all a happy holiday period and well-earned rest.
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.
Hayley White
Vice President Assessment, Standards and Services
The Pearson School Report 2025 is here and bigger than ever! A record number of teacher, learner and expert voices have joined the conversation, including – for the very first time – those in college and home education.
They share their views on learning now and how it could evolve in the future – including candid opinions on curriculum, assessment, AI, life skills, creativity and more.
Before you finish for the summer break, have you given us your feedback on this year’s exam 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 exams in the May/June 2025 series, we are 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 this survey.
With the end of term in sight you’ll be turning your attention to the upcoming results days. As always, we’ll be here to support you with post-results services and answering any queries you may have.
Once you’ve received your students results you can use our post-results services to gain a better understanding of their performance:
ResultsPlus - our online results analysis tool providing you with a detailed breakdown of student performance on each question at individual student, class or cohort level.
Find out more, watch a short video, and set up your ResultsPlus account ahead of results day
ResultsPlus Group Analysis - 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. Plus, it 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.
Access to Scripts* - available from results day, this 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.
You can also gain a rich source of information, enabling detailed analysis, providing insights and visibility that performance data alone cannot provide.
Read more about Access to Scripts
Access to Scripts availability - the Access to Scripts service will be removed for most qualifications where work has been uploaded to the Learner Work Transfer portal from the summer 2025 series.
This means you will no longer have to wait for our processing team to respond to any access to script copy (ATSC) requests with the examiner’s mark breakdown to support any review of marking decisions.
From learner results day, the Learner Work Transfer portal will be available for you to view learner work previously submitted and which the examiner has based their marks on.
You can access the breakdown of marks for individual questions on the learner material via ResultsPlus.
Read more about Access to Scripts and Learner Work Transfer
Only Edexcel Online users with Exam Viewer permission can access the Access to Scripts portal. Exams officers can assign this permission, so please ensure teachers who need access request it before the end of term, to be fully prepared 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.
Post-results fees and key dates – Summer 2025
Please take a look at the fees for all our post-results services and our post-results key dates for summer 2025.
Fees for post-results services (from 1 August 2025 to 31 July 2026)
Post-results key dates
Do take a look at Ofqual’s understanding grading: toolkit for schools and colleges. It provides clear explanations and resources answering common questions about how exam papers are marked, how grade boundaries are set and how the quality of a student’s work in their exams determines the grade they get.
Ofqual’s understanding grading: toolkit for schools and colleges
Ofqual has also published two new updates:
Message to school and college leaders: understanding GCSE, AS and A level grading
Waiting for exam results can be nerve-wracking for many students. We’ve got 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.
We’re running General Qualifications Results Special online events in July and August.
Thursday 10 July 14:00 – 15:00 (BST)
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.
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.
To help you have as smooth a results day as possible, we’ve created some general guidance for essential results processes.
Take a look at our Essential Information EO Support: Results Days 2025
Results Special - Exams Officer Update live sessions
We’re running General Qualifications Results Special online events in July and August.
Thursday 10 July 14:00 – 15:00 (BST)
Monday 4 August 14:00 – 15:00 (BST)
Book your place now
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.
Cyber Security
Do take a look at our cyber security webpage and watch our short training video. 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.
As teachers and Heads of departments, you may not have had to access our secure systems for some time, with the next time you need to do this being on learner results days in August. We’d like to take this opportunity to remind all users of systems such as Edexcel Online and ResultsPlus, that there is now a requirement to authenticate via an app on a smart phone in order to access these systems.
If you haven't accessed these platforms for some time, we would urge you to do so before finishing for the summer, so we can work with you to resolve any issues and avoid any delays in access on results days.
You can get additional support for registering a device and general troubleshooting in our Pearson Portal Authenticator support article.
Art and Design
Moderator report bitesize videos
Moderator Reports provide feedback on the accuracy of internal assessment at your centre and advise you on suggested improvements. These will be accessible from results day.
For GCSE and A Level Art and Design, we have created a bitesize video to support your interpretation of the feedback within your centre moderation report.
GCSE Resource - Moderator Report (E9) - YouTube
A Level Resource - Moderator Report (E9) - YouTube
Languages
Updates to GCSE (2024) French, German and Spanish
In April 2025 we communicated that the Department for Education had made updates to the Subject Content, which were published in February 2025.
We have updated our specifications in response to these changes, and, in addition, we have made some improvements to our Sample Assessment Materials in response to teacher feedback, to provide additional clarity and further improve accessibility for all students.
All the changes above have been approved by Ofqual.
For more detailed information please see the news update from our Subject Advisor, Rebecca Waker.
Read the GCSE Languages update
Psychyology
Additional time for Edexcel A level Psychology Papers 1 and 2
We’ve listened carefully to feedback from A level Psychology teachers and students. While we are not making any changes to the specification or the structure of the exams at this time, we are pleased to confirm an important update to the timing of Papers 1 and 2.
Following Ofqual approval, we’re happy to announce that from the June 2026 exam series onwards, the time allowed for both Paper 1 and Paper 2 will increase to 2 hours and 15 minutes. Paper 3 will remain at 2 hours, as it carries fewer marks (80 rather than 90).
All other aspects of the papers will remain unchanged. This means you can continue to use existing past papers for mocks and practice, simply adjusting the time allowed for Papers 1 and 2.
We hope this change will help reduce exam-day pressure and give students more opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and understanding.
Read the news update from our Subject Advisor, Tim Lawrence
Geography
Improving the exam experience for students in May/June 2026 and beyond
We continue to listen to your feedback and analyse assessment performance data for our GCSE Geography exams. As a result, we have received approval from Ofqual to increase the duration of the following exam papers by 15 minutes, starting from May/June 2026:
- GCSE Geography A Paper 1: 1GA0/01 - The Physical Environment - change from 1 hr 30 mins to 1 hr 45 mins
- GCSE Geography B Paper 2: 1GB0/02 – UK Geographical Issues - change from 1 hr 30 mins to 1 hr 45 mins
This change will support students in these two papers that have several 8-mark questions requiring the use and interpretation of resources, giving them more time to engage with these resources, plan and check answers during their exam.
There is no change to the timings of the other GCSE Geography exam papers. GCSE Geography A Paper 3 and B Paper 3 already have time included in the exam duration to allow for reading and analysis of the resources.
Read the news update from our Subject Advisor, Jon Wolton
Subjct 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.
We're delighted that so may of you are now following us on Facebook. Join us to hear about 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
Psychology
Join Tim Lawrence's Psychology group
UK Sciences
Join Irine Muhiuddin’s UK Sciences group
International Sciences
Join Tim Lawrence’s International Sciences group
GCSE English
Join Clare Haviland’s GCSE English group
A level English
Join Clare Haviland’s A level English group
International GCSE English
Join Clare Haviland’s International GCSE English group
Drama and Theatre
Join Paul Webster's Drama and Theatre group
Geography
Join Jon Wolton’s Geography group
Statistics
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
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.
Date |
Qualification |
Exam series |
Description |
|---|---|---|---|
13 Aug 25 |
GCE A & AS level and all other level 3 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Restricted release of results to centres |
14 Aug 25 |
GCE A & AS level and all other level 3 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Release of results to candidates |
20 Aug 25 |
GCSE, Int GCSE and all other level 1 & 2 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Restricted release of results to centres |
21 Aug 25 |
GCSE, Int GCSE and all other level 1 & 2 general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Release of results to candidates |
31 Aug 25 |
All general qualifications |
Jun 25 |
Deadline to request early certification |
Don’t forget, you can also stay organised with our new interactive Qualifications Key Dates Calendar. It can also be downloaded and synchronised seamlessly with your own personal calendar, such as MS Outlook.
Take a look at the calendar now
For more information on key dates for post results services please visit our Post-results services key dates web page.
At the beginning of July we published our general qualifications fees for the 2025/26 academic year to help with your planning. We know that school and college budgets are stretched, but we will always aim to keep fee increases to a minimum and provide the best support possible.
