June 2025 International Science Qualification News
This update is for teachers of International GCSE and International A Level courses in biology, chemistry, physics and science. I recommend you also read the general science June update from my colleague Irine - see the link after the contents list below.
It's been great to see our new Facebook group grow over the past couple of months - see the link below if you haven't yet joined and would like to take up this opportunity to connect with other teachers, ask questions and share ideas.
This update contains a link to a feedback form for International A Level teachers, key dates for the summer, upcoming training opportunities, news of iPrimary and iLower Secondary assessment and examiner opportunities and some answers to FAQs.
As ever please don't hesitate to get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspect of our courses.
Best wishes,
Tim Lawrence
Pearson Edexcel Subject Advisor for International Science Qualifications
In this update:
- Key dates
- Sharing live exam materials
- Exam feedback surveys
- International Science teacher Facebook group
- IAL Science - your feedback
- iPLS Science - UK assessment and examiner opportunities coming soon
- FAQs from teachers of international science courses
- Training available - on-demand and future live events
| 24 June | Summer 2025 question paper released for International GCSE (IG) |
| 1 July | Summer 2025 question paper released for International A Level (IAL) |
| 15 July | Summer 2025 mark schemes released for IAL |
| 22 July | Summer 2025 mark schemes for IG |
| 14 August | IAL results to candidates |
| 19 August | Summer 2025 examiner reports released for IAL |
| 21 August | International GCSE results to candidates |
| 26 August | Summer 2025 examiner reports released for IG |
At this time of year, awarding organisations receive lots of reports about websites and social media accounts claiming to have 2025 live assessment material available for sale (exam papers, mark schemes). We wanted to take this opportunity to remind our centres that any student found to have accessed or participated in the sharing of 'leaked' examination material will receive sanctions. Help us to protect the integrity of our assessments by reporting these accounts. Contact us via pqsmalpractice@pearson.com
We hope the exam season is going well for you and your students.
As we come towards the end of the exam series, we would like you to share 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.
In March we launched our new Facebook group for teachers of Edexcel International GCSE and IAL science courses. At the time of writing this update it has grown to 99 members and is set to become a valuable channel of communication, both with myself and between teachers. Do consider joining if you haven't already!
Visit our Facebook group for teachers of International Science courses
We want your feedback! Your insights are crucial in reviewing our qualifications to better meet the needs of learners and teachers.
- What we want your feedback on for our IAL Sciences:
- Content & Topics: What works well, and what could be improved?
- Assessment Design: Are the exams, question types, duration, and grading fair?
- Potential Changes: What would you add, remove, or adjust?
- Practicals: For example, are they structured effectively with the right guidance?
- Progression Support: How can we better support students moving from IG to IAL?
Your input will help us make meaningful improvements—register your interest to take part and join the conversation today!
A number of independent schools in the UK have been teaching our International Primary and International Lower Secondary (equivalent to Key Stage 3) courses - collectively known as iPLS - for a number of years. The exams and qualifications associated with these courses have until now only been available to international schools, but this will change next year.
We will therefore be looking to recruit additional examiners for the iPLS qualification. Experience of teaching GCSE or International GCSE, A Level or International A Level science will be sufficient (there is no need to have taught the iPLS course). We will share links for applications shortly.
For an introduction to iPLS science see the guide below.
The questions below have been asked during training events recently, in our Facebook group or in emails to teachingscience@pearson.com:
Currently UK schools, whether independent or state funded, are only able to offer linear GCSE and A Level courses, which is why our International A Levels are not available to UK schools. There are therefore no plans currently to make the new modular International GCSE specifications available to UK schools.
Should the stance of the UK Department for Education regarding modular assessment change, then it is possible that this will change in the not-too-distant future. We will know more following the conclusion of the current Curriculum and Assessment Review in the autumn.
Yes, this was approved some time ago but is a technically challenging task so is taking some time to implement.
For any teachers unfamiliar with examWizard it is a free resource that allows teachers with an Edexcel Online login to search for past paper questions by topic and construct class tests, mock exams and practice question sets with mark schemes. The practical exam units for IAL have not been included due to the cost involved and lower demand, but as the demand has grown this has been approved.
We expect the papers to start appearing in the next few weeks and I will share in a future update when the process is complete.
The glossary on page 76 of the specification has this on significant figures:
"The number of SF used in recording the measurements depends on the resolution of the measuring instruments and should usually be the same as given in the instrument with the fewest SF in its reading."
On the next page a useful section on uncertainties begins, and includs the following:
"Results should be recorded to the resolution of the measuring instrument which means there will be a consistent number of decimal places for the readings for any one variable. If data has to be processed, these values should be recorded to a consistent number of significant figures which is usually 3 as this is what we can usually confidently plot on a graph. If data goes over a power of ten we would not penalise a mixture of 3 and 4 sf."
An exception to this rule concerns intermediate values in longer calculation questions. Rounding these to the number of significant figures that the final answer will be given in can lead to significant rounding errors. If possible best practice is to store exact values in a calculator, but if they need to be written down in rounded form students are best advised to include two or three additional sf to guard against rounding errors.
There are a number of free face-to-face training events for chemistry and physics teachers coming up in July and August, in Bangladesh for example.
A number of free and low-cost live online events have are now available to book onto for September, including "Getting Ready To Teach", "Understanding Assessment and Improving Delivery" and "Mastering Marking" courses for International GCSE and IAL Physics (these will be launched soon for Biology and Chemistry).
The Pearson Development Academy website is the place to look for upcoming and on-demand training events, including face-to-face events. The link below will take you to filtered lists for International GCSE and International A Level training.
Below are links to YouTube playlists featuring recordings of past online training events and 'on-demand' training. Those recent recordings which use exam materials from the past 12 months do not feature in these public playlists however. Teachers with Edexcel Online logins can access these by going to the relevant qualification web page, then looking in 'past training content' on the 'teaching and learning materials' page. Locked documents with links to unlisted videos of the recent training can be found there.
Subject advisor
Irine Muhiuddin and Tim Lawrence
UK and International Science
