March 2026 BTEC update for Business, Applied Law, Enterprise and Marketing

Colleges Week is a chance to celebrate the brilliant things colleges do, day in and day out to help people to upskill, retrain and support employers across innovation and skills, and to acknowledge the role they play as anchor institutions within their communities.

The theme for Colleges Week 2026 is Skills for All.  Every day, colleges equip people from all walks of life with the education, training, and skills they need to succeed. From young people starting out, to adults retraining, and apprentices learning in the workplace, colleges open doors and create opportunities.​

Colleges Week 2026 will will focus on a different group of learners each day, including: adult learners;  young people; apprentices; higher education; the college community and local area. 

New enhanced principal moderator reports with exemplar work 

From the March results day, we’re introducing a more detailed principal moderator report for BTEC Tech Awards, designed to give you clearer insight into performance and standards.  

You can now expect:

• more detailed commentary on how students performed across components 
• exemplar learner work, with moderator commentary, to help you see what the standard looks like in practice 
• common strengths and areas for development, so you can plan teaching, assessment and internal standardisation with confidence. 

These new reports combine the support offered in the previous principal moderator reports with the exemplar standardisation materials, so you get examples of learner work earlier and can see how they link to the themes of the report. You can still use previous series’ exemplar standardisation materials as well as the new principal moderator reports to support your internal standardisation. 

You’ll be able to download the principal moderator reports and exemplars from the relevant qualification page on our website on the 18 March results day.

We hope these richer insights make it easier for you and your teams to support students and prepare future cohorts.

 Don’t forget about the terminal rule 

The terminal assessment rule means students have to take their external assessment at the end of their qualification; i.e., the same series in which they'll certificate.

This means students must sit their internal assessments either before or in the same series as the external assessment. 

Read more about understanding the terminal rule 

Cash in for January results 

If you have students who sat their terminal assessment in January and don’t want to resit in the summer, don’t forget to submit a cash in for them on Edexcel Online to claim their certification, if you haven’t already.  

Find out more about cash-ins and certification 

Understanding your results 

Want to know more about how BTEC Tech Award results are awarded?

Our understanding results page goes through how results are calculated, how components contribute to the final qualification result, and where to find further support if you need to query or review a result.

 Understanding BTEC Tech Award results 

Need help? 

If you have any questions you can reach us via the Pearson support portal and we’ll be happy to help.   

We’ve created a new form to make applying for special considerations for internally assessed BTEC units quicker and easier. Make sure you save a copy and use it for all future special consideration applications for internal units.

What’s changed? 

This new form has more detailed instructions and dedicated sections for your rationale, alternative arrangements and grade profile, making it easier for you to provide the right evidence from the start and avoid any follow-up questions that delay the application.

You should submit all special considerations applications for internally assessed BTEC units by 30 June. Just email uk.special.requirements@pearson.com with an attached completed copy of the form.

If you have any questions about using the new form, special requirements, or anything else, we’re here to help. Get in touch via the Pearson support portal.

If you’re running BTEC external assessments, you want to find everything you need to know quickly and easily so that everything runs smoothly. We’ve made a new tool to help you do exactly that.  

We’ve now added the ability to filter to multiple programmes at the same time, so you can export just what you need all at once. 

The Centre Guides are available below.

The first document is the BTEC Centre Guide to Internal Assessment (although it is just labelled 'Document Title').

The latest information page from the JCQ includes

• guidance for teachers on malpractice
• presentations for teachers and learners
• an information sheet for teachers
• a poster for learners

We have published this support guide to aid  to enhance learner and centre confidence in selecting appropriate enterprises for both Component 1 and Component 2, as required by the PSA, each series

It provides structured examples of enterprise types within various industries that may be studied.

This is not an exhaustive list and serves as guidance for meeting the criteria of size, type, and ownership, which is outlined in the PSA ‘vocational context’, each series, and must be consulted before choosing the businesses to study.

The guide will be updated, when required, to reflect the demands of the PSA enterprise catergories.

If you want to catch up now with some marking and moderation advice before the new training sessions this month, check out this session recording at your leisure.

January 2026

May 2026

As we are now in March all centres should have been contacted by their allocated standard verifier.

Standards verification is an integral part of our quality assurance model, and its timely completion will help ensure the successful release of student results.
Standards verifiers will contact you in the first instance to introduce themselves, their role and the sampling process.

Please make sure you share this information with the relevant lead internal verifier(s), who will then be responsible for working with the standards verifier to get the process underway. 

If your centre has multiple subsites under one main number, (e.g. 12345 A & B), you’ll be allocated one standards verifier across all subsites. If you operate sites with different centre numbers, each site may have a separate standards verifier allocation. If you’re part of a consortium arrangement, you’ll see a single standards verifier allocation across all the sites in the consortium.

The deadline to share samples with your standards verifier is 15 May, although we recommend that this takes place at the earliest opportunity. This will be agreed with your standards verifier upon review of the assessment plan(s), so do check in with the lead IVs and ensure that the document has been shared.    

Remote samples for both Standard and Enhanced control measures must be submitted via the Learner Work Transfer platform, accessed via Edexcel Online.

We are here and ready to support you through this process. Contact us if you have any questions about the standards verification process, or if you have not yet received an SV allocation for any BTEC programme.   

The updated Centre Guide to Standards Verification will provide all the information you need in terms of sampling requirements and please share the new bitesize videos to Standards Verification with your curriculum teams. 

All exam papers and mark schemes are now accessible via the qualifications webpage for ALL external units from the January 2026 series.

• Unit 2         Developing a Marketing Campaign
• Unit 3         Personal and Business Finance
• Unit 6/12    Principles of Management
• Unit 7/6      Business Decision Making

Examiner reports will be available on the website on results day, 18th March.

Modified papers for learner with varying needs to access past examination materials, are now available to download from our website.

Tutor2u are running four in-person CPD courses supporting the externally-assessed units in the BTEC National.

All held in London, the dates are:

• Thursday February 4th 2026 | Success in Unit 2
• Wednesday February 5th 2026 | Success in Unit 3
• Friday February 6th 2026 | Success in Unit 6

Tutor2u now offer a new, FREE, self-paced CPD course to support all teachers new to the RQF (2016) programme. The course focuses on developing attendee confidence in the planning and delivery of the BTEC National Business Programme. 

Applied Law - January 2026

Applied Law - May 2026

Business - January 2026

Business - May 2026

Enterprise & Entrepreneurship - January 2026

Enterprise & Entrepreneurship - May 2026

Marketing - January 2026

Marketing - May 2026

Watch the training session held last month to support the marking of learner work for both Level 2 and Level 3.

We have a variety of pages devoted to keeping you updated with the specifications, teaching resources, sample assignment materials as well as all authorised assignment briefs and Pearson Set Assignments.

Also find access and support the Pearson Progress platform to help simplify the planning and assessment of BTEC qualifications

Find ot more about our work with strategic partners such as Liverpool Football Club and the British Esports Federation, amongst others, allowing us to maintain content relevance and global reach.

We have developed digital resources to support your delivery of our suite of BTEC International Level 3 qualifications and cover the mandatory and some of the more popular optional units. 

Our Study Texts have been thoroughly developed and feature international examples, scenarios and references to make them relevant across a broad range of geographical territories and support learning and teaching delivery.