July 2023 Economics update

You may wish to check your access rights in your Edexcel Online account so that you can access the information you need on results days.

Results files and their contents are confidential to the Head of Centre, examinations office staff and senior members of the teaching staff at the centre. Therefore, the Edexcel Online ‘Results’ profile is only granted to these roles, as it allows access to results files on the Wednesdays before results days.

Other teachers that need access to view results should be given ResultsPlus access, as this is designed to meet the needs of teachers to view and analyse the results for their own students. Results are available through ResultsPlus for teachers on the Thursday results days.

You may also wish to ask your Exams Officer to tick 'Exam viewer' in your Edexcel Online profile in case you want to download candidate scripts from results day (having obtained the candidates' consent first).

ResultsPlus is an online results analysis tool that gives you a detailed breakdown of your students’ performance in Pearson Edexcel exams.

ResultsPlus provides detailed analysis of your learners' performance and will help you to identify potential topics, skills and types of questions where students may need to develop their learning further.  You may find it helpful to understand how your students’ performance compares with class and Pearson Edexcel national averages and to gather some insight data that may support effective teaching and learning approaches.

We’ve also got our ResultsPlus Group Analysis service. 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, and can also be used to analyse your mock exam results, making this service a valuable tool for use throughout the academic year.

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 and be ready for results day.  

Back in September 2022, Ofqual announced what we were to expect in relation to grade boundaries for the 2023 exams.

Read the Ofqual article

On Results Day, you may wish to find the 2023 grade boundaries for your subject on our Grade Boundaries page.

The A level maximum mark is 335 as this reflects the different weightings of the three A level papers. All three papers are out of 100 but Papers 1 and 2 have a 35% weighting whereas Paper 3 has a 30% weighting. This means that the marks you see are adjusted marks and not raw marks.

The conversion works by multiplying Paper 1 and 2 marks by 1.1725 and the Paper 3 mark by 1.005.

If you would like to see the cumulative percentage of candidates at each grade boundary as a percentage of the total cohort, you will need to visit the Grade Statistics Page.
 

The Access to Scripts 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.

The Access to Scripts service provides a rich source of information, enabling detailed analysis to inform teaching and learning and support students and giving insights and visibility that performance data alone cannot provide.

The portal can only be accessed by Edexcel Online users who have the 'Exam Viewer' profile ticked on Edexcel Online. Your exams officer gives teachers access to 'Exam Viewer'.

Please note that these scripts do not contain examiners' annotations.

If scripts have been marked 'traditionally' (i.e. not online), you will need to request them, free of charge, by the published deadline, via the Post Results section of Edexcel Online as in previous exam series.

Access To Scripts via Script Viewer is available from Results Day until 15 December 2023.

Candidate consent is required before requesting script copies, as per section 6.2.1 of the JCQ's Post-Results Services guide. Candidate consent can only be obtained after results have been published.

Candidate consent forms can be found in Appendix B of the JCQ Post results Services document.
 

Review of marking of externally assessed components (Service 2)

This is a check that our examiners have marked externally assessed components correctly and includes:

• a clerical check (Service 1)
• a review of marking of units/components by a senior examiner

You can ask us to review the marking of exam papers for individual candidates and the results for each candidate will be reported separately. This service isn't available for internally assessed/externally moderated coursework components.

Candidates’ marks or grades can go up, down or stay the same.

The deadline for completion is within 20 calendar days of receiving the request.

To get a copy of the reviewed exam paper, you should request an Access to Script (ATS) service at the same time as submitting the Service P2 request. There is a fee for this additional service.

The deadline for us to receive your request for a review of marking is 28 September.

Centres must obtain written candidate consent for clerical re-checks and
reviews of marking, as with these services candidates’ marks and subject grades
may be lowered. Candidate consent must be obtained after the publication of results.

Candidates must be informed that their marks and subject grades could go
down as well as up and must provide their written consent before a request is
submitted. (A suggested form for centres to use is included as Appendix A of the JCQ Post-results Guide).  

Three-Day Course for Teachers New to Economics

This course is a serious attempt to prepare teachers to deliver Economics for the first time. It includes direct instruction on 8 ‘toolkit’ topics such as market failure, AD/AS analysis, monetary and development economics. We divide delegates into 2 groups: boffins and beginners. Run by expert economics teachers including Ian Marcouse.

The 2022 Memory Stick contained 800MB of classroom materials. The course is perfect for:

· Business teachers starting to teach Economics for the first time (or first time in ages)

· Teachers switching from other subjects (in recent years, from French, from Geography and from P.E.!)

· Fresh graduates, PGCE or Teach Firsters who need to understand the exact right level for high grades

July 3rd – 5th 2023: Cavendish Conferences, Central London or Online (run over 5 days) or Mem stick only.

How to book:

Email: marcouse@btopenworld.com. Price: £399. Memory stick only is £199. All items VAT-free. Full BACS and company details are included on every invoice.

The Economics Factory now has digital versions of the Anforme A level Economics A books

Visit the Economics Factory
 

This is the provisional timetable.

Any feedback on provisional timetables should be sent to timetables@pearson.com.

Three-Day Course for Teachers New to Economics

This course is a serious attempt to prepare teachers to deliver Economics for the first time. It includes direct instruction on 8 ‘toolkit’ topics such as market failure, AD/AS analysis, monetary and development economics. We divide delegates into 2 groups: boffins and beginners. Run by expert economics teachers including Ian Marcouse.

The 2022 Memory Stick contained 800MB of classroom materials. The course is perfect for:

· Business teachers starting to teach Economics for the first time (or first time in ages)

· Teachers switching from other subjects (in recent years, from French, from Geography and from P.E.!)

· Fresh graduates, PGCE or Teach Firsters who need to understand the exact right level for high grades

July 3rd – 5th 2023: Cavendish Conferences, Central London or Online (run over 5 days) or Mem stick only.

How to book:

Email: marcouse@btopenworld.com. Price: £399. Memory stick only is £199. All items VAT-free. Full BACS and company details are included on every invoice.

The Economics Factory now has digital versions of the Anforme A level Economics B books

Visit the Economics Factory
 

This is a provisional timetable

Any feedback on provisional timetables should be sent to timetables@pearson.com.

Module 1 focuses on teaching the course and will give you an understanding of the content of the qualification and how to cover it, course/lesson planning, understanding the assessment and preparing students for it, and a brief overview of support from Pearson available to teachers.

Module 2 will give you an understanding of how the content is assessed by reviewing the assessment objectives and mark schemes, practise applying the mark schemes using exemplar student work, as well as an understanding of how marks were determined.

In Module 1, delegates will:

- Be given an understanding of the assessment objectives

- Analyse recent question papers and learn which types of question match the different assessment objectives

- Consider how the level based questions are marked, using mark schemes and sample student responses

In Module 2, delegates will:

- Be given an understanding of the structure of the course and assessment and an overview of the assessment objectives

- Consider how the points-based questions are marked, using mark schemes and sample student responses

Both modules will:

- Discuss strategies for teaching the IAL Economics course by networking and discussing best practice and sharing ideas with other teachers

- Review the support Pearson offers for the qualification

This is a provisional timetable

Any feedback on provisional timetables should be sent to timetables@pearson.com.

International GCSE Economics  will have the first onscreen assessment available from 2024.

Make sure you’re signed up for the latest onscreen assessment news to find out how to register your school.

International GCSE Economics is in the first group of subjects to make a modular route available to learners from September 2023.

This means that we will have both a modular and a linear route to achieve this qualification.

If you are happy with the linear approach, there is no need to move to the modular route; our linear International GCSEs will continue to be offered and taken widely by learners around the world. ​

However, if you believe the modular route will be of benefit to your learners, this will be available from September 2023 with the first exams in May/June 2024.

This online training is designed for teachers who are new to delivering the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Economics specification.

This training will give you an understanding of the content of the qualification and how to cover it, course/lesson planning, understanding the assessment and preparing students for it, and a brief overview of support from Pearson available to teachers.

This online training is designed for teachers who are delivering the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE Economics specification.

This training will give you an understanding of how assessments are structured for the qualification and how your teaching can be adapted to help your students’ performance on examination papers. The training is comprised of two 'standalone' modules which are booked separately.

We're introducing a regular International GCSE November series, first running in November 2023. The November series is being introduced to best meet the needs of students requiring International GCSE exam opportunities outside of the full May/June series, and it will replace the existing January series from 2024. This will result in just May/June and November series going forward for International GCSE.

Why are we moving to a November exam series?

Due to the pandemic, circumstances meant that we needed to follow a November International GCSE exam series in 2020, 2021 and 2022. As the November series seemed to be well received, we consulted schools to understand whether there was a preference for a permanent November exam series or reverting to January. 

November was the preferred option for most schools; not just for resits, but also for learners studying on a January–December academic year.

Please take a look at the November 2023 timetable below.

This is a provisional timetable

Any feedback on provisional timetables should be sent to timetables@pearson.com.