Edexcel A level, International A Level and International GCSE Economics | Pearson qualifications

November 2024 Economics update

Fri Nov 01 17:00:00 UTC 2024

Welcome to this November 2024 update!

I hope that you have been able to spend some time away from work during the half-term. This update has been simplified to reduce the content and to highlight the links to the delivery and assessment support pages for the four qualifications. These pages can serve as useful reference points if you are teaching one of our qualifications.

I hope that you are able to find useful information in this update.

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Key dates

Date Activity
15 November EBEA Student Conference
13 December Last date to use the Access To Scripts service via Script Viewer.

EBEA Student Economics Conference

Friday 15 November 2024, 10.30am to 1pm

The EBEA has organised a free online conference for students and teachers, hosted by The Bank of England. Accessible online, both live and on demand, each session will aim to bring economics to life, illustrating how economic understanding can help society tackle its most challenging problems.

Speakers include Tim Harford, Dr Swati Dhingra, Rupal Patel, and Mark Gregory.


Our UK qualifications

Econ A squirrels

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A level Economics A
Delivery support
Assessment support

Delivery support focuses on free support materials, networking and both free and paid-for resources.  There are links to Pearson, Hodder and other publishers.

Econ B trees

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A level Economics B

Delivery support
Assessment support

Assessment support focuses on assessment news and tools, support in understanding the command verbs, and information about grade boundaries and statistics.

Recent case studies for Economics A  

New case studies based on articles from the FT have been written for you to use with your students.  These have up-to-date content and also have suggested answers.

  Case study Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4
1 Coffee 1.2.6 Price determination
1.2.8 Consumer and producer surplus
1.2.3 Price elasticity of demand
 
    4.3.2 Factors influencing growth and development: volatility of commodity prices
2 Electric cars   2.1.4 Balance of payments   4.1.6 Restrictions on free trade
Rent controls 1.2.7 Price mechanism
1.4.1 Government intervention in markets
1.4.2 Government failure
     
4 UK public sector borrowing   2.5.3 Public sector finances   4.5.1 Public expenditure

There are also some other case studies in the dropbox folder and the Files  section of the Facebook group.


Recent case studies for Economics B

The FT case studies above have been mapped to the Economics A specification but they could work for Economics B teaching as well.  The command verbs used in the exam-style questions would need to be changed.

New case studies with up-to-date content have been added to both the dropbox folder and to the Files  section of the Facebook group.


Schology

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Schology is an app and website posting 3x weekly teacher-written news articles specifically through the lens of A-Level Economics.

The articles directly fuse specific syllabus topics with current affairs, continually exposing students to top-level application and immersing them in real-world economics.

Articles are accompanied by supporting graphs, including analysis, in addition to flashcards, polls, and the AO Trainer.

The AO Trainer allows teachers to attach essay questions to articles, prompting students to practise the application of real-world data from the article in their essays. When writing, students can self-highlight their AOs in different colours, ensuring that they think about exam technique as well as facilitating easy marking for the teacher.

Through the platform, teachers can also keep their students accountable by tracking the engagement and reading habits of each individual student in their classroom.

ResultsPlus analysis for the 2024 Economics A papers.

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ResultsPlus analysis for the 2024 Economics B papers.

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May/June 2025 timetable - Economics A

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May/June 2025 timetable - Economics B

2025 May TT

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Our International qualifications

IAL Econ trees

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Delivery support focuses on free support materials, networking and both free and paid-for resources.  There are links to Pearson, Hodder and other publishers.

IG Bus

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International GCSE Economics
Delivery support
Assessment support

Assessment support focuses on assessment news and tools, support in understanding the command verbs, and information about grade boundaries and statistics.

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.


Course planner and schemes of work for Modular International GCSE Economics

To help your planning we now have both a course planner and a scheme of work for the modular International GCSE in Economics.


Onscreen exams rollout

International GCSE Economics started onscreen assessment in 2024.

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

The Pearson onscreen sandbox (test environment) gives students all the practice they need to explore the platform’s functionality and build their confidence before they sit their exams onscreen.

It’s easy to register for an account: just click on Register for an account and enter your email address as your user ID.

The materials are digitised in the same platform as the mock and high-stakes onscreen exams and are a good opportunity for teachers and students to get to know the platform and functionality available.

Whilst the user experience mirrors what can be expected from the mocks and high-stakes assessments, please note that any solutions submitted through the sandbox environment by candidates will not be saved.

International GCSE Economics

November 2024 timetable

IG_Econ_Nov_2024_TT

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May 2025 timetable

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IAL Economics

January 2025 timetable

IAL Econ 2025 Jan TT

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May/June 2025 timetable

IAL Econ 2025 May TT

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October 2025 timetable

IAL Econ 2025 May TT

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January 2026 provisional timetable

IAL Econ 2026 Jan prov  TT

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Other information

Secondary schools around the world can get free online access to the Financial Times, with articles, games and multi-media content on many topics to enrich studies and improve exam performance in business, economics, politics, geography, psychology and other topics.

The FT can help strengthen global and media literacy, and offer insights into preparation for further study and the world of work. It also has competitions, an online work experience programme and teacher selected articles with suggested questions, alongside resources developed by Pearson/Edexcel.

Details at www.ft.com/schools . A staff member can check if their school is already registered and to create student or staff accounts at www.ft.com/schoolsarefree


We’re excited to announce the launch of our new Pearson Edexcel Facebook page, designed to help and support you with the teaching and delivery of our UK qualifications. We’ll be sharing 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.

The Outstanding Pearson Learner Awards (OPLAs) recognise and celebrate the highest achieving learners at International GCSE and International A level.

App-based multi-factor authentication for all users of Edexcel Online was introduced in December, to protect your data and maintain the integrity of our assessments.

This replaced the existing web based multi-factor authentication, and became mandatory on 5 December. All users require access to a smart phone device to receive a verification code to access Edexcel Online.

Based on feedback received this graphic was created to answer some common questions.

MFA graphic

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Additional guidance on using app based MFA to access the Pearson Portal can be found in the Pearson Portal Authenticator support article.

Multi factor authentication was rolled out to nearly a quarter of a million Pearson Portal users last year. Although it has now become a standard way of accessing our systems, it can sometimes present challenges if a smart device is lost or replaced.

You can read more information, see a quick start guide and access FAQs and troubleshooting for our authenticator app in our Pearson Portal Authenticator support article.

There is a new support page for you to bookmark – General qualifications assessment support. Here we’ll share news information and updates from Ofqual, the Department for Education (DfE), the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) and Pearson, relating to the exams and assessments for our GCSE, AS and A level qualifications.

We’ll be updating it regularly so you know you’ve got all the latest announcements, news, support materials and updates to enable you to teach our qualifications, help your students with their assessments and post-results support, to enable them to progress.

If you teach any of our Business, Enterprise or Esports qualifications, you may wish to check out the monthly updates.

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