This letter addresses grading and preparing for results day.

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 Wednesday 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).

Please do remember that you now need to use our MFA app to log into Edexcel Online and ResultsPlus. 

Get support for Pearson Portal Authenticator

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

ResultsPlus will help you to identify potential topics, skills and types of question where candidates struggled and this may support refinements to your teaching and learning approaches.

You may also find it helpful to understand how your candidates’ performance compares with class and national averages. 

This letter from the Chief Regulator includes a section on grading arrangements for this summer.

On Results Day, you may wish to find the 2024 grade boundaries for your subject on our Grade Boundaries page.

The A level Business 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, 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 13 December 2024.

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 26 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).

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of a review of marking, you may wish to appeal against the decision. We will allow the head of centre (or designated member of the centre’s senior management team or examinations manager) 30 calendar days from the receipt of the outcome of the review of marking, during which an appeal may be lodged

Appeals guidance

Applications for appeals may only be accepted from a head of centre (on behalf of a candidate or a group of candidates) or private candidates. 

GCSE Business network events - autumn term 2024

May/June 2025 timetable

Training

Onscreen exams rollout

International GCSE Business 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.

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.

Modular International GCSE

International GCSE Business is in the last group of subjects to make a modular route available to learners from September 2025.

This means that we will have both a modular and a linear route to achieve this qualification for centres outside the UK.

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 2025 with the first exams in May/June 2026.

November 2024 timetable

May 2025 timetable

A level Business network events - autumn term 2024

May/June 2025 timetable

Training

October 2024 exam series

January 2025 exam series - timetable

May/June 2025 timetable

October 2025 timetable

January 2026 provisional timetable

Onscreen exams rollout

IAL Business will have the first onscreen assessment available from 2026.

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

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.

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.

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

If you teach any of our Economics or BTEC qualifications, you may wish to check out the monthly updates.