Head of Centre Declaration

Once you have submitted your final teacher assessed grades, the Head of Centre will need to submit a declaration to us. This is completed in Edexcel Online and should only be done when all of the grades for your general qualifications have been submitted and checked.

JCQ Guidance

JCQ have released comprehensive guidance on the process for deriving grades this summer. 

Quality Assurance Stages 1 & 2

On behalf of the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), Pearson has been sharing confirmation with centres where they have met the necessary requirement for their centre policy.

In a small number of cases Awarding Bodies are still reviewing policies so please do not worry if you haven’t heard from us yet. The non-receipt of this confirmation should not delay preparations for submitting teacher assessed grades.

Where further information has been requested by us, please ensure that you provide this as quickly as possible.

Quality Assurance Stage 3 - Submitting Evidence

As previously advised by Ofqual, Awarding Organisations will review all grades as part of their quality assurance processes. Once grades are received, every centre will be asked to provide samples of the evidence used to determine the grades for their students. Awarding Organisations will request at least the following evidence:

• one A level subject (at least five students)
• two GCSE subjects, one of which is likely to be either English language or maths (at least five students for each ).

Centres that offer only A levels or only GCSEs will be asked to submit only work for those qualifications. Centres will be told which A warding Organisation they need to submit to, as the upload process may vary slightly across organisations.

The selected sample for your centre will be communicated via email from 21 June and needs to be submitted within 48 hours. We understand the pressure this places on centres and want to make sure that the process is as quick and efficient as possible, so we will be asking that evidence is provided in a digital format.

We will be releasing additional functionality for the submission of evidence to Pearson. All users within your centre that have the ‘Capture’ profile on Edexcel Online will be able to upload evidence via the same portal that you submitted your TAGs.

When accessing the TAG Portal, you will be presented with a new ‘Sample Upload’ menu item. On this page you will be presented with a list of the selected subjects and students against which you will be able to upload your sample files.

Further detailed guidance on the process for this, together with step-by-step instructions and the range of file types allowed will be published early next week so that you can familiarise yourself ahead of the window for submission of evidence.

On 8 June Ofqual and the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) published their guidance for appeals in 2021. These are important documents that outline the processes that will be in place for this summer’s appeals process.

Ofqual Statutory guidance: appeals under the GQAA regulatory framework

JCQ A guide to appeals processes Summer 2021 series

You might find it helpful to start with the introduction for Heads of centre and senior leaders, at the start of the JCQ document, which highlights some activities which could be completed before the end of term to help reduce the number of appeals and to help ensure the appeals process runs smoothly.

• Apprendix F contains a checklist of actions which centres might wish to use to help reduce the number of appeals on results day.
• Appendix C contains a list of the evidence which Awarding Organisations will need in the event of an appeal, and which centres might want to review now to ensure that all the documentation that will be needed is readily available.

You can also take a look at our overview video on the appeals process for this summer.

Further information can be found on our Appeals summer 2021 web page, including information on the appeals process and guidance for our international qualifications.

Appeals summer 2021 page

The provisional timetables for UK GCSE and GCE qualifications in October and November can now be found on our website. See link below. These are subject to consultation and we will let you know when the final timetables are completed. If you have any feedback, please contact us through the Pearson Support Page by the Monday 21 June.

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) have also published their key dates document for the exceptional Autumn series.

Centres should note that we, along with other awarding bodies, will only be offering AS Biology, Chemistry, Further Mathematics, Mathematics and Physics this autumn.

The timetable for the standard GCSE November series, GCSE English Language and Mathematics, was confirmed in December 2020 and will not be changing.

Provisional timetables

Provisional dates for GCSE and A level autumn series exams are as below. 

• 11 October, AM - A level D&T 9DT0 01
• 18 November, PM - GCSE D&T 1DT0 (1A,1B,1C,1D,1E,1F)