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Dear Centre,

We hope you have enjoyed your summer holidays. We are writing to you with some important information regarding new BTEC Tech Awards for first teach from September 2022 to make sure you are all set to deliver. If you don’t find what you need here, we are happy to support.  You can get in touch here.

UK schools who have offered any Pearson Edexcel GCSEs in the last three academic years will be automatically approved to deliver BTEC Tech Awards 2022 across all subject areas, therefore no further action is required.
UK schools that offer BTEC Tech Awards or BTEC Firsts, but not Pearson Edexcel GCSEs, or offer them alongside GCSEs with another awarding organisation, will need to fill out a fast-track approval form. 

This will take up to five working days to process, dependant on internal checks. For fast-track approval, please contact us.

Other UK providers that wish to offer theses qualifications will need to submit a full application, including a JCQ Centre Approval application if not already JCQ inspected (CCEA Centre Approval in Northern Ireland, WJEC Centre Approval in Wales).

Registrations for all new BTEC Tech Award qualifications are now available to centres meeting the above approval criteria via EDI or Edexcel Online. If making registrations using Edexcel Online, you will find the BTEC Tech Awards from September 2022 as a separate listing under the ‘Select Qualification’ dropdown menu. You can find full guidance on our Knowledge Base. 

The first Pearson-Set Assignments (PSAs) for internally assessed components will be released on 3 October (1 September for Performing Arts) for moderation in December 2022 to January 2023. As the internal assessments are now moderated within the series, entries must be made for learners wishing to sit the assessment in that series (entry deadlines can be found in the Key Dates Schedule). 

Entries can be made from 5 September via EDI, and via Edexcel Onlinelater this month.

Please note that the first assessment series is intended to facilitate those learners who have been taught a sufficient portion of the content for the component to contend with the assessment, such as those who have been taught from Year 9. Please consider carefully when deciding whether to enter learners for the initial assessment.

You will be able to access the PSAs using an Edexcel Online password even if your learners are not being entered for the series. This will provide an opportunity to use the first released PSAs as mock assessments to give learners experience and build their confidence before sitting in a later series.

Refer to the Key Dates Schedule for the first academic year of the new BTEC Tech Awards to help you prepare and plan. You’ll find it on the BTEC Tech Awards (2022) landing page alongside plenty of other helpful information, including bitesize videos, links to published resources and information about our streamlined Quality Assurance processes.

We ran several Quality Assurance networking events in June and will repeat them this September. You can register for the ‘Quality Assurance for the BTEC Tech Awards 2022’ sessions shortly on our Quality Assurance webpage.

Some clarifications and amendments have been made to our Specification and Sample Assessment Materials (PSAs and External Assessments). Please be sure to download the updated versions for reference before first teach.
Key amendments and clarifications are:

We have several dates for our free ‘Marking and Moderation for Internally Assessed Components’ training events scheduled for October and November which you can now register for. 

In these sessions, the new marking grids will be applied to standardised examples of learner work using a ‘best fit’ approach. You will get a full overview of the moderation process, including preparation and submission of learner work, moderator feedback and amending marks. 

We held several well attended ‘Getting Started’ training events for each of our new BTEC Tech Awards subjects from January to July this year. In these events, the new qualifications were introduced in detail and all the key information about changes from current Teach Awards qualifications was discussed.

You can also now access exam questions through our examWizard service to create your own mock assessments catered to your learners. Questions are taken from the Sample Assessment Materials (SAMs) and from legacy Tech Awards exams where applicable, so you will have a good bank of questions to support your learners right from the start, with further questions to be added in the new year. Travel and Tourism resources are still in production and will be available as soon as possible.

Please note, Exam Wizard is only available for subjects with written external assessments.

We are currently producing marked samples of learner work for use as centre and moderator standardisation materials and as part of teacher marking training events. We know that some centres have begun delivering the new BTEC Tech Awards and may have undertaken mock assessments based on the Sample PSAs. 

If you have done any mock assessment for internal components, your learner’s work can help us to train teachers and moderators throughout the UK. Please contact Robert.East@Pearson.com for more details. We will be providing £50 Amazon gift vouchers for each piece of learner work used.

The new BTEC Tech Awards will be moderated in line with new DFE requirements, and we are currently recruiting moderators across all subjects. Working with Pearson as a moderator brings you the added benefit of being standardised directly by the Senior Assessment Team in your subject and seeing the work produced by many other schools throughout the moderation process. 

If you have learners entering for the first available assessment series who require modified versions of PSAs, please request them as soon as possible from the beginning of September to ensure delivery in October. All requests require approximately four weeks to fulfil. 

Please contact additional_requirements@pearson.com to place your order. Please note that these will not be available to order on Pearson Access Arrangements Online.

As a reminder, the final registration date for the current (2017) suite of BTEC Tech Awards qualifications is 31 December 2022, with final certification 31 August 2023. The final external assessments will be summer 2023.

The current BTEC Tech Award in Engineering has been extended to 2026 so you can continue to deliver it. However, please note that this will not be included on 2024 performance tables.
From September 2022:

Kind Regards,

The Pearson BTEC Tech Awards team