Vocational Qualifications Bulletin
February 2025 Edition |
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Dear Colleague,
Thank you to everyone that has completed the first term-time checkpoint, the cohort declaration, by the 31 January. We had a fantastic response and now have a shared view of learners expecting to receive an overall qualification result in August 2025. |
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Looking ahead we have some important dates in March. 21 March is the deadline to make your external assessment entries for BTEC Firsts, Nationals and Technicals. Please work closely with your exams officer to ensure they have all the information they need to make entries for your learners on time.
We also see the release of results for learner who sat external assessments in January. We’re sharing in this edition some useful information, and in particular support on receiving and claiming certification for BTEC Tech Award learners.
Finally, thank you for your continued dedication to supporting your learners.
We’re here to help make 2025 a successful year for you, and we look forward to working with you throughout the term.
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Best wishes,
Nick Cutland
Director, Vocational Qualifications Assessment |
The deadline to submit your summer series entries for BTEC Firsts, Nationals and L2 Technicals is 21 March. It’s essential that entries are made on time for all learners. It means that you’ll receive any question papers on time, and we know that your learners are on track to receive their results when they expect them.
Following the completion of your cohort confirmation in January, we have a shared view of your learners expecting results in the summer. You can use the VQ Learner Tracker to quickly see all learners who need external assessment entries to be eligible for their overall qualification result.
Once you’ve identified learners who need entries, we have a wealth of support available to help you make your entries on time, whether you’re making them via EDI or on Edexcel Online.
Live support event
We’ll be dedicating time in the next live exams officer update event to focus on using the VQ Learner Tracker to check you’ve made all the entries you need to for your summer cohort.
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Date |
Description |
Qualification |
| 19 March |
Release of January series results to centres |
BTEC Firsts, Nationals, Tech Awards, Level 2 Technicals |
| 20 March |
Release of January series results to learners |
BTEC Firsts, Nationals, Tech Awards, Level 2 Technicals |
| 21 March |
Entry deadline for June 2025 exams |
BTEC Firsts, Nationals, Level 2 Technicals |
| 28 March |
Re-entry deadline for learners who sat assessments in the January 2025 series |
BTEC Firsts, Nationals, Tech Awards, Level 2 Technicals |
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NEW interactive calendar
Stay organised with our new, interactive, qualifications key dates calendar. It can also be downloaded and synchronised seamlessly with your own personal calendar, such as MS Outlook.
Calendar subscriptions allow you to automatically add important exam dates directly to your preferred calendar app (such as Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar). Once you click the subscription button, the calendar will update itself with any future changes or new dates, ensuring you always have the most up-to-date information without manually entering or updating dates.
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The provisional timetables for BTEC external assessments for winter 2026 and summer 2026 exam series are now available on our timetables page. These timetables cover all BTEC qualifications (BTEC Firsts, Tech Awards, Technicals , Nationals. BTEC AAQ Nationals first external exam is Summer 2026).
Please email any feedback or comments on these provisional timetables to timetables@pearson.com by the end of Friday 21 March 2025.
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In December, the DfE published the outcome of their review of Level 3 qualifications. This confirms which qualifications will be funded for 16–19 learners in England for the academic years 2025/26 and 2026/27.
We’re here to support you; we will keep in touch with colleges and schools to share more detailed sector-level support and guidance to ensure you can teach BTEC with confidence.
Please join our ongoing sector-specific briefing sessions for updates of the impacts of the reforms for your subject area, ask questions and hear from other educators.
Defunding affecting some qualification top-ups
The defunding of certain qualifications from 1 August 2025 will impact centres who use a top-up model with their learners. If you typically register learners on a one-year programme then top them up to a larger qualification for their second year, you will not be able to do so this year.
If you have registered learners on any of these one-year qualifications with the intention to top them up, you will instead need to transfer your learners to the intended second-year programme before 1 August 2025 to maintain funding for these learners.
We’ve been in touch with all centres that will be affected by this to make sure this activity is completed and that funding remains in place for these learners to complete their programmes. Although defunding will take place on 1 August 2025, we’ll be working with centres to ensure any required transfers have taken place before our second term-time check point on 2 May. This will ensure we have an accurate view of all your learners who should expect to receive an overall qualification result in August.
Funding secured for Alternative Academic Qualifications (AAQs) and Technical Occupational Entry Qualifications (TOEQs)
The DfE also confirmed within their review that BTEC National AAQs and TOEQs will remain funded from 1 August 2025. This means you can begin to teach these qualifications from 1 September 2025. These new Level 3 qualifications have been built in partnership with higher education institutes and employers, ensuring they are future-focused and deliver learners the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.
All eight new Level 3 Alternative Academic Qualifications BTEC Nationals submitted in Cycle 1 have been approved for funding for first teach from September 2025.
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Standards verification
Most programmes will now have standards verifier allocations; please ensure your lead internal verifiers are maintaining open communication with the standards verifier and are providing the required documents when requested. Early sampling is recommended prior to the deadline of 15 May 2025.
If a lead internal verifier reports a breakdown in communication with their standards verifier, please report this to your named VQAM so that we can investigate and give support.
A small number of programmes are currently unallocated; don’t worry, but if you wish to speak to us, please use our chat function or the Meet your VQAM option.
QN face-to-face networking events
We’re excited to offer our face-to-face networking events again this summer! We have 24 in-person dates available across the country where you can meet with colleagues from a range of other centres, share best practice and explore key quality assurance topics for the year ahead.
Places are limited so please book your place early. You can find all our locations and the booking information on the events page of Vocational Quality Assurance and on Training from Pearson. Spaces will be prioritised for quality nominees; anyone who does not hold this role will be placed on a waiting list.
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Getting ready for December/January series results
You will receive your December/January series results on Wednesday 19 March, which you can then release to learners on Thursday 20 March. Refer to our dedicated support articles for step-by-step guidance on how to access learner results:
If learners sat their terminal external assessment in January and are eligible to certificate, you can either submit certification claims or allow them to resit in the summer.
Certification claims for January assessments open on 21 March and close on 18 April via Edexcel Online.
You can use the grade calculator or check Section 8 of the specification to determine final grades. If a learner does wish to resit the terminal external assessment, you can still choose to submit a certification claim for them if they are eligible, or you can choose to wait until the summer.
When considering resits, you should think about the likelihood of improvement and the potential impact on other assessments and learner wellbeing.
The BTEC Tech Awards are compensatory, meaning that even if a learner receives a U grade in one component, they may still achieve an overall qualification grade if their total UMS points across all components are sufficient.
Did you know we send a monthly newsletter to all BTEC Tech Award centres with more detailed guidance and support? Sign up to receive this directly in your inbox. |
A reminder that our new BTEC Level 2 Technical qualifications are funded for first teach September 2025. Please ensure you are registering your learners on the new qualifications in Early Years, Engineering and Sport.
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We send a monthly newsletter to keep you up to date with the latest news about T Levels. We send this to all T Level providers, but you can sign up to receive it directly in your inbox. |
Entry Level Functional Skills
We would like to remind you of our guidance for learners who don't pass the assessment the first time and wish to sit it again:
- You must ensure that leaners resit the whole assessment (using a different paper) no earlier than 14 days from taking the original assessment.
- If the learner should fail the assessment a subsequent time, they must wait, again, at least 14 days before resitting the assessment, again using a different paper.
- There are multiple test versions available from our secure test website which will enable a different version to be used each time a learner re-sits until the learner passes.
- Centres must keep a log showing which controlled assessment tests have been used for each specific learner taking this course.
- If a learner exhausts the test bank, we advise checking the learner is being entered at the appropriate level.
Level 1 and 2 Speaking Listening and Communication
If you are delivering Functional Skills Level 1 and 2, you should have been contacted by your Standards Verifier (SV) to begin the sampling process for this year. If you have not been contacted by your SV, please let us know.
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Business version 4 programme specification
If you’re running the Higher Nationals in Business, you’ll need to make new registrations from 1 September on version 4 of the programme specification. The version 3 specification is still available to use with continuing students and is accessible in the useful documents section of the specification page, and from the HN Global Business subject page.
Final registration date reminders
With your support, we extended the following BTEC Higher Nationals programmes last year. The updated last registration and last certification deadlines for these titles are as follows...
Pearson BTEC Level 4 Higher National Certificate in Agriculture (603/2796/0)
Pearson BTEC Level 5 Higher National Diploma in Agriculture (603/2794/7)
- Last registration date: 31st August 2025
- Certification end date: 31st August 2030
Pearson BTEC Level 4 Higher National Certificate in Horticulture (603/2853/8)
Pearson BTEC Level 5 Higher National Diploma in Horticulture (603/2852/6)
- Last registration date: 31st August 2025
- Certification end date: 31st August 2030
Pearson BTEC Level 4 Higher National Certificate in International Travel and Tourism Management: 603/2280/9
Pearson BTEC Level 5 Higher National Diploma in International Travel and Tourism Management: 603/2281/0
- Last registration date: 31st August 2026
- Certification end date: 31st August 2031
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Changes to Functional Skills as a gateway requirement
Following on from the press releases last week, regarding changes to Functional Skills requirements, a new version of the 2024-25 funding rules have been published.
Within the funding rules, it clarifies that:
“Only apprentices who began their apprenticeship training when aged 16-18 will continue to be subject to the mandatory requirement to study towards and achieve English and maths. Apprentices who began their apprenticeship training when aged 19+ will no longer be subject to the mandatory requirement to study towards and achieve English and maths. However, for apprentices aged 19+, the apprentice or their employer can still choose for the apprentice to study towards an English and maths qualification”
With the clarity provided above, for apprentices aged 19+, we will review gateway evidence without the Functional Skill requirements as dictated by the assessment plan.
On the gateway declaration form, where it states Functional Skills has been achieved, please indicate that the apprentice is now exempt, following this policy change.
To ensure ACE360 allows you to progress to confirm that the apprentice is gateway ready, please upload a copy of the gateway form into the component.
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Quality assurance
Please continue to liaise with your lead standards verifier (LSV) and standards verifier as appropriate to complete the quality assurance model and certificate learners as appropriate.
For a brief overview of our WBL quality assurance model and the process following allocations, please see our dedicated guide:
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Security Tests
The available Security tests are rotated monthly. Please ensure that, when making bookings and preparing for paper-based Security tests, you access the current materials via the usual area of the website that you access your test materials from. |
SQA accredited qualifications
As of 31 December 2024, Pearson is no longer an SQA-regulated awarding body, as the certification end date for all SQA Accredited qualifications has now passed. All WBL handbooks will be updated with this information.
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WBL recruitment
Please submit any questions you have regarding the vacancies to the team via the customer service portal.
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