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Exams Officers page |  Development Hub | Support portal

As always, our customer support portal offers a wide range of articles to support you in your day to day activities. As we begin to look ahead to the summer exam period, you may find our EO Support Spring & Summer essential information article useful

• Key Dates
•  NEW  Summer 2024 question paper dispatch updates | Vocational Qualifications
• Completing your cohort confirmation
• VQ Learner tracker
•  NEW  Reminder of BTEC summer 24 high late entry fee deadline
•  NEW  BTEC external assessment and ASGs
• Exams Officer training – new on-demand modules and webinar
• Tech Awards (2022)

• Key Dates
•  NEW  Summer 2024 question paper dispatch updates | General Qualifications
•  NEW  Languages speaking exams support
•  NEW  Reminder of May/June 24 General Qualification amendment fee deadline

•  NEW  Learner Work Transfer submission reminder
•  NEW  Conflict of interest reminder
•  NEW  Summer 2024 test inspections
•  NEW  Mobile phones and Exams
•  NEW  Reporting learner malpractice
•  NEW  Access Arrangements and Reasonable Adjustments
• Timetable variations
• Stationery and materials spreadsheet summer 2024
• Modified papers | Summer 2024
• Instructions for Conducting Examinations
• Customer Support Portal
• Social media | Pearson Exams Officer Support

You can expect to start receiving standard and modified question papers from the following dates:

You will be able to track your standard question paper despatch for BTEC Tech Awards (2022) via Edexcel Online. If you require tracking information for other BTEC exam papers, please contact us.

Please ensure that appropriate colleagues are aware that question papers will be arriving soon and what they need to do with them. Question papers need to be carefully checked to ensure that you have received what you were expecting and that all question paper packs are in good condition. You should report any issues relating to question papers as soon as possible.

Whilst the vast majority of question paper deliveries marked for the attention of Exams Officers are made during normal centre hours, on rare occasions, a courier may attempt delivery when the main reception has closed, so papers cannot be stored securely. We encourage centres to inform staff to refuse these deliveries, and the papers will be redelivered.

Further information, guidance and tools can be found in:

The yellow label service will be in place for this summer series for centres in England to return scripts. Please read the yellow label service guidance for exams officers on the government website.

Attendance registers

BTEC attendance registers for all on time bookings will be sent together w/c 22 April, with subsequent weekly despatches for any Late bookings made since previous despatch. Please note that attendance registers for BTEC Tech Awards (2022) on-time entries will be sent separately at least 2 weeks ahead of exam date. Attendance registers for late entries may be delivered less than 2 weeks ahead of exam date.

Availability of Electronic Copies of Question Papers (VQ)

Our goal is to ensure that your centre's exams run as smoothly and as stress-free for centre staff as possible. To help us achieve this goal, we would appreciate you making checks outlined below well ahead of your centre's first exam.

If your centre requires access to electronic copies of question papers in the summer 2024 exam series, for example if you make a very late entry or need to print onto coloured paper, they will be available to download as follows:

BTEC Tech Award (2022) on the Secure Download Service (SDS) only. Please see the SDS support guide for further details: Secure Download Service (SDS) (pearson.com)

BTEC level 2 First and level 3 Nationals and T levels from the BTEC and T Level assessment download page: BTEC and T Level assessment download | Pearson qualifications

You will need to log in with your Edexcel Online username and password. This is only available to Exams Officers and Exams Office staff.

This is available for all question papers and tasks which are physically dispatched to centres as a hard copy. Any material which has previously been accessed as a digital download only, will remain on the secure tests web page.

Very Late Entries

If you make any entries a week or less before the date of the exam, hard copies will not be sent to your centre and will be made available electronically for you to print the required amount of copies.

For BTEC level 2 First and level 3 Nationals and T levels, this will be via the BTEC and T Level assessment download page. For BTEC Tech Awards (2022), this will be via SDS where you are making additional entries or SFT for a new subject/paper entry.

Outstanding summer assessment entries and cohort changes

The deadline to submit summer assessment entries has now passed, and we are in touch with centres where we can see entries are still outstanding. We are asking these centres to review their missing assessment entries through the VQ learner tracker, and once identified to take the appropriate action. This could be: 

Once you’ve done this you need to notify us this has been completed by completing your cohort confirmation.

You’ll also receive a cohort confirmation to complete if you’ve made significant changes since you signed your cohort declaration in May. It’s essential that we maintain a shared view of all learners that are expecting an overall qualification so we can deliver on-time results. 

BTEC Tech Awards

We’ve also been in touch with centres delivering our BTEC Tech Award qualifications, to ask you to confirm: 

If you’ve been contacted by us about either of our cohort confirmation activities, and need help to understand or complete this activity you can contact us through the Pearson support portal. We are here and ready to help you meet any deadlines. 

As well as viewing your VQ registration information, you can now use the VQ Learner Tracker to identify learners in your summer 2024 cohort who have missing external assessment entries or missing Tech Award cash-ins. For full guidance on these features, please see the support articles below:

Using the Vocational Qualifications (VQ) Learner Tracker to identify learners with missing assessment entries

Using the Vocational Qualifications (VQ) Learner Tracker to identify Tech Award learners with missing cash-ins

If you’ve not used the VQ Learner Tracker before, you can read more about how to access in our VQ Learner Tracker getting started guide. 

BTEC NQF Firsts & Nationals

The high late fee deadline is 21 April 2024, any entries made after this date will be subject to high late fees

Details of our fees can be found here

Refunds of external assessment entry fees

Any unit fee will be refunded automatically until 21 April 2024. If you withdraw an entry on or after this date, no refund will be issued without supporting medical evidence. If a late entry is withdrawn before the high late fee date, only the entry fee is refunded.

If a free first entry is not withdrawn before the high late fee deadline or a learner is just marked as absent on the day, for fee purposes the next entry is treated as a resit and they will be charged as such. For assessment purposes however, the learner would still have their two resit attempts. For full details of external assessment entries, see the Exams Officers Information Manual. 

As part of your preparations for the summer series, please take the time to ensure that you and your subject teachers are familiar with the relevant Administrative Support Guide (ASG) to ensure assessments are delivered in accordance with the requirements.

Detailed instructions on how to find the relevant ASG can be found here: BTEC: Locating Specifications and Administrative Support Guides (pearson.com)

For support locating component ASGs for BTEC Tech Awards 2022, please see BTEC Tech Awards 2022: Administrative Support Guides & Pearson Set Assignments. 

The latest module in our BTEC Exams Officer training series is now available on the Pearson Development Hub.

Learner Work Transfer is now open | Submission deadline 15 May

Learner Work Transfer is now open for you to upload learner work for BTEC Tech Awards. The deadline to complete this is the 15 May, but if you are ready to upload learner work you can do this straight away. We were in touch last month to let you know that we were moving the deadline for the upload of learner work for BTEC Tech Awards in the summer series to 15 May 2024 for internally assessed components for all Tech Awards and the externally assessed components in creative subjects. This 15 May submission deadline will remain in place for all May/June assessment series going forward.

This revised deadline will give you two more weeks to run, mark and upload internal assessments, and gives you extra time to upload work for external assessments in the creative subjects.

Read more about the submission deadline change

Guide to using Learner Work Transfer

Are you signed up for our monthly Tech Award newsletter?

Our next edition of the monthly Tech Award newsletter is due out next week. Make sure you’re subscribed if you’d like to receive this directly to your inbox.

Sign up to the mailing list.

BTEC Tech Award support

Our BTEC Tech Awards 2022 support index is designed to support you over the academic year. 

The index contains direct links on support covering the following topics:

We'll add to this support throughout the year, so please bookmark the page to see our latest articles. 

You can expect to start receiving standard and modified question papers from the following dates:

An interactive training session on question paper security is available on our on-demand e-Learning page.
The yellow label service will be in place for this summer series for centres in England to return scripts. Please read the yellow label service guidance for exams officers on the government website. 

You can expect to start receiving attendance registers and labels from w/c 15 April onwards. Please note, for GQs there are multiple attendance register despatches ahead of and throughout the series, so you will receive your attendance registers in staggered exam date order at least 2 weeks ahead of exam date. Each despatch may also contain registers for any late entries made since the previous despatch. Attendance registers for late entries may be delivered less than 2 weeks ahead of exam date.

Availability of Electronic Copies of Question Papers 

 
Our goal is to ensure that your centre's exams run as smoothly and as stress-free for centre staff as possible. To help us achieve this goal, we would appreciate you making checks outlined below well ahead of your centre's first exam.

If your centre requires access to electronic copies of question papers in the summer 2024 exam series, for example if you make a very late entry or need to print onto coloured paper, they will be available to download on the Secure Download Service (SDS). This also includes audio files and transcripts for listening exams. Our recommendation is that a minimum of two members of centre staff have SDS included in their Edexcel Online (EOL) profile.

If your exam staff do not already have SDS added to their EOL profile, they will need to contact us, and be available to receive a secure call-back from our Customer Services Specialist on your centre's main telephone number. Once this call has been performed successfully, access to the SDS platform will be added to their account.

Please see the SDS support guide for further details: Secure Download Service (SDS) (pearson.com)

If you have centre exams staff without access to SDS, they should contact us as soon as possible, and well ahead of the summer exam series so that we can update their account.

It is important that all exam staff can access SDS as we will not be able to send electronic question papers via Secure File Transfer (SFT) on the day of the exam without a secure call back to your centre’s main telephone number first. This could result in logistical challenges for your centre at a critical time in the day - with staff required to move between an exam hall and your reception/ exam office. This may result in delays, including potentially impacting the start time of the exam in question. To avoid this please make checks to your exam staff EOL profiles (and specifically SDS) today.

Availability of Audio Files

Audio files will be available on the Secure Download Service 24 hours before the exam (or the Friday before, if the test is on a Monday), and transcripts will be available 1 hour before. 

We will not set up scheduled audio file deliveries via Secure File Transfer (SFT).

A level Maths (9MA0)

Please note, as in previous series A level Maths (9MA0) won't be included with other summer question papers, plans for your centre will be communicated in May. A level Maths (9MA0) will also not be available to download from Secure Download Service (SDS). Centres with entries who require an electronic copy will be able to request a copy via Secure File Transfer (SFT). Details on how you can request an SFT for 9MA0 will be shared with you in the communication being sent in May.

Very Late Entries

If you make any entries a week or less before the date of the exam, hard copies will not be sent to your centre and will be made available electronically for you to print the required amount of copies.

This will be via SDS where you are making additional entries or SFT for a new subject/paper entry.

The window to conduct GCSE, A level and International GCSE MFL speaking exams is now open and closes on 17 May. For speaking exam support documents and training videos, please visit our April 2024 Languages Update.

Please ensure that your centre’s interlocutors and other staff involved in the delivery of MFL speaking assessments are familiar with the assessment requirements.

Amendment fees will be charged if you change a subject/unit option or tier after 21 April 2024. Amendment fees are usually double the cost of a unit or subject entry fee (in addition to the original entry fee).

Coursework Option Code T - (Transferred from previous series) must be entered if you are not expecting to submit marks or samples as the learner has completed coursework in a previous series and this mark is being carried forward.

Submitting marks and samples

If you notice that the wrong option code is showing, or a learner is missing when submitting learner marks on Edexcel Online or samples on LWT, you may need to change the entry code or option. High late fee charges will apply.

This deadline of 21 April 2024 is also the withdrawal deadline to obtain an entry fee refund.

Refunds: Any subject or unit fee will be refunded automatically up to the high late fee date (21 April 2024), and a credit note will be issued. If you withdraw an entry after this deadline, no refund will be issued without supporting medical evidence.

If you have made a new specification code entry, after the high late entry deadline, this will be classed as a new entry and high late fees will apply.

All learner work requiring digital submission, for both general and vocational qualifications, will be uploaded via the Learner Work Transfer platform (accessed via Edexcel Online). This will include samples for non-examined assessment moderation, BTEC moderated components and standards verification, plus BTEC external assessments.

Explore our dedicated support articles for detailed guidance.

Learner Work Transfer overview & index
Support for GQ examination / moderation submissions
Support for BTEC external assessment submissions
Support for Standards Verification sample submissions 

Please note that for BTEC units that are now subject to an LWT submission, links to SharePoint folders will not be provided to upload work.

JCQ General Regulations for Approved Centres (section 5.3, (j) Conflicts of Interest) states that centres must inform the awarding body, before the published deadline for entries, of:

Please note that when entering members of centre staff for qualifications with internally assessed components at their own centre, this must be as a last resort in cases where the member of centre staff is unable to find another centre.

Declarations can be submitted to us via our Declaration of Interest form which can be found here.

Centres must also maintain clear records of all instances where:

If you have any questions regarding declarations of interest, please email conflictofinterest@pearson.com.

We have also prepared some training to support centres who deliver Pearson qualifications, examinations or assessments to decide whether a declaration is required. A link to this training can be found here available for Exam Officers.

Pearson will be conducting test inspections throughout the summer 2024 examination series. These test inspections will be in addition to the JCQ exam inspections.

These test inspections will be both unannounced on-site visits to centres and announced virtual inspections. These inspections are to ensure that Pearson centres are conducting tests/exams in accordance with requirements to maintain the integrity of tests and prevent candidates being disadvantaged.

The Test Inspector will hold a letter of authority in which there will be a phone number you can call to verify the identity of the Test Inspector.

If your centre receives a full inspection throughout the examination series, the Test Inspection team will send a copy of the report with any identified actions within 10 working days of the inspection.

For further information on how test inspections are completed, please see our test inspections page. 

Did you know that the most common form of candidate malpractice every exam series is the possession of a mobile phone?

According to data published by Ofqual, possession of a mobile phone accounted for 44.5% of all cases of student malpractice - 2,180 cases - in the summer 2023 series. This was an increase on the 1,825 cases seen in the summer 2022 series.

The JCQ awarding bodies have set out the agreed sanctions for the different types of candidate malpractice, including for possession of a mobile phone. These can be found in Appendix 6 of the JCQ Suspected Malpractice Policies and Procedures. You can see that the sanctions for possession of a mobile phone are severe, because we need to maintain the security and integrity of our exams:

We really want to see a reduction in this form of malpractice, which has such a significant impact on so many candidates. Please ensure that you’ve taken the following steps to help your learners avoid committing malpractice:

As we think ahead to the summer series, we wanted to remind you of the requirements relating to reporting learner malpractice.

The head of centre is required to report incidents of suspected learner malpractice that occur during the delivery of Pearson qualifications. We ask centres to complete JCQ Form M1 (www.jcq.org.uk/malpractice) and email it with any supporting documents (signed statements from the learner, invigilator, copies of evidence, etc) to the Investigations Processing team at candidatemalpractice@pearson.com. The responsibility for determining any appropriate sanctions on learners lies with Pearson.

Learners must be informed at the earliest opportunity of the specific allegation and the centre’s malpractice policy, including the right of appeal. Learners found guilty of malpractice may be disqualified from the qualification for which they have been entered with Pearson.

The only exception to the above is learner malpractice identified in relation to internal assessments before the learner has signed the declaration of authentication. In these cases, the centre can follow its own malpractice policy in resolving the matter.

Failure to report malpractice constitutes staff or centre malpractice.

Further information can be found in: 

As part of your final planning for the summer 2024 series, please take the time to ensure that you have clear records processes in place to ensure candidates are able to make use of their approved access arrangements and reasonable adjustments.

You could consider doing the following: 

Further guidance can be found in sections 11-14 of the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations.

All exams are scheduled to be sat at 09:00 a.m. and 13:30 p.m. The permitted exceptions to this are detailed in sections 7 and 8 of the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations.

Where a timetable variation is used, candidates must be kept under examination conditions until the end of the scheduled exam time. Centres must ensure that invigilators have been trained on supervising candidates under clash supervision arrangements. More details can be found in section 7 of the JCQ Instructions for Conducting Examinations.

Exams for AS Maths, AS Further Maths, A level Maths, A level Further Maths and A level Statistics must not be moved to an earlier session – more information can be found in the JCQ guidance here. 

The updated version for summer 2024 can be found here.

The deadline for ordering modified papers for the summer 2024 exam series has now passed.

If you were unable to meet the deadline, please place your late order on AAO/PAAO as a matter of urgency and then contact us by way of email on additional_requirements@pearson.com, quoting your order number and centre number. We will then be able to advise you if it will be possible to supply a modified paper.

Please be aware the deadlines for ordering modified papers are as follows:

These do not change each year.

If you are running examinations in 2024, it is important for you to stay up to date with the official exam regulations.

The JCQ have published the 2023/24 version of their Instructions for Conducting Examinations (ICE) document, which you can download from their website or from our support article collecting all regulatory documents, including the JCQ ICE, BTEC ICEA and general regulations.

We want to ensure you have all the help and support you need at your fingertips; that’s why we’ve got a library of support articles hosted on our Customer Support Portal. Each article contains answers, detailed information, step-by-step guides, instructional videos, and general advice. Articles require no special access, are easily searchable by keywords in their title, and are available 24/7, 365 days a year. And for good measure, we also have the portal user guide.

Take a look at our short video that explains more about our support portal, the information you can find and the further benefits it provides. 

Check out the Pearson Support Portal.

Don't forget we have a dedicated Pearson Exams Officer Support page on Facebook. This provides you with a quick and convenient way to stay up to date with our latest news and live updates from the team.

Important and informative announcements will be posted on the page daily and messages will be monitored 8am to 5pm, Monday to Friday by Charlie, Emma and Seren; our dedicated Social Media Team. Message them with for help with your queries throughout your working day.