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Dear Colleague,

Welcome back from your well-earned summer break. We hope your results days were the success we all worked so hard to achieve. In this newsletter, you will find all the links needed to updated guides and support that will set you up for the new academic year and to hit the ground running. 

If you have any questions about quality assurance, please contact the team via Live Chat or the Pearson Support Portal. If you are not already a member, join our QN Community where we for share the latest information and you can network with other BTEC Centres. 

We are pleased to tell you that the full range of centre guides for BTEC Level 2-3 and BTEC Tech Awards (2022) are now updated and available to you on the Home of Quality Assurance page under the relevant qualification section.

For WBL, Functional Skills, or Higher National qualifications, these guides will be released very soon and will be uploaded on the Home of Quality Assurance page under the relevant qualification section.

Please share the links to the relevant pages with your teaching teams to ensure everyone has access to the most up to date documents.

The BTEC forms and templates have been updated and are available on the website. There are no significant changes, but it is recommended your staff use the most recent version available, as they use the forms throughout the year. If your staff have already started creating assessment materials for this coming academic year, we do not expect anything to be moved to the new template immediately.

To ensure compliance with quality assurance processes, it is important that timely registration of learners onto their programmes takes place by the deadlines shown below, or before any formal assessment takes place whichever comes first.

BTEC Level 1, 2 and 3 Programmes by 1 November 2024

Level 4 HNCs and Level 5 HNDs Level 3 and Level 4 Foundation Diplomas in Art and Design by 15 November 2024.

For other programmes, that enrol learners at any time other than September/October (including roll-on roll-off and onscreen tested programmes), or are of less than one academic year’s duration, or are competence-based assessment programmes, e.g. NVQs/SVQs learners must be registered within six weeks of enrolment at the centre.

One of the key responsibilities of the QN is to annually review and update your centre policies and procedures that relate to quality assurance. This is important to ensure they reflect any changes that have been made by Pearson to quality assurance models, or to your own internal requirements and situations.

We recommend the use of the BTEC Centre Guide to Policies and Procedures, which you can find on our Home of Quality Assurance BTEC page. Please remember that your policies must be contextualised to reflect your own specific needs and processes.

All Pearson centres and T Level providers delivering our vocational qualifications are required to complete the Annual Quality Declaration at the start of each academic year. This is an important document which confirms that you have the necessary quality assurance processes in place and accept our terms and conditions of centre recognition and qualification approval. This must be completed by the Quality Nominee or Head of Centre.

Your centre must complete the Annual Quality Declaration between 1 September and 14 October or BTEC, Functional Skills and WBL programmes. The deadline for Higher National programmes is 21 February 2025.

We will be in touch with you directly once the Annual Quality Declaration is live with support and guidance materials to help you meet the deadline.

The Edexcel Online Account Confirmation is part of our ongoing duty to maintain centre and learner data security. By checking that all user accounts and contact details on Edexcel Online are up to date, we can ensure that we contact the right people when we need to and access to secure information is limited to those who need it.

The check can be done by your centre’s Exams Officer as the Edexcel Online administrator, but one of the following account holders must complete the declaration by the deadline of 14 October.

This is a separate activity to the Annual Quality Declaration, but we do recommend that QNs work with the exams officer and head of centre to ensure this is completed. We will be in touch with centres directly once the Edexcel Online account confirmation is live with support and guidance materials to help you meet the deadline.

There is a minor change to the requirements for Lead Internal Verifiers (Lead IVs) this year, so please ensure this is passed onto your nominated Lead IVs.

For programmes in the following categories, it is important that a Lead IV is identified for each programme. There is no requirement for the Lead IV to register on Edexcel Online for BTEC Level 2 Firsts or Level 3 Nationals. It is still required for team standardisation to take place; you can access centre standardisation materials on the subject-specific pages, under course materials.

Team standardisation must take place prior to any formal assessment taking place.

Please ensure your Lead IVs read the BTEC Centre Guide for the Lead Internal Verifier 2024 - 2025

For 2024-25, following a full review of our centre level support offer, there has been a change to the Quality Assurance model for BTEC Level 1 – Level 3 qualifications.

From September 2024 to April 2025 each Vocational Quality Assurance Manager (VQAM) will, on a rolling programme, contact select centres within their region for the purpose of a Centre Check-In activity. Our role in this activity is supportive and designed to reassure centres that they have everything in place that will lead to the safe certification of learners. This is a positive change that will ensure that centres receive support early and continuously rather than just during a specific window.

Initially we will focus on supporting new centres and centres identified as benefiting from additional support. We will then focus on centres who have not been involved in the previous Holistic Review process for at least the last two years. We will contact all centres known to be in scope for this activity this year during September even though we may not contact you to schedule a meeting until after Christmas. There may also be centres who come into scope during the year, and we will let you know as soon as possible if this applies to you.

For more details on the scope and process for this activity please see the BTEC Centre Guide to Quality Assurance 2024-25.

This does not prevent any centre from contacting their named VQAM for support.

Rules of Combination – Assessment planning is essential at the start of the year to map out the delivery of units and assessments throughout the programme. Please remember an essential element of this process is to ensure the correct combination of units are selected for the size of qualification being delivered. Once again, this summer some students were identified as ineligible for certification due to forbidden combinations – QNs are required to ensure accurate planning is in place.

Team Standardisation – It is an annual requirement that the Centre Standardisation Materials are used with teaching teams to ensure all assessors and internal verifiers are working to the same standards prior to assessment taking place. This activity must be recorded and checked by the QN.

Reasonable Adjustments – These should be agreed at the pre-planning stage with the student and shared with all members of the teaching team to ensure any effects of a disability or difficulty that put a learner at a disadvantage are reduced. It is recommended that QNs check this during team meetings.

The September to December live events schedule is now available for the Roles and Responsibilities of the Quality Nominee and Roles and Responsibilities of the Lead IV. For any staff new to the role and those interested in a refresher, please book your place via our Quality Assurance Events & Support webpage.

You may notice that our live offer has decreased this year but for a good reason. We are in the process of widening our bitesize video library so you can access the information you require at a time convenient to you. Please check out our Pearson – Vocational Quality Assurance YouTube channel where you will find a range of supportive videos. The latest additions include ‘Successful Certification of BTEC Learners’, ‘The Quality Assurance Model in 24/25’, ‘The Role of the Lead IV and Team Standardisation’ and coming later in the term, ‘Guide to Standards Verification’.

We are delighted to share our updated on-demand CPD offer to support you with internal assessment and internal verification, available on our Quality Assurance Events & Support webpage, applicable to BTEC Entry Level/Level 1 Introductory through to Level 3 qualifications. Each package includes a short video, an activity to consolidate understanding, the answers, and a PDF copy of the video presentation.

Please view the updated BTEC Tech Awards quality assurance webpage. Here you will find the 24/25 Centre Guide to Quality Assurance and useful bitesize videos covering an overview of quality assurance, how to complete the assessment record, applying the mark scheme and the moderation process.

Please ensure the 24/25 BTEC Tech Awards Key Dates Schedule is shared within your centre and a few points to note:

To keep up to date with the latest news, please ensure you have subscribed to the Tech Award 2022 Monthly Update.

Save the date – Tuesday 24 September  9am – 10am to attend an online event where Pearson experts in Apprenticeships and End Point Assessments will share best practice on how to strive for excellence in EPA, meeting the individual needs of learners and more.

Please ask any staff who wish to attend to complete and submit this form - Demonstrating Excellence in Apprenticeships and EPA

Kind regards

Helen, Bill, Lee, Liz, Sally, & Sue
Vocational Quality Assurance Managers