Exams Officer Update
23 October 2024 |
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Welcome to latest edition of the UK Exams Officer update.
You can also find support for other processes taking place during this time. |
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Thank you to all centres who completed their Edexcel Online Account Confirmation by the 14 October deadline.
If you haven’t already done so, please work with your head of centre to review and update your centre’s Edexcel Online accounts. The Edexcel Online Account Confirmation can only be submitted by your head of centre, though you can access the confirmation to check your centre accounts are up to date and make any changes in Edexcel Online if necessary. Your head of centre will then need to access the Edexcel Online Account Confirmation themselves to submit the confirmation. If your centre has multiple subsites, you will need to confirm the account list for each subsite separately.
If you don’t deliver vocational qualifications with us, there is also a tab within the confirmation screen to accept our updated terms and conditions, which your head of centre will also need complete as part of this activity. Vocational centres will have completed this as part of the Annual Quality Declaration.
If you need to make any changes to exams staff or head of centre accounts, we will need to do this for you; complete this form and we’ll arrange a secure callback with you.
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Our new dedicated space for Exams Officer training has been created as part of our commitment to you to offer enhanced support and training in 2024 and beyond.
Features
You can access our library of interactive modules alongside live training, curated support articles, and the most useful documents from our website. We have brought everything you need to one place to save time when you need to upskill or refresh yourself on a topic.
- Pause interactive modules and return to them later
- Make notes in the notepad that you can refer to and download later
- Receive email alerts when new content is released.
- Follow curated learning paths for a particular qualification or process
Exams Officer Update live sessions
Why not join us for our next live online event, taking place on Thursday 14 November, 2pm - 3pm.
You can also register for future events taking place in December.
As with last year's events, we will go through news, updates and processes for the coming weeks and give you the opportunity to ask any general questions.
Click the link below to register for these events. |
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BTEC key dates schedule 2024/25
We have released our BTEC key dates schedule for 2024/25. Following your feedback and the successful delivery of results in summer 2024, we’ve designed this year’s key dates to ensure BTEC results are delivered successfully to all learners expecting a result in summer 2025.
We've reviewed these dates to give you more time to complete key term-time checkpoints, following several improvements to streamline the process. You can find a summary of these updates, along with the improvements planned for 2025, in the new BTEC key dates schedule.
As part of the new key dates for 2024/25, the BTEC deletion deadline has changed to 31 December. If your programme follows the academic year, you will have until 31 December to delete your registration (or withdraw a BTEC Tech Award registration) and receive a refund, provided the learner has not completed any units and no test bookings have been made. After this date, you will need to withdraw the learner instead. |
| Date |
Description |
| 1 November |
BTEC registration deadline
BTEC Firsts, Nationals, Tech Awards (2022), Level 2 Technicals, BTEC Tech Awards (2017)
2024/2025 |
| 15 November |
Final date to withdraw entries and recieve a refund
BTEC Firsts, BTEC Nationals, BTEC Tech Award (2022)
January 2025 |
| 16 November |
High late entry fees will be charged from this date
BTEC Firsts, BTEC Nationals, BTEC Tech Award (2022)
January 2025 |
| 21 November |
Basedata issued
BTEC Firsts, Nationals, Tech Awards (2022), Level 2 Technicals, BTEC Tech Awards (2017)
June 2025 |
| 31 December |
NEW BTEC registration deletion deadline
BTEC Firsts, Nationals, Tech Awards (2022), Level 2 Technicals
2024/2025 |
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Download our Exams Officer autumn checklist to get your term off to a flying start. It highlights the six things you need to do to make sure you’re set up for the year and can meet the first deadlines of 2024/25. |
As learners are enrolled on to their BTEC programmes (including BTEC Tech Awards), you should make their BTEC registrations by 1 November to avoid any late fees. You should check that your centre has approval for the programme they will be following, and if you need to gain approval to run a course you should do this straight away.
Where learners have completed a BTEC programme, and are moving on to a larger sized qualification this year, you should 'top-up' these learners, and not create a new registration. You can create a top-up once the learner’s previous qualification has been certificated. We have now issued summer 2024 certificates, so you can make any top-ups you need to in order to make any assessment entries for the January 2025 series.
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If you notice any errors on your learners' summer 2024 certificates, such as spelling errors or unit grades reported incorrectly, we can issue amended certificates.
If you do request a certificate amendment, you no longer need to return the certificate for some of our qualifications; the original certificate can be securely destroyed once the amendment has been made.
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Key dates schedule and upcoming deadlines
Make sure that you make any new registrations for 1 November. If any learners are sitting an assessment in December/January, you’ll need to make entries these learners as soon as possible; the entry deadline was 18 October, so any entries made now will be subject to late fees
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We’re reaching out to invite schools, sixth form colleges, FE colleges, and training providers to collaborate with us on some exciting improvements we’re planning for 2024/25.
If you’d like to get involved in providing feedback for the VQ Learner Tracker and how we can refine our processes to better support you, complete our short form and we’ll be in touch over the next few weeks with more information.
Complete an expression of interest form.
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| Date |
Description |
| 1 November |
Deadline to submit Access Arrangement requests
GCSE English Language and Mathematics
November 2024 |
| 1 November |
Deadline to submit Access Arrangement requests
International GCSE
November 2024 |
| 21 November |
Basedata issued
International GCSE, GCSE, GCE, IAL, ELC, Edexcel Award in Maths, Project Qualifications, Level 3 Maths in Context, L2 Extended Maths Certificate
June 2025 |
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If any of your learners sitting these examinations have additional requirements, it is important your centre applies for these arrangements on their behalf.
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Autumn Question Paper Despatch
If your candidates are resitting their GCSE Maths or English exams in November, you should have now received your question papers.
You can track your standard question paper despatch for General Qualifications via Edexcel Online.
The Yellow Label Service will be in place for this series for centres in England to return scripts.
If you require electronic copies of these question papers, please check your EOL accounts are up-to-date, ensuring you have access to our Secure Download Service (SDS) service.
For further guidance on this service, please visit our Support Portal.
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. You will need to print the required amount of question papers from an electronic copy.
Electronic copies of question papers will be available via SDS if you are making additional entries. If you are making an entry for the first time this series for a new subject/paper, please contact us to request the question paper to be sent via (Secure File Transfer) SFT. |
The Provisional timetables for November 2025 GCSE and International GCSE were made available on our website from Monday 7 October.
The feedback window will run until Friday 1 November.
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If you choose to contact us via email to examsofficers@pearson.com, you'll notice that our responses are sent from 'customersupport.reply@pearson.com'. This is a response only email address, and allows any responses you send, by clicking 'reply/reply all', to be linked to the existing support case.
However, if you were to compose a brand new email and send to that reply email address, there is no case to link it to, so we do not receive your email and you will not receive a response. This should result in a bounce back email stating the address is invalid. |
We’re excited to introduce our enhanced Qualifications Customer Support Portal, designed to make getting help quicker and easier than ever. Created with our customers in mind, new or enhanced features include:
- A new streamlined contact-us journey enables you to connect quickly with our support teams in the way that suits you; via live-chat for real-time assistance, our new webform, as well as traditional phone or email routes.
- You can use your Pearson Portal (Edexcel Online) credentials to access secure personalised support even faster, and view your existing cases.
- Our comprehensive support article library has also been restructured with sections specific to teachers, exams officers and quality nominees, as well as stronger search functions, to resolve your own queries quickly and easily.
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Cyber Security
Whether you’re a new or experienced Edexcel Online user it's important that we are all aware of the possible threats to our collective data. We would encourage all exams staff, new and old to visit our cyber security webpage and watch our short training video. |
Multi Factor Authentication
Multi Factor Authentication was successfully rolled out to nearly a quarter of a million Pearson Portal users last year. Although it has now become a standard way of accessing our systems, that we should all be familiar with, it can sometimes present challenges if a smart device is lost or replaced. You can read more information, see a quick start guide and access FAQs and troubleshooting for our authenticator app in our Pearson Portal Authenticator support article. |
There are multiple ways to contact the customer service teams at Pearson. The New Customer Support Portal allows you to choose a method that best suits you.
- Support case – This is much like an email, but we will see all the information you have already populated. You can then log back in to the portal to track the progress of these cases.
- Live chat – A team of agents is waiting to answer these during normal working hours.
- Phone – If you would like to speak with us, we have a team of agents waiting to take your call.
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The likelihood is that Pearson won’t be the only awarding organisation that you or your centre work with, and this means that you will receive lots of different communications. Some of these may be more relevant to your role than others, so it’s important that you and your colleagues are signed up to receive the regular updates that matter to you. It's also important that Edexcel Online accounts are accurate as these are used to determine who needs to receive ad hoc communications.
As Exams Officers, you will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of Edexcel Online account for those in other roles, such as teachers or other curriculum staff. Whilst doing this you could also sign them up to receive the relevant subject advisor updates.
Here is a full list of all the regular updates we send, including an archive of previous editions and the sign-up forms.
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The JCQ published its latest update on 16 October, highlighting cyber security in schools, the NCN update and more. |
If you are approved to offer JCQ awarding body qualifications you will automatically receive the JCQ monthly updates. However, your colleagues can also subscribe to the updates via the JCQ website. |
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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. |
Sign up to receive these updates
If you would like to sign any of your colleagues up to receive these updates, you can do so here. You can view previous editions of the EO Update on our support portal. |
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