We are sure you understand how important it is that we are able to contact your centre with key updates or information relating to the issue of results for learners this year. We would therefore like you to make sure your ‘Point of Contact’ in Edexcel Online (EOL) is accurate so we can reach your centre easily over the next few weeks..

Point of Contact

The Point of Contact box on EOL should be checked next to every user that should receive any communication from our teams regarding exams.

NB: This 'Point of Contact' role can only be added to the following roles:

• Exams Manager/Officer/AssistantCentre
• Co-ordinator/Administrator
• Head of Centre

We will be also adding “Quality Nominee” to this list before the Q-TAG Portal goes live. 

You can have multiple points of contact and we will send communications to all selected users. 

Teams within Pearson will be using this information to contact you about vital information relating to QTAGs, throughout the submission window. 

Please ensure that you have at least one person selected as Point of Contact for your centre.

The estimated completion date in Edexcel Online is the key identifier this year, to enable a Qualification-Level Teacher Assessed Grade (Q-TAG) to be submitted.

Only learners on a B1 qualification with an estimated completion date within the period 2 April 2021 and 31 August 2021 will be visible in the QTAG Portal.

Over the past few months we have provided centres with information of learners that fall within this window and asked for confirmation that they are either certificating this summer, withdrawn or certificating at a later date, to ensure only eligible learners due to certificate are visible in the Q-TAG portal.

We have completed a further review of all other active registrations at centres and identified potential additional learners, who have completion dates outside of this summer Q-TAG period, but where other parameters appear to indicate they may also be due to certificate. Details of these learners were provided to centres on 10 May.

It is essential that the certification date is accurate in Edexcel Online for certificating learners, in order to ensure that learners will appear in the Q-TAG portal. Where learners have left the programme, please withdraw them to ensure records are kept up to date and they do not appear on the Q-TAG portal. 

If you have any additional learners that will be certificating in Summer 2021 who are not identified on any spreadsheet(s) provided, please add these to end of the spreadsheet or ensure the planned completion date in Edexcel Online is updated to an appropriate date, falling within the date range 2 April – 31 August. 

We are now moving towards the end of the planned standards verification activity for this year.

The deadline for the activity is 30 May* and this means all reports should be completed by that date. Please encourage your teams to get samples to Standards Verifiers as soon as possible, so you can receive feedback before the 18 June Q-TAG deadline. There will be no extension to this date, as we will move our focus to the Q-TAG process and associated quality assurance activities.

*with the exception of ’B2’ categorised BTEC qualifications.

We are sorry to inform you that there has been a delay to the release of ‘Z flag’ functionality, where you are able to ‘flag’ a unit as ‘reduced’, meaning it was taught, but not assessed. In line with our guidance, this is required for mid-flight learners, or certificating learners who plan to ‘top-up’ to a larger qualification next year. We will of course adjust deadlines in relation to the submission of this data and would like to reiterate it is not essential to submit reduced assessment flags for certificating learners who are not ‘topping-up’ – where the ‘Q-TAG’ is the primary mitigation for these learners. 

Our expectation is that this functionality will be available towards the end of May. We thank you for your patience and understanding whilst we work as fast as we can to ensure this functionality is fully tested before being deployed.

You will already be aware of the existing mitigations regarding ‘reduced assessment’ available to mid-flight learners. We have heard and spoken to many of you regarding the need to ensure that mid-flight learners have the impact they’ve experienced this year as a result of the pandemic fully mitigated. In some cases you’ve told us that ‘reduced assessment’ mitigations do not go far enough.

We will release further support on mid-flight learners (including those who will ‘top-up’ next year) as soon as possible to ensure learners are not disadvantaged – and we thank you for your feedback.

As previously advised, standards verification for ‘B1‘ categorised BTEC qualifications is serving a different purpose this year.  

As you’re aware, they will be used to support centre assessors with assessment decisions, which in turn we hope will assist in the Q-TAG judgements made by teachers and centres this year. As such, standards verification report statuses do not link directly to certification release. We’d like to reiterate and reassure you that for this year only there will be no certification ‘blocks’ or second samples as a result of standards verification.

Report statuses of ‘Not Yet Fully Sampled’ or ‘Pending – Centre Actions Required’ can be ignored. Instead, the Q-TAG process and Head of Centre Declaration will serve to confirm certification can be released once Quality Assurance of Q-TAGs is completed.

The external assessments linked to Licence to Practice (Early Years Educator) Childcare qualifications are going ahead this summer and are required to be sat (and passed) in order for learners to obtain their Licence to Practice.  

• 21221 - Unit 2 : Child Development from birth up to Five Years
• 31597 - Unit 1 : Children's Development
• 31598 - Unit 2 : Development of Children's Communication, Literacy and Communication Skills.

Due to the nested nature of these qualifications, external assessments are shared across both Licence and non-Licence to Practice qualifications in the suite, and the assessment is open to all learners, including those who may be planning to ‘top-up’ to a Licence to Practice qualification next year. In light of this, attendance registers have been sent for all learners with entries on the above units.

We are sorry if this has caused confusion. Please mark learners who do not require the Licence to Practice and therefore will not take the assessments as ‘Absent’ and return the register to us in the normal way. Secure assessment materials will be dispatched towards the end of May and must be held securely until after the day of the examination, at which point they can be destroyed, or used as practice materials.

If you have not had a chance to attend a BTEC Customer Briefing session, we are running more this term.

You can find more details on our Training from Pearson page (use the filter option to find your sector/s). Each session is delivered by a BTEC Sector specialist, and you will have the opportunity to ask questions and share best practice with your fellow BTEC colleagues.

As stated in previous bulletins and our Awarding Results 2021 Guidance (PDF | 1.43MB) (p.11), to ensure learners can progress with confidence to Higher Education, you should prioritise units for delivery that are set out by HEI admissions as essential to any offer they may have made to your students.
 
This often involves Maths and/or Science-related units within the BTEC
Level 3 Nationals qualifications (e.g. Engineering, Construction, Health & Social Care, Applied Science, Sport & Exercise Science). It is vital learners can study this content, even if formal assessment of these units cannot take place, to give them the best chance of succeeding at degree level. 
 
You will be asked to confirm you have done this through the submission of the Q-TAG and accompanying Head of Centre Declaration (HOCD).

This week we have written a letter to all BTEC Level 3 National students completing this year about the assessment arrangements and the support available if they are considering going to university. We would be grateful if you give a copy of this letter (PDF | 189.17KB) to every student that is completing a BTEC Level 3 National this year.  

If you have not already, you may wish to also provide students with accompanying information on the common sources of evidence that their Qualification-level Teacher Assessed Grade (Q-TAG) will be based on at your centre.

Live testing is continuing for Functional Skills assessments and we can see the volume of learners taking tests has increased significantly in the last few weeks. In order to meet that increased demand we have made sure we have sufficient markers available to turn around results within our published SLA of 28 days.

We are also making sure our test paper bank has sufficient test versions available should any of your learners need to re-take a test. So, while we aim to complete marking as quickly as possible, please be aware of our published SLA which is 28 days.

For paper based on-demand assessments, don’t forget to return fully completed attendance registers so we can process absentees as soon as we receive the completed register. Any blank registers or missing information may result in a delay in finalising absences, which will result in being unable to re-book tests until resolved.

On 10 May 2021 Ofqual released a downloadable guide for students on how GCSEs, A levels and Vocational and Technical Qualifications will be graded and awarded in summer 2021.

This outlines the arrangements in place for awarding grades in summer 2021, and where students can go for additional information.  Details on Vocational and Technical Qualifications can be found from page 11.

Please do share this resource with your learners if they are not already aware of it. You can find this guide on our dedicated learner page.

If you'd like to find out the latest information about our general qualifications and see how we are supporting schools and colleges, teachers, learners, parents and carers for summer 2021, please visit our summer 2021 support page.

We’ve run a series of events to support teachers in determining fair grades for GCSE, AS and A level learners this summer. Recordings of these events are now available on our Professional Development Academy.

We also have a range of support for students, parents and carers on our dedicated page. Please do take a look and pass this information on to your students and encourage them to share it with their parents and carers. Visit our students, parents and carers page.