Our overwhelming priority is to support teachers and their students during this time of uncertainty. Learners in schools, colleges and higher education across the UK have put in huge amounts of work to get to this point and we intend to ensure they achieve the grades they deserve to move to the next stage.

We continue to work around the clock with the Department for Education, Ofqual and the other exam boards to define the detail of how this will work and will share information as soon as we have it.

We welcome the principles being used for the assessment and believe they will deliver fair outcomes. It’s important that professional teacher judgements are taken into account, that a wide range of evidence is used and that there will be a clear appeals process. Students that prefer to sit a paper later in the year will also have the opportunity to do so.

For our BTEC vocational qualifications, we feel confident we can award grades for students finishing this academic year by working closely with teachers to collate completed student grades, taking into account student progress on assignments and course work to date and by sampling and verifying student work. Again, we are working to understand the implications of the current context for BTECs and other applied general qualifications and will communicate with learners as soon as we can.These are unprecedented times so please bear with us. We are grateful for your patience and please rest assured that we will update you as soon as we have more information.

My thoughts and best wishes are with you all.

Rod Bristow, President, Pearson UK & Global Online Learning