BTEC and Higher Nationals Deadline

The BTEC on-time registration deadline has now passed. For the majority of BTEC candidates following the academic year, registrations should have been made by 1 November 2022 for learners enrolling in 2022/23. Where learners follow a roll on/roll off programme, centres have six weeks in which to register from the date the learner has started the course without incurring any late fees.

For Higher Nationals Levels 4 and 5, the deadline for learner registrations on programmes following the academic year is 15 November 2022. You must register within one month of enrolment for programmes that do not follow the academic year.

Remember, if you need to make examination entries for BTEC learners, you will need to make your registrations first. 

Top up or new registration?

Learners who completed a BTEC qualification in the last academic year and are returning to complete a larger BTEC qualification in the same sector need to be topped-up on Edexcel Online rather than registering them again.

You can read more about top-ups and watch our video walk-through for completing top-ups on the Pearson Support Portal.

For further support, you can access our on-demand eLearning module 'BTEC Registrations (2022/23)', which is designed for Exams Officers and includes top-ups and registrations. 

This year, we will be monitoring the accuracy of learners’ planned completion dates, to ensure that learners receive their results when they expect them.

Please ensure that the completion dates for learners are accurate. If you need to amend learner completion dates, you can read our guide to amending registrations on the Pearson Support Portal. We will be in touch in the coming weeks to help you with this activity, and we appreciate your support and collaboration.  

Following the successful use of OneDrive for the upload of learner work, we are continuing its use for the BTEC winter series for selected externally-assessed units (January-March). We have added 5 new units over Digital Technology, Music Technology, Applied Law and Performing Arts.

You can view all units now in scope for OneDrive submission on the Pearson Support Portal.

We will be in touch this week to arrange access to your centre’s OneDrive folder, and provide support for you to complete this activity. 

If you are delivering new BTEC Tech Awards (First Teach from September 2022), here are some key updates to make sure you’ve got everything to hand.

Have you made your registrations?

If you haven’t yet registered your learners, please read this important guidance, which will ensure they are registered on the correct Tech Award for their year of completion.

So that you can finalise your registrations and ensure learners are on the correct programme, we are delaying the late registration deadline for this academic year to Friday 18 November for legacy Tech Awards, First Awards, and new Tech Awards (2022) only.

After 18 November standard late registration fees will apply. You can find out more in our vocational fees guide.

Accessing your Standardisation Materials

We have published the initial set of Exemplar Standardisation Materials (ESMs) for teachers to refer to for internal standardisation prior to marking learner responses to Pearson-Set Assignments (PSAs). You can access these using an Edexcel Online password in the Course Materials section of your subject’s qualification page, under ‘Teaching and Learning Materials’. Further ESMs will be added in early 2023 following the first moderation series.

Attend our training events

Live 'Getting Started' and 'Marking and Moderation' online training sessions are running throughout November. They are free to attend and are filling up fast, so be sure to book your space quickly! If you can’t attend one of our Getting Started sessions, you can access the recordings from our YouTube BTEC Tech Award playlist, and we will be releasing recordings of the Marking and Moderation training in the coming weeks.

Further support

You can access further information about BTEC Tech Awards from 2022 on our website, including updates on registrations, assessment entries, key dates, updated specifications and sample assessments, quality assurance processes, requesting modified papers, grade calculators and becoming a moderator.

If you need help or have any questions, we are always happy to support. You can get in touch by using the Pearson Support Portal. 

We recently wrote to your Head of Centre to share our plans to change the process for creating and updating examination staff roles within Edexcel Online. We also asked them to take part in a cleanse to remove all examination staff no longer active at your centre.

From 18 November Pearson will create and manage examinations staff (including Quality Nominee) Edexcel Online accounts on your behalf. All other roles (e.g. teacher accounts) will continue to be managed by Exams Officers, along with the permissions to delete non active accounts. We will be in touch shortly to confirm how you can request new examinations staff accounts and make amendments to existing accounts after this activity.

As part of this activity, we asked for the return of a completed spreadsheet and Head of Centre Declaration. If both of these documents haven’t been returned, we would be grateful if you would do so by the 18 November, which will allow us to make the necessary changes in Edexcel Online on your behalf.

If you or your Head of Centre hasn’t received the communication or would like it to be resent, please email eprocessing@pearson.com quoting your centre number.

Supporting you through the BTEC Quality Assurance Cycle

This year, we have a range of online support available to guide you through the quality assurance process this year. Our ongoing offer includes live events focused on a range of roles and responsibilities linked to BTEC programmes, and weekly Quality Assurance catch ups where you are welcome to join us for an informal chat about where we are in the cycle and ask any questions to one of the team.

Please do check out the range of events available and share these with your teams; we look forward to seeing you at one soon.

Submission of the Annual Quality Declaration (AQD) 

Last week, we confirmed that the submission deadline for the AQD has been extended to Friday 18 November. Thank you for your ongoing support with this process.

A range of support is available to help Quality Nominees complete and submit this document successfully:

• Watch our AQD on-demand walkthrough
• Read our Frequently Asked Questions in our support article
• Take a look at our 'Guide to completing the AQD for WBL Centres' on our website.

We can confirm that the sharing function in the AQD is now available, allowing you to collaborate with colleagues to complete this activity. Please get in touch if you require support with this function.

Annual Centre Terms and Conditions via the AQD

All centres offering any Pearson BTEC, Functional Skills, Work Based Learning and/or Higher National qualifications will be able to complete the AQD. Centres will only be required to complete the sections relevant to their qualification offer. The AQD will also contain the Centre Terms and Conditions, which should also be signed.

Holistic Review 2022/23

The holistic review for centres in scope this year is now underway and the Centre Assessment Standards Reviewers are currently contacting their allocated centres to arrange visits or remote activity as appropriate. The holistic review is more streamlined this year with very few centres in scope; we contacted those included by email on 31 October, so if you have not heard from us, then you should await the next stage in the quality assurance cycle, which will be the allocations of Standards Verifiers in January. You will also notice that in Edexcel Online, under the BTEC Centre Assessment Standards Reviewer tab in the BTEC menu, your allocated reviewer is ‘Dr Not Active’, which is another way to confirm you are not in scope.

You can read more about the BTEC holisitic review activity on the Pearson Support Portal.

If you are not included in this year's holistic reviews, we are still committed to supporting you with any quality assurance queries. You can get in touch with your Vocational Quality Assurance management team, who are happy to help. 

In relation to adaptations, Ofqual confirmed previously that:

“For other qualifications, including vocational and technical qualifications taught alongside or instead of GCSEs, AS and A levels, a range of adaptations were permitted in academic year 2021 to 2022. […] Given that public health restrictions are no longer in place, these adaptations are no longer necessary for the academic year 2022 to 2023 onwards.”

This means our main adaptation of streamlined assessment will not be available in 2022/23, so you should plan to teach and assess the BTEC qualifications as normal. The streamlined ‘flag’ will be removed shortly from Edexcel Online, so please do not use it in the meantime.

Ofqual have also released guidance on grading assessments in this academic year. You can read more about the Ofqual guidance on their website.

Special Consideration

In relation to the use of special consideration, learners must attempt all assessments that are required and when assessments are missed, they should be deferred to the next available opportunity. Where the assessment is the final opportunity and it has been unavoidably missed, for example due to illness, the special consideration process can be used.

Therefore, from the January series we will be advising centres candidates must resit, and only apply for special consideration in summer if they are unable to re-sit then. Unless there are difficulties arising, for example group performances which cannot be repeated, or candidates who are certificating, special consideration will not be awarded. 

Access your Administrative Support Guides

All Administrative Support Guides (ASGs) for 2022/23 for task based BTEC papers are now available on our website, including our BTEC Tech Awards (2022). You can access these via our qualification pages.

Our Administrative Support Guides are designed to support you in delivering task-based assessments. They contain important information about:

• level of supervision and control for each assessment
• dispatch method (web download or secure dispatch)
• what is required before, during and after the assessment – this includes information on any preparatory work (Part A), information on the supervised assessment (Part B) and submission of work
• attendance registers and learner authentic forms
• important links to support pages, key dates and deadlines, post results services  and Special requirements.

The Administrative Support Guide (ASG) should be read in conjunction with the Instructions for Conducting External Assessments (ICEA) and your unit specification.

External Assessment overview document now available

The External Assessment overview document for 2023 is now available on our Timetables webpage.

Final timetables for January 2023 and June 2023

We have now released the final timetable for summer 2023, which you can view alongside the January 2023 timetable on our Timetables webpage.

Pearson’s October E-Bulletin includes the following:

• Q&A Networks and Training events
• Registrations and entries
• ResultsPlus

Read the October T Level E-Bulletin

APMR Update  

Our Annual Programme Monitoring Review (APMR) for the 2021/22 academic period will be open shortly. We’ll contact Quality Nominees directly once it is live with details for how to access it.  

We continue to listen to feedback from you and once live, you will notice a shorter and simpler APMR.  

Higher National Registration Deadline

The deadline for registering your Higher National students is 15 November 2022. Registering your students on or before the deadline means we can allocate your External Examiner on time. They will help to support you through to certification next year.

If you need help to make registrations via Edexcel Online, you can read our guidance on making registrations on our support portal.

Details regarding HN fees for 22/23 (including late fees) can be found in our vocational fees guide on our website. 

Functional Skills - Paper based on-demand test bookings over Christmas & New Year 

Functional Skills paper based on-demand tests can be booked up to two weeks ahead of any planned test date. However, around the festive period, we need to make some changes to these arrangements to ensure that we can produce test materials and dispatch them to you with plenty of time ahead of the booked test date.

From 1 December 2022 to 28 December 2022, you will not be able to book any Functional Skills paper based on-demand tests for dates between 29 December 2022 to 12 January 2023. During this time, test bookings can be made for dates that fall outside this period as normal. After 28 December 2022, you will be able to book tests as you normally would.

This change only affects new test bookings. Any existing bookings that have already made will still be processed.

Reminder: Test Bookings

We have noticed an increase in tests being booked before  apprentices have cleared gateway and entered into the EPA period. Under EPA rules, apprentices will be ineligible for their result during the on-programme phase of their learning. A result for a tested component when not in the EPA period, will be voided.

Read more about booking multiple choice tests on the Pearson Support Portal.

Reasonable Adjustments

Where apprentices have a reasonable adjustment requirement, please ensure that this is indicated on their ACE record, before the EPA gateway date. This is to ensure that there is sufficient time to confirm what adjustments can be offered to best support the apprentice.  

Find out more about submitting reasonable adjustment requests on the Pearson Support Portal.

Further Support

To enhance the support we offer, we have a dedicated EPA customer service team. The team can be contacted on epacustomerservices@pearson.com or contacted on 0344 257 5553.

Recruitment of independent end-point assessors

We have a number of roles for Associates to be involved with End-Point Assessment assessments. If you are interested, please look at our live vacancy page. 

Annual Quality Declaration

Our new online Annual Quality Declaration is aimed to streamline the Centre Self-Assessment (CSA) and T&C's into a single online form, instead of completing separate documents. You should now have access to this. We are running a series of live events to support you, and you can book on to our training on our website.

Lead Standards Verification and Standards Verification allocations

Lead Standards Verifier (LSV) and Standards Verifier (SV) allocations have now been released where required, and your LSVs and SVs will be in the process of contacting you to arrange their verification activities. Details of these allocations can be found within Edexcel Online under the NVQ tab, external verification. 

Handbooks

You can now read the WBL Quality Assurance Handbooks on our website. These are a useful reference to support effective quality assurance throughout the next academic year.  

For information on our general qualifications for 2023, please visit our summer 2023 support page. Make sure you keep up to date with all your subject qualification news by signing up to receive our regular Subject Advisor updates.

You can also sign up to receive our regular Pearson Qualifications Bulletin, plus read all our past issues.