As explained in our recent bulletins, where assessment was due but did not take place between 1 August 2020 - 31 August 2021, you will need to provide a unit-level Teacher Assessed Grade (U-TAG) judgement by 10 November in order that your learners are able to progress their certification claims this year. You will do this in two ways, depending on the assessment type: 

• Externally assessed units eligible for a U-TAG will be submitted on a spreadsheet; these templates have already been sent to your EOL mailbox. Please check with your examinations officer/EOL named Point of Contact to confirm receipt.
• Internally assessed units eligible for a U-TAG will be submitted via the normal grade reporting within EOL, using the ‘Z’ flag to denote units not fully assessed last academic year. 

For any learner who has been topped-up in this academic year, please ensure all internal and external units completed in 2020/21 are reported by Wednesday 10 November to allow us to complete the necessary quality assurance checks for your centre. 

To assist you with this please refer to our guidance on U-TAGs and our two-page Teacher Guidance for U-TAGs, which includes an infographic as well as some of our frequently asked questions. 

The deadline for completion of this activity is 10 November 2021, and failure to submit by this date could result in delays to results for learners. 

Learners cannot add evidence to ‘increase’ a U-TAG judgement, any resits taken in 2021/22 must be conducted under the normal assessment rules.

Why are internal units flagged as ‘Z’ missing from the spreadsheet I’ve been sent? 

Internal units should be reported via EOL. The spreadsheet you have been sent only contains externally assessed units, and should only be used to report these U-TAGs to us. You can find admin guidance for this process on our website.

Why are my ‘top-up’ learners missing from my externally assessed unit spreadsheet? 

We have been providing additional spreadsheets to centres as top-ups have been made. Please check your EOL account for updates. 

Why are you moving to U-TAGs when we spent so much time focusing on Qualification level in summer 2021? 

In light of the joint DfE and Ofqual consultation in August, we were unable to confirm how we would enable certification for mid-flight learners and learners who would ‘top-up’ until we had this information. We appreciate that this decision comes at an already busy and challenging time of year, and we are grateful to you and your teaching teams for support in facilitating what we think is the fairest approach for these learners. U-TAGs for missed assessment in 2020/21 mean that excessive assessment in 2021/22 is not required, and learners can focus on planned assessment this academic year. 

Can I use the Bulk Grade Reporting Tool to add Internal Unit U-TAGs? 

Yes, general instructions for reporting can be found on our website. In addition, we have produced two step-by-step video guides on how to use the Bulk Grade Reporting Tool:

- Bulk Grade Reporting Tool on EOL Step 1: Teachers
- Bulk Grade Reporting Tool on EOL Step 2: Exams Officers

You can produce a bulk grade reporting spreadsheet for internally assessed units using EOL in the way that you used to pre-Covid adjustments.

The following table is an example of the bulk reporting spreadsheet. The reduced assessment flag is available so you can report U-TAG by using the sheet and adding a Y when reduced assessment was used.

What happens if we are not able to send in the U-TAGs by 10 November? 

 Our ambition is to be able to confirm all U-TAG judgements by 13 January and, in line with regulatory guidance and requirements, we need to have Quality Assured these judgements before this confirmation can take place.

If you are facing challenges relating to the submission of U-TAGs by 10 November, please contact us; we are here to support you.  

Why are you moving to U-TAGs for learners who are topping-up? Is this fair? 

Learners that certificated on BTEC qualifications in 2021 were required to be awarded holistic Q-TAG judgements in line with our guidance and in relation to the policy and regulatory framework in place for 1 August 2020 – 31 August 2021. However, if they are topping-up to a larger sized qualification, their qualification this year will be awarded in the normal way, meaning unit-level grades, across the whole qualification, are needed to enable certification.  

The Q-TAG certificate issued in line with guidance from 2021 remains valid, but now the focus for these learners needs to move to the mid-flight learner U-TAG process.  

We reviewed the fairest way to ensure results issued this year are accurate, and that U-TAGs reflect the performance evidence available. In light of this, we have asked centres to input unit-level judgements (U-TAGs) for these learners, for all assessment that was due, but did not take place (from 1 August 2020 – 31 August 2021), alongside unit grades for assessment that did take place during this time. The further benefit for learners, in line with the policy for this year, is that Notifications of Performance will be available.   

Please note that the deadline for this activity was 30 September, so it is now a matter of some urgency as it indicates your acceptance of our Terms and Conditions for BTEC qualifications (Tech Award, BTEC L2 and L3) and is required for certification to take place. You will not be able to receive BTEC results from us until this is complete. 

You must submit your 2021/22 ACD as soon as possible, if you have not yet done so. This is available for you to download from EOL as well as the Quality Assurance webpage. 

Please note that we will soon be escalating the issue of missing ACDs to one of non-compliance, which can have significant effects in respect of certification of learners, as well as approval status.

If you need further support to complete you Annual Centre Declaration, you can access our video tutorial or our guide on our website. 

We are currently running programme ratings for registrations made by the 1 November deadline to ensure they have a rating assigned.

Therefore, we will be issuing programme ratings to centres not assigned to a Lead SV during the week commencing 15 November 2021. As a result, the Appeals window for this will close on 15 December 2021.

The BTEC summer series exam timetables have now been finalised following a period of review and feedback on the provisional timetable.

All dates are available on the BTEC External Assessment (EA) Overview document on our timetables webpage, along with confirmed January, February and March series assessment dates.

Entries for this session will open on Friday 12 November 2021 for BTEC Firsts, BTEC Nationals, Level 2 Technicals and Tech Awards. 

For instances where learners are completing set tasks and secure materials are held under gold padlock, centres are reminded of the requirement to have made learner entries to be able to access these materials. 

Especially for centres new to BTEC, but also as a useful ‘refresher’ for existing BTEC teachers and assessors, we have created two ‘Welcome to BTEC’ Live Webinars.

The sessions are very much focussed on getting to grips with the basics of BTEC, from demystifying BTEC terminology and processes, understanding the key roles in BTEC teams through to assessment planning and internal quality assurance of assessments.

As many colleagues in centres may feel the need to get ‘back to basics’ after months of disruptions, these sessions are an ideal one-stop shop for everything BTEC!

You can register and find booking details for the two live events (one for Schools and FE Colleges on 22 November, and the other for Work Based Learning Centres on the 8 December) in the following table:

We have recently released our training programme for Exams Officers for 2021/22.

We are offering 17 modules throughout the year, as on demand interactive e-learning. These will cover both vocational and academic qualifications, taking you from making entries through to issuing results.

You can access these at any time, and you will receive an electronic certificate after each completed module. You can find our first modules on our Exams Officer support pages. We will release new modules every month, so please look out for these in the VQ bulletin and EO newsletter. 

We have received some queries from centres about the impact of the timing of the U-TAG process for units undertaken in 2020/21 on UCAS applications. This relates to learners completing in 2022 and applying to HE this academic year, given that it may not be possible to add the quality assured U-TAGs for year 1 units to the UCAS application form (like in normal years). 

We have the following guidance: 

• Please continue to list which unit titles students are studying as part of the BTEC. This is particularly imperative for STEM and health-related degrees, where unit-based offers can often be made. Some HEIs will reject applications outright if unit titles are not listed on the UCAS application form. 
  
• We have already informed UK HEIs that we will send all the unit grades with the overall qualification grade (via UCAS) in summer as in normal years. 
  
• It is not vital to also include year 1 unit grades on the application form for the vast majority of BTEC students (as we will send that information in summer, and HEIs recognise that not all centres deliver the key units in year 1). HEIs will largely be able to make offers (including unit-based ones) in the normal way. 
  
• The exception, where some HEIs use year 1 unit grades to make an offer, is in cases where applicants have not met the GCSE entry requirements, and some will use the year 1 results to still make an offer to the student if they feel it compensates for their GCSE performance. In these cases, we recommend that centres enter the “Provisional year 1 BTEC unit grades” into the “Reference” part of the UCAS application form, which will be confidential and not seen by the student. You may also wish to do this for applicants with borderline predicted qualification grades. 
  
• We will also be informing all UK HEIs that the timing of the U-TAG process means that not all applicants will be able to enter their year 1 unit grades to the UCAS application form as normal and remind them that they will be sent all the unit grades as normal in summer. 
  
• Please ensure that applicants use the same name on their UCAS application form as on their BTEC registration (i.e., their legal name). This enables us to successfully identify students and send their results to UCAS on time. Please remind students not to use nicknames or change the way hyphenated surnames appear for example. 
  

Each week, the Pearson Quality Advisor Team hold a one-hour open forum session that is free for you to attend.

The Quality Advisor Team provide a short update and then devote our time to answering some of the frequent questions in relation to Quality Assurance. While our Portal is the best place for more detailed or centre specific queries, these quick Catch-Up sessions are an ideal way to get hold of answers and explanations in relation to current activities. 

Please use the booking link to select suitable times and dates from our offer that will continue into December.

WBL handbooks 

WBL handbooks are now available and can be found on our website.

Centre Self-Assessment and supporting guidance document 

Following a review and update of our supporting materials, the Centre Self- Assessment (CSA) is now available. We would encourage you to complete your CSA as soon as possible. This will enable you to be prepared for your first Lead Standards Verification activity. Documents can be found on our website.

If you have already completed an ACD for your BTEC programmes, you do not need to complete the CSA. Please make the ACD available for your WBL Lead Standards Verifier (LSV) or PQA advisor once complete. 

Lead Standards Verifier activity 

Please accept our apologies for the delay on WBL LSV allocations, we hope to resolve this by mid-November 2021. LSVs will start to contact you after this point to carry out the LSV activities and support you for the coming year. We encourage you to work with your allocated LSVs to ensure your documents are completed and you are ready for the coming year’s delivery.

In the meantime, you should have received your sector Standards Verifier allocations. Please continue with your sector Standards Verifier, your Lead SV will be allocated shortly.

For 2021/22, LSV and SV activities will remain remote, to ensure the safety of all involved.

Updated sector guides 

The policy direction for this academic year is that teaching, learning and assessment should continue. As permitted by Ofqual and DfE, for we will have adaptations available across many vocational qualifications to support centres and learners.  

As part of this work, and alongside the announcements on 30 September regarding General Qualification contingencies, the Department for Education have released guidance for vocational qualifications, to support parity of contingency planning for all learners this year.  

For work-based learning/competency qualifications, we have produced individual sector guidance support centres with assessments should further disruption occur, but other assessments are able to go ahead.   

If it is decided that assessments are no longer viable and assessments can no longer be undertaken safely, assessments for work-based learning/competency-based qualifications should be delayed until it is safe to continue.   

Our updated sector guides can be found on our website.  

You can make test bookings for paper based on-demand Functional Skills tests at any time up to 14 days ahead of the planned test date. However, during the Christmas period we must make some changes to ensure test papers can be dispatched and received securely.  

This means that in the period from 14 November 2021 to 28 December 2021, when making a test booking for a paper based on-demand test, you will not be able to select dates in the period from 29 December 2021 to 12 January 2022. All other dates can be booked as normal.

After 28 December, normal service will be resumed.

Construction news 

The Joint Board of Moderators (JBM) have reviewed and approved the T Level Technical Qualification in Design, Surveying and Planning for Construction (Civil Engineering OS) against their approval criteria to recognise that it meets the Educational Base for Eng Tech professional standard. 

The JBM represents five professional bodies related to Civil Engineering and this endorsement may help HEI's accept the T Level as an appropriate progression route to Civil Engineering degrees. More information can be found on the JBM website.

Accounting and Finance news 

In mid-September, we gained approval from the Institute for the Technical Qualification in Accounting and the Technical Qualification in Finance. 

We are currently working on finalising the specifications and specimen assessment materials. We hope to have published versions available in the next couple of weeks. 

Our first Provider Support events will be Getting to Know the Specification. These will be pre-recorded webinars giving you a high-level look at the qualification and specification. We will release these from November, as they are pre-recorded, you will be able to watch them at your leisure, use on internal inset, or share with colleagues. Live events are planned for the Spring and Summer terms, this will include Getting Ready to Teach, and Getting Ready to Assess. 

Training events 

We are starting to finalise our events for this academic year. More information will be released in the Autumn term, but for those of you delivering Construction and Digital you will find the dates to our live Q&A Networks below.

Autumn Term Q&A Network Sessions 

These half termly Q&A sessions with the Sector Manager and Subject Advisor will give you the opportunity to ask questions, discuss with other tutors your experience with delivering the T Level and share good practice. Details and weblinks to register onto our networking events are below. 

Construction:

30 November 2021 at 13:00-14:00 

Digital: 

1 December 2021 at 13:00-14:00

2021-2023 Key Dates Schedule 

The Key Dates Schedules for Construction and Digital covering 2021-2023 are available on the Provider administration page of the Course Materials tab. Please note, some of the dates will be provisional at the time of publication.

• Design, Surveying and Planning for Construction administration materials
• Digital Production, Design and Development administration materials

2021 Student Registration 

Providers are now able to make student registrations onto the Construction and Digital Technical Qualifications for cohorts commencing this academic year. 

The standard registration window will close on 1 November, with late registrations starting on 2 November. A support video on how to make registrations and manage student details can be found on our Provider page. 

Student Entries - November 2021 Series 

Entries for the Core Component Assessments for the November 2021 Series are open. A support video on how to make entries is available via the Engagement Hub. 

Please remember, you must make an entry for every student wishing to enter the assessment. 

Providers wishing to make entries for re-sits please ensure you are familiar with the re-sit rules. These can be found in the TQ Specification, or you can use our ‘assessment, results and re-sits' support video, which can be found on the Provider page. 

We recently communicated an issue with EOL whereby it is not currently possible to make resit entries for the Employer Set Project (ESP) only. If you need to make any entries for students to resit the ESP component only, please add your entries data to attached template in the initial communication and return it to: eprocessing@pearson.com. All other entries should be made online [i.e Core examinations and ESP, Core examinations]. 

Newly registered learners for 2021/2022 academic year should not be entered for any November 2021 assessments.

Please note, we are now in the ‘very late entry’ window for the Core component. 

Student Entries - Occupational Specialism - Summer 2022 Series 

Entries for the Occupational Specialism Assessment for the Summer 2022 Series are open. 

Please remember, you must make an entry for every student wishing to enter the assessment. 

Please note, we are now in the ‘late entry window’ for the Occupational Specialism component. 

2021 Providers 

For centres commencing delivery this September 2021, do not forget to take advantage of the support available to you, tutors and Exams Officers:

• Introduce T Levels to your team with this short webcast.
• Training events and Q&A Networks noted above.
• The COURSE MATERIALS tab for each TQ has teaching, learning and assessment materials; plus, administration materials.
• The ENGAGEMENT HUB on the Provider page has our training archive, plus several short support videos on administration processes for T Levels including: "Assessment, results and resits", "How to make a registration", "How to make an entry", and "How to manage learner details". 

English and Maths 

You will be aware that to achieve their T Level certificate your students must achieve GCSE English and Maths at Grade 4 or above, or Level 2 Functional Skills in English and maths. 

You can visit our Functional Skills webpage for some great advice and guidance on Post 16 English and Maths. 

You can sign up for our post 16 English and Maths monthly newsletter for more information. 

Planning for 2022 Recruitment 

Some of you have asked about information to include in your college prospectus and at recruitment fairs. Our student webpage has several resources designed to support you when recruiting students, this includes: 

• Student Journey: showing your students what their two-year T Level journey could look like. 
• Qualification Descriptions: a high-level look at the qualification, the skills taught and progression opportunities – perfect to include in your college prospectus.
• Student case studies: live examples of T Level students.

2022 Provider Approval Window 

For Providers commencing delivery in September 2022 the approval window will not open until February 2022. You must gain approval for each Technical Qualification you wish to deliver.

To support you, a short Provider Approval video can be found in the Construction Engagement Hub and the Digital Engagement Hub. Please watch this first before starting your application process.

All the supporting documents and approval forms can be found in the Course Materials tab, this includes:

• A Guide to Provider Approval
• Guidance Document Pearson Vocational Provider Approval Application for T Level Technical Qualifications 
• Pearson T Level Technical Qualification Delivery Approval Application Form 
• Pearson Vocational Provider Approval Application for T Level Technical Qualifications

Contact Us 

Do not forget, if you need to contact us about T Levels, you can do so by using the Pearson Support Portal. The Portal is an online tool that you can use to raise your query and track its progress.

With options evenings and open days drawing closer, we are here to support you in your conversations about BTEC with new and existing students. 

Our BTEC Options tool is easy to use and interactive; designed specially to help you talk to learners and parents about next steps. In addition, you can easily focus on the specific BTEC courses offered by your college to get customised information that will help you recruit and retain learners. 

You can access: 

• Subject and course information
• Employability skills students will develop on the course
• A range of career options after studying BTEC
• Stories from BTEC alumni in your subject area. 

The #ProtectStudentChoice campaign focuses on the Department for Education’s current review of post-16 qualifications at Level 3, which puts government funding at risk for many applied general qualifications such as BTECs. The letter warns that “many young people will be adversely affected by this proposal, but disadvantaged students have the most to lose”. 

Here is Pearson's response to the #ProtectStudentChoice campaign, and here is the petition you can sign to support the campaign to guarantee BTECs will continue to play a major role in the qualifications landscape. 

For further information on our general qualifications for 2022, please visit our summer 2022 support page. We will be updating this page regularly.

For information and entry deadlines for the autumn 2021 exam series, please visit our October/November exam series web page.

Do sign up to receive our regular Pearson Qualifications GQ Bulletin on our website, where you will also be able to read past issues.