VQ Bulletin - Issue 48
Welcome to the latest issue of the VQ Bulletin.
I’d like to send you a wholehearted ‘thank you!’ on behalf of the Pearson Vocational Qualifications team. I am aware of many of the challenges you have faced since 2020 and am enormously grateful that, despite these, you have ensured that lessons, assignments, assessments and reporting have continued to their usual high standard.
Together, across the UK, we have delivered BTECs to learners and supported the first wave of T level results. The Pearson team and I are very proud of this achievement.
It is important that we keep you informed throughout the results period on the most up-to-date news and information. We are keeping our comprehensive FAQs and dedicated Awarding Results in 2022 web page updated and you can follow @PearsonBTEC on Twitter. If you would prefer to contact us directly with any queries or concerns we have a team of people ready to answer your email or receive your call.
Our team is also here to help any of your students with questions about their results. Please advise them that they can visit our student FAQ page or bookmark our BTEC student web page, all of which are updated regularly. If they have a specific question for us, they can contact us through our online portal where live chat is available, or phone us on 0345 618 0440. Phone lines will be open from 08:30 daily during the results period.
Once again, on behalf of the entire Vocational Qualifications team, I’d like to thank you for all you’ve done to ensure the success of the class of 2022, and to wish them all the very best as they take their exciting next steps.
Best regards,
Freya Thomas Monk
Senior Vice President
Pearson Vocational Qualifications and Training
Important: All results are embargoed and must not be shared until the relevant learner results dates listed below.
Results must be handled securely and continue to be embargoed until the relevant learner release date and time.
| Qualification | Results to centres | Results to students |
| RQF* Level 3 BTEC Nationals and T Levels | 17/08/2022 | 18/08/2022 |
| Level 1/2 BTEC Firsts, Tech Awards and Level 2 Technicals | 24/08/2022 | 25/08/2022 |
*Please note QCF BTEC and other 100% internally assessed qualifications are not embargoed
Results Reports via EOL
In a return to normal results management, Results Reports will be available to Examinations Officers, and other administration staff on centre results day(s). Where EDI results files have been requested, these will be sent in the usual way for upload to your own MIS, in your A2C inbox as normal.
This Wednesday (17 August), embargoed Level 3 BTEC Nationals results will be issued. Your EOL downloadable reports (i.e. Broadsheets and Statements of Results) will be pre-populated to your EOL mailbox (for those with the 'Results' profile).
On 24 August, the Level 2 Technicals, Level 1/2 Firsts and Tech Awards embargoed results will be issued, these must be kept embargoed until learner results day on 25 August.
UCAS Track
Relevant results data has been shared with UCAS, and this will be reflected on ‘UCAS Track’ from 08:15 on 18 August 2022. This will show applicants whether they have met their HEI offer(s). It will also show students’ actual results.
If a student has not quite met their offer, it is still worth the student contacting their HEI to see if they will still accept them for the course, as depending on capacity and course requirements, they may be flexible. Thousands of places are also available via Clearing, which opened last month.
Contact Us
This year, our Exams Officer helpline will be open for longer to support you with any queries you may have about your 2022 BTEC results.
- Tuesday 16 August - 08:00 - 17:00
- Wednesday 17 August - 07:30 - 17:00
- Thursday 18 August - 07:30 - 17:00
- Friday 19 August - 08:00 - 17:00
You can also contact us by using the Pearson Support Portal, where you can find the relevant support team for your role.
BTEC | Managing Results, Post Results Services, Common Issues and Solutions
Grade Boundaries
In a change from previous years, but to align to our General Qualifications results release, Grade Boundary information will be sent to relevant results administration EOL mailboxes. They will be added to our website on the learner results day of each result week.
Lead Examiner Reports
Lead Examiner reports will be published via gold padlock to Exams Officers only on Wednesday 17 August, and more widely accessible on the website on Thursday 18 August. The reports will no longer include reference to the grade boundaries. Our Lead Examiner reports are intended to provide information to help relevant centre staff understand more about how the assessment was received by learners, and to inform future teaching and learning.
Question Papers and Mark Schemes
Question papers are already available on the relevant qualification pages requiring silver padlock. The accompanying mark schemes will also be published via gold padlock to Exams Officers only on Wednesday 17 August and under silver padlock on Thursday 18 August.
National Results data
National BTEC results data is published each year in November, once the complete data sets are ready and learners have completed and submitted internally assessed units for the year. Ofqual publish headline data for all Vocational Qualifications in August, which gives a snapshot of results for this summer.
Results Plus
As part of our assessment feedback services, ResultsPlus will be available to you from learner Results Day on Thursday 18 August.
ResultsPlus is a free online results analysis tool for teachers and tutors that gives a detailed breakdown of learners’ performance in Pearson Edexcel exams and BTEC external assessments. You can find more information and how to login by visiting our ResultsPlus support page.
Post Results Services
Our post results services will be available as usual from learner Results Day on Thursday 18 August. You will be able to submit 'reviews of marking and moderation' (RoMM) and 'access to scripts' (ATS) requests, as well as appeals. If you want to review the services that are available to you, please take a look at our post results services support page.
Appeals
For BTEC results for May/June 2022 external assessments, the appeals process that is detailed in the JCQ Guide to Awarding Bodies’ Appeals Processes (June 2022) will apply.
To supplement the JCQ Guide to Awarding Bodies’ Appeals Processes (June 2022), our BTEC Appeals Guidance Summer 2022 provides a summary of the appeals process for the May/June 2022 external assessments and information on where the BTEC appeals process will differ from the arrangements detailed in the JCQ document.
In addition, we have designed a handy infographic which walks you through the BTEC Appeals process for May/June 2022 examinations, which we hope you find a useful summary.
We have also produced a Review of Marking and Appeals guidance (PDF | 100 KB) for BTEC students, which details your learners’ next steps if they are not happy with their result, and we would be grateful if you could share this with them if needed.
Common issues and solutions
We may have contacted you over the summer break if you still have learners showing an ‘Ineligible’ status, which means that, as it stands, these learners will not get an overall grade for their BTEC qualification on Thursday.
There could be several reasons for ineligibility, and these are not limited to either internally or externally assessed units. Please check your inbox as soon as possible and, if you have received this email, review its contents following the steps for checking and amending the eligibility for relevant learners. As a reminder, we have also created the Vocational Qualifications: Eligibility Steps for Academic Year 2021/22 guidance, which explains the process and has support links to help you complete this.
While we can’t guarantee that these learners will receive their results on Thursday, your immediate action will ensure that certification is imminent. We are very grateful for your help and support in ensuring your learners receive their results.
Some key factors that may cause ineligible status for learners this summer:
Scenario |
Assessment Type | Summary | Further Information |
|---|---|---|---|
U-TAGs are not showing for units |
Internal and External Assessment that was due to take place in 2020/21 |
Submit all Unit-level Teacher Assessed Grades for assessment that was ‘reduced’/due but not assessed in 2020/21 |
All centres should have taken this step in the Autumn term, using this guidance. |
Grades are not showing for Streamlined units (Nationals, Firsts) or those with in-unit adaptation (Tech Awards) |
Internal Assessment (either one or two units) |
‘Streamlined assessment’ grades should have been submitted on Edexcel Online, for units where this adaptation has been used. Note: these unit grades will not appear any differently on the Notification of Performance, the streamlined ‘flag’ is required for our own records and reporting processes. |
You can find a list of qualifications where you can use Streamlined assessment in our guidance. |
Learner is showing as ineligible due to incorrect unit combination |
Internal assessment |
All relevant unit grades must be submitted by the centres, with the relevant ‘rules of combination’ followed. |
Check our new consolidated eligibility guidance. |
Learner is showing as ineligible due to missing external assessment booking |
External Assessment |
Ensure all learners are entered for external assessments, where they are required. |
If you have not made entries for external assessments, but they were required for the course, please contact us urgently to resolve. |
An external assessment grade for an absent learner is not showing. |
External Assessment |
-Special Considerations applications should have been submitted within 7 days of the assessment taking place – including for absent learners. If you have an approved special consideration for an absence in January/February or May/June 2022, assessed grades (also known as aegrotats) will be provided by Pearson on the scheduled results day, where all other eligibility criteria are met. |
Our Guidance for Managing BTEC Exams in 2022 has guidance for managing absences. |
We are very aware that your learners may need extra support during this time and are here to help them. We would be very grateful if you could ensure that they are aware of where to find information and how to contact us should they need to.
Earlier this week, Ofqual’s Chief Regulator and UCAS’s Chief Executive wrote a letter to students who will receive their results on 18 August 2022. In the letter, they outline important information about results this year. In addition, the DfE published a blog last month, which answers many of the questions you and your students may have about awarding results and university admissions for this year’s Level 3 cohort. Please do read and share where appropriate.
We have created this letter, which you may wish to share with BTEC students, about how results are awarded this year and post results services they can access via their centre.
In addition, we have a dedicated student FAQ web page which has answers to learner questions about everything from awarding arrangements this year to post results services, and this year’s appeals process. Please do alert your students to this page and advise them that they can also follow @PearsonBTEC.
In addition, if they have any specific questions for us, they can contact us (where live chat is also available) or phone us on 0345 618 0440. Phone lines will open at 07:30 on Results Days.
We know that you are quite rightly proud of everything that your learners have achieved this year. If you want to view some of the success stories from other centres, we have been fortunate enough to meet and interview students to talk about what their BTEC has meant to them, and you can see them all on our BTEC Results web page.
When sharing any of your own success stories on social media, please include #BTECResultsDay2022 so we can also see and share them.
T Level | Managing TQ Results and Post Results Services
Pearson are responsible for delivering the two components (Core Component and Occupational Specialist Component) of the Technical Qualification for the T Level in Design, Surveying and Planning for Construction, and the T Level in Digital Production, Design and Development. The Technical Qualification is one element of the T Level.
As part of our responsibility for these components Pearson also deliver assessment and results for the following components:
- Core Component (which consists of the Core Examination and Employer Set Project)
- Occupational Specialism
Pearson will send component results to Providers on the 17 August 2022 via the EOL mailbox. This will consist of a Statement of Results (1 PDF per student) and a broadsheet of results for all students at the centre across all Technical Qualification components. The release of these component results to students are embargoed until 18 August 2022. Component results are not the same as overall T Level Results information, which will be provided by the Department for Education (DfE) through the Manage T Level Results Service.
Key dates for post results services can be found on the 2022-2024 Key dates schedules, which have recently been published on the Provider Administration sections of our website for Construction and Digital.
The deadline for requests for review of marking has recently been extended to 29 September 2022.
Pearson also will transfer all component results to the DfE, who are responsible for the following elements:
- Aggregating and issuing the overall T Level grade (this includes results from the two Technical Qualification components and the completion of the Industry Placement)
- Issuing T Level Certificates and Statements of Achievement
- Transfer of T Level grades to UCAS
- The Industry Placement
For more information on these areas, please check out the DfE’s T Levels support for schools and colleges pages on gov.uk or contact the DfE using the ‘Contact Us’ option at the bottom of this page. The Key Contacts list provides details about who to contact for any results day queries.
If you have queries specifically relating to the Manage T Level Results Service, please contact tlevel.resultsandcertification@education.gov.uk.
Vocational Qualifications | Settings Standards
As you will be aware, we have previously shared guidance on how we will return to normal aggregation this academic year, meaning that the summation of unit grades will determine the qualification outcome.
We have now updated both our guide for centres and our guidance for students on the expected approaches to standards setting in 2022, to include additional information on how grade boundaries for external assessment have been set this year.
How we will set grade boundaries for External Assessments in summer 2022
A group of subject matter and technical assessment experts set new grade boundaries after each external assessment has taken place. They review a range of evidence (both qualitative and quantitative) to ensure that there is fairness, validity and robustness in the grade boundaries recommended. The types of evidence included are:
- Review of the work produced by learners
- The difficulty of the assessment compared to previous assessments
- A range of statistical evidence including how learners completing the assessment have performed compared to previous years
- The impact of unit grades, for all learners, on the overall qualification grade. (These BTEC national unit grades include UTAGs from the last academic year and streamlined internal assessment)
Our aim is to have parity at qualification-level for learners as far as possible, so whilst you may hear about grade boundaries for GCSEs and A levels, this is used to describe reaching decisions on the entire qualification outcome. For BTECs, grade boundary decisions are only made for external assessments which, as you’re aware, make up a smaller proportion of the entire qualification (around 40%). This means, in order to support achieving parity, we consider how the unit-level grade boundaries for BTEC external assessments combine with internally assessed unit outcomes, to create the overall qualification grade.
Reminder: Confirmation of assessment arrangements for 2022/23
As you’ll be aware from our summer bulletins before the end of term, 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 in-unit adaptations for the Tech Awards will also cease at the end of this academic year. EOL will return to normal, with the references to ‘streamlined assessment, being removed from September.
We also wanted to let you know that, in light of this and as we return to full business-as-usual assessment and awarding arrangements, we will be archiving our COVID-19 support web pages which detailed the alternative arrangements from the last two years. This is being done to ensure clarity and prevent confusion as we move into the new academic year.
Please be assured that anything of relevance for this year’s certificating learners (eg the Appeals process) will still be accessible and available through the autumn term. In addition, given the positive feedback we have had since its introduction during the COVID-19 pandemic, we will also be updating our Assessment hub for the upcoming academic year, and will let you know details in our first bulletin of the new term.
As a reminder, in May 2022, Ofqual confirmed the subject content and assessment arrangements for qualifications in the following academic year (2022/23). They confirmed 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.”
Ofqual have indicated that they will review the external assessment arrangements for General Qualifications after this summer, as well as the approach to grading. Our priority will be to continue to ensure that there is parity for BTEC and other Pearson vocational students.
FS | Managing Results and Post Result Services
Our Functional Skills assessments are available on-demand all year round, with results for individual learners being released on a rolling basis within our 28-day SLA. Once you receive your results, if you are concerned with the outcome for any learner, you can use our post results services.
We appreciate that finding the right information is crucial around Result’s Day(s). You will find answers to the most frequently-asked questions for Results Day 2022 on our BTEC FAQ page which will be regularly updated in the coming weeks.
You can contact us through our support portal, where you can also browse our knowledge base of support articles, and access live chat. Alternatively, you can call the most relevant team for your job role.
We have also updated our learner webpage with information that your students may need, and have answers to questions they may ask on our student FAQ page. Please do share these resources with them.
You can also review past bulletins if you’ve missed any or sign up to receive future updates if you have not already done so, via the link at the end of this bulletin.
This results day we’ll be providing plenty of support for teachers and exams officers, including grade boundaries and examiner reports, as well as our additional post-results services such as ResultsPlus and Access to Script, included as part of your qualification fees, to help you understand your students' results.
You can find all your post results support on our dedicated web page.
Post-results support for students, parents and carers can be found on our student results webpage. Plus, we have a guide to understanding results and grades for students, parents and carers with details about what to expect on results day, results slips, grade boundaries, university applications, certificates and more. Download yours and pass the link on to your students.
Please sign up to receive our regular Pearson Qualifications Bulletin on our website where you’ll also be able to read past issues.