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13 April 2026

Tag: Pearson

Another exam board offers payments instead of furlough

Another exam board has offered pay-offs instead of furlough for some examiners, while committing to returning savings from unspent exam fees back to schools. In an email to examiners, Pearson said it was not using the government’s furlough scheme because it “believes it has been put in place to protect primarily small and medium-sized business”. […]

Exam board furloughs some examiners and offers £250 goodwill payment to others

An exam board is furloughing some of its examiners, but offering others a £250 one-off “goodwill” payment instead. Cambridge Assessment, which owns exam boards OCR and Cambridge International, is the first organisation to tell examiners of its pay arrangements in light of exam cancellations this summer. Whether the boards can use government help to pay […]

Pearson apologises after BTEC gaffe hits schools’ progress 8 scores

Ministers have vowed to amend schools’ progress 8 scores after it was discovered some were as much as 0.2 points lower than expected because Pearson sent incomplete BTEC results to the government. The exam board has apologised after some schools checked Department for Education data on Thursday and were shocked to see that their progress […]

Complaints against leading exam boards double in two years

The number of complaints received by Ofqual about England’s largest exam boards has nearly doubled over the past two years, latest figures show. Statistics released by the exams regulator today reveal that there were 143 complaints made against AQA, Pearson and OCR in 2018-19. This is a rise of 54 per cent from the 93 […]

‘Attenborough effect’ is ‘fuelling’ interest in GCSE science

The “Attenborough effect” – where pupils want to “make a difference” in the world – is fuelling an interest in science, the vice president of Pearson has said. In England, 767,722 16-year-olds took science double award this year – a rise of 5.1 per cent (37,132) from the 730,590 pupils who entered the exam last […]

Pearson will issue ‘revised grades’ for some BTEC pupils who missed re-sit chance

Pearson has pledged to issue “revised grades” for some pupils who may have been disadvantaged by missing out on the opportunity to re-sit exams after its last-minute decision to hike grade boundaries. Writing exclusively for Schools Week, Cindy Rampersaud, Pearson senior vice president, and Derek Richardson, Pearson vice president, said they “apologise unreservedly” for how […]

Investigation launched after pupils given question ‘copied’ from textbook

An investigation has been launched after it emerged a question used in the Edexcel GCSE maths paper 3 this week was almost identical to one used in a revision textbook. Pupils took to social media to share their frustration after they were faced with the same diagram, values and answer in Tuesday’s GCSE higher tier […]

Edexcel allows exam candidates to opt out of gender classifications

Pupils taking exams this summer have been offered the chance to opt out of gender classifications for the first time. Pearson, the education company that owns the exam board Edexcel, made the step forward, by presenting candidates with the option of removing the male or female classification for their qualifications. The idea of a gender-neutral […]