UK academic curriculum guide for international schools Welcome Welcome to Pearson Edexcel, the world’s leading learning company and the UK’s largest awarding body. We have a simple mission: to help make a measurable impact on improving people’s lives through learning. If you’re an international school already offering a UK curriculum, or a school that is considering offering a UK curriculum, this Setting the guide will take you through our academic standard for qualifications, resources and support worldwide services, so students aged 5 to 19 can make recognised the best progress they can through school qualifications, to university, further education and employment. built on the British educational Leading the way, system and so you can be confident accepted by our qualifications are universities world-class worldwide Pearson Edexcel was the first awarding organisation As the UK’s largest awarding to implement a World Class Qualification (WCQ) endorsement process, achieved through working with organisation, Pearson Edexcel educational thought-leaders and assessment experts, is best placed to provide to define a framework for developing qualifications qualifications that are most that are world class. closely aligned to the British educational system. With over It was also the first awarding organisation to adopt 3.4 million students studying the new 9–1 grading system for our International our qualifications worldwide, GCSEs, so students around the world have the same we offer qualifications to opportunity to be rewarded for outstanding academic achievement and progress to universities and 6,500 schools, colleges and employment around the world. employers globally and mark over 9 million exam scripts on Our aim is to continually improve on successful behalf of the UK Department outcomes for learners, which is why we are the first for Education each year. education company to commit to reporting publicly on progress and making our results transparent through our efficacy programme. We judge ourselves – and invite others to judge us – not by the products that we make but by the impact on learners. John Fallon, Chief Executive Officer, Pearson iP iLS iG iAL Supporting you and your students at every stage iProgress is our complete series for 5 to 19 year-olds, for international schools. The iProgress family includes iPrimary, iLowerSecondary, International GCSE (IG), GCSE, International Advanced level (IAL), and GCE A Level, and delivers a consistent learning journey for students and teachers, everywhere in the world. iPrimary iLowerSecondary International GCSE International AS/ and GCSE Advanced Level (IAL) and GCE A Level Ages 5-11 Ages 11-14 Ages 14-16 Ages 16-19 English, maths English, maths Available in Available in and science and science 37 subjects 21 subjects (50 for GCSE) (52 for GCE A Level) Linear Linear structure International GCSE: IAL: Modular structure structure with with external exams Linear structure with with exams in January, external exams at the end of year 9 all exams available June and October for at the end in June and many most subjects. of year 6 subjects available in January GCE A level: linear structure GCSE: Linear with exams in June structure with exams available in June Full range of curriculum support resources, tools and services including training, professional development, print and online teaching materials More than just a curriculum or qualification iProgress offers professional development and training that keeps teachers up-to-date with the latest educational practices, supporting materials that make planning and teaching lessons easier, and student textbooks and online resources to make learning engaging, so you’ll have more time to focus on the development of your students’ progress. Offering more advanced support services, tools and resources to make life easier for you and your students › Support from your regional contacts, › Getting started guides, schemes of work, subject advisors, global customer lesson plans, skills development support, services and the Pearson international exemplar marked responses and school community. teacher guides. › Face-to-face and online training events › Curriculum matched, endorsed published and professional development courses. textbooks and online teaching and learning resources. Our technology capability also allows us to provide the following unique services and tools examWizard is a free exam ResultsPlus provides ResultsPlus Direct preparation tool containing detailed information allows you to give students a bank of past Edexcel exam on exam performance, a free online service that questions, mark schemes and by providing a detailed gives them access to their examiners’ reports for a range of analysis for every question, results wherever they are our qualifications and subjects. It and a platform to view and in the world. It gives them saves you time by enabling you compare student results, a detailed breakdown and to create your own mock exams, as individuals or as groups, global comparison of their topic tests, homework or revision across the world. performance in Pearson activities in minutes and links It helps with planning Edexcel exams and helps directly to associated examiner improvements in them identify areas of reports and mark schemes. teaching and learning. improvement. ATS ePEN is our image-based marking Our Access to Scripts Service is a free system providing real time monitoring and online portal which allows teachers to quality control of the marking process, which is immediately access electronically marked carried out at item level. This ensures the highest exam papers, providing enhanced quality of marking, resulting in Pearson Edexcel being transparency and support for teachers the most reliable awarding organisation in the UK. to evaluate a student’s performance on The provision of data also feeds into our reporting particular questions in relation to what support services such as ResultsPlus, ensuring a they have been taught. joined up approach to measuring performance. Supporting the development of transferable skills Universities and employers have highlighted the need for students and graduates to develop a range of transferable skills, often referred to as ‘soft skills’, to enable them to better meet the demands of undergraduate study and the world of work. In fact, universities and employers consider transferable skills to be the largest skills gap overall. The transferable skills gap demonstrates that students require more than just ‘knowledge’ to be successful. It’s about skills as well as knowledge to be successful at further study, higher education and in the workplace. Research we have conducted recently highlights that teachers, parents and students are aware of the global transferable skills gap and as a result, seek a truly comprehensive curriculum that develops not only subject knowledge, but the transferable skills in demand by university and employers. This is why we have ensured that transferable skills are embedded in the new Pearson Edexcel International GCSEs and Pearson Edexcel International Advanced Levels, as well as the new iPrimary and iLowerSecondary for 5 to 14 year-olds. VACANCY: Manager JOB It’s really the more KEY REQUIREMENTS: fundamental skills Must have excellent: Must be: like teamwork and Communication skills Flexible communication Team working skills Adaptable that seem to matter Interpersonal skills Self-motivated the most, that Analytical skills employers demand the most” Problem-solving skills Guy Berger, the chief economist at LinkedIn. iP iLS AGES 5-14 iPrimary and iLowerSecondary overview The new Pearson Edexcel iPrimary and iLowerSecondary programmes are based on the latest English National Curriculum (2014), but designed with a global outlook, for children aged 5 to 14. Covering: English Mathematics Science Keep your skills sharp Cut your planning Guide your students with free face-to-face time with our lesson through teacher training and and unit plan the curriculum with online professional examples. our ready-made Schemes development support. of Work. Easily work out exactly Measure your students’ Steer students towards what to teach and when learning with built-in success at International with our detailed Progress and GCSE with a curriculum that teacher’s guides. Achievement Tests. builds on their learning at every stage. Draw your students in Make sure with an internationally focused knowledge sticks curriculum, written with with accessible and additional language culturally-relevant examples learners in mind. and resources. iP iLS We have developed a complete teaching toolkit to support you all the way from planning, to teaching and learning, through to assessment. Our experts have fully mapped our world-renowned published resources* to the iPrimary and iLowerSecondary learning objectives from years 1-9, so that you can start teaching straight away, with the peace of mind that you have all you need. iPrimary iLowerSecondary BUILDING SKILLS IN ENGLISH Bug Club - our core reading Building Skills in English - programme, helping more than a developing essential language million children learn to read. skills for KS3 English. KS3 Maths Progress - building confidence Abacus - a unique and flexible in maths at KS3. primary maths toolkit. Science Bug - an exciting hands-on science programme Exploring Science: Working designed for today’s curious kids. Scientifically - the UK’s number 1 KS3 Science course. Learn more about our published resources and sign up for a free trial at