Our latest updates

January 2026

[Updated 13/01/2025]

News for all T Level providers

Welcome to our T Level provider communications area. Please see below the key updates and information to support your delivery of our T Level qualifications.  

We’d also like to thank all of you who gave feedback as part of our T Level annual review, which is essential for helping us shape future development.  

_______________________________________________ 

Approval window opening soon 

If you’re planning to deliver the Education and Early Years T Level for the first time from September 2026, you’ll need to apply for product approval with us via our website. The approval window opens on Monday 23 February and closes on Friday 26 June.  

Please note that that if your college has multiple campuses, you’ll need to apply for approval for each campus to deliver this qualification. Similarly, if your academy is part of a multi academy trust, each academy will require separate approval.   

You no longer need separate approval from the Department for Education (DfE) before applying for our approval to deliver T Levels. Read more. 

If you’d like to deliver the Digital Support Services T Level (Digital Support and Security with Pearson), Digital Business Services T Level (Digital Data Analytics with Pearson), Health or Science T Levels from September 2026, you’ll need to contact Pearson directly to apply for approval. Find out more.  

_______________________________________________ 

Assessments and bookings 

Retake rules 

Following plans on new retake policies from the DfE, we’re making changes to retakes for our T Level qualifications for students who started their programme of study on or after 1 August 2024.  

What does this mean for my students? 

Students who started their programme of study on or after 1 August 2024 will now need to complete all retakes within one year of completing their programme of study. This means that: 

• students now entering their second year will need to have completed all retakes by summer 2027 
• students in their first year will need to have completed all retakes by summer 2028. 

The original rule will continue to apply to students who started their programme of study before 1 August 2024. This means that students that were expected to complete their programme of study in summer 2025 will continue to have two years of retake opportunities.  

Which assessments can students retake in autumn and summer assessment series? 

• Core assessments will remain available in the autumn and summer assessment series: 

• the core exams must be completed within the same assessment series 

• the employer set project (ESP) can be taken within the same assessment series as the core exams or on its own. 

• Occupational specialism (OS) assessments will only be available in the summer assessment series: 

• all OS assessments must be completed within the same assessment series. 

___________________________________________ 

What does the Royal Mail and Parcelforce merger mean for the secure dispatch of scripts (yellow label) service?  

In August 2025, Royal Mail and Parcelforce announced their merger and move to a new single delivery network, which involves an integration of their IT systems.  

We’ve been working with Parcelforce and Royal Mail to mitigate the impact of any changes to our current yellow label process, which is currently operated by Parcelforce. The existing systems and process will remain in place until March 2026, and we’ll let you know about any future changes to the process and timeframes. We can confirm that the service will continue under Royal Mail into summer 2026, meaning that although the provider details may change, the service will still work as planned for returning your assessment papers. 

In the meantime, if you have any specific questions, please contact our Assessment Delivery team by email at [email protected].  

_______________________________________________ 

Supporting your delivery 

Moderation key dates 

Visit our moderation webpage for a timeline covering both visiting and remote moderation, along with guidance on where to access further support.  

_______________________________________________ 

Year 1 mastery: a comprehensive CPD journey for educators 

Sign up to join us on Wednesday 4 February at 3-5pm to reflect on the first half of year one delivery, and together, we’ll evaluate progress, identify areas where you’d like further support, and refine strategies to improve engagement and outcomes for the remainder of the year.  

_______________________________________________  

Access to documents that require Portal sign in (for example tutor and provider guides):

Some documents which you would normally access by signing in to the Portal aren’t currently accessible due to the work we're doing to respond to the cyber security incident that we experienced late last year. These documents include tutor and provider guides. We appreciate that this may be inconvenient for you but want to reassure you that we’re working to make these available as soon as possible. We’ll share a further update once access is restored. Publicly available documents on the website can still be accessed as normal.  

_______________________________________________ 

Term-time checkpoints (timely delivery of VTQ results) 

Following the recent cyber security incident, we let you know that the first term-time checkpoint will no longer take place. You don’t have to complete any actions in relation to this change.  

We will instead proceed with a single term-time checkpoint. That checkpoint will open on Monday 23 March 2026 and close on Thursday 30 April 2026.  

Please share this update with exams officers, curriculum teams, and senior leaders. For full details, including qualifications in scope, information we need from you, and FAQs, visit our term-time checkpoints webpage.