BTEC IT Unit 2 - Creating Systems To Manage Information - Important Changes for 2020

Pearson have announced huge changes in the way the Unit 2 Creating Systems To Manage Information is being carried out.

In 2019, the assessment was carried out over a 10 hour period in a single week. THis means that schools and colleges needed to do a minimum of 2 hours per day.

However, if you followed TheStudentRoom, for the last two years there were multiple posts leaking questions and sharing answers, usually starting at the end of Day 1 and then going all the way through to the final day. This constitutes malpractice according to Pearson and the Department for Education.

Evidence of malpractice collected included pictures allegedly showing teachers going through the question paper that had been issued on Day 1, Complete original question papers that had been copied from centres and uploaded to the Student Room and multiple posts from students sharing model answers, that were usually incomplete or incorrect.

In addition students were setting up Discord chat accounts to discuss how to solve various queries, forms and relations in parts A, B C and D.

To counter this, Pearson has released the following statement:

BTEC Nationals in IT Unit 2: Creating Systems to Manage Information - 31761H

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Certificate in IT (180 GLH) Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Certificate in IT (360 GLH) Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Foundation Diploma in IT (510 GLH) Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Diploma in IT (720 GLH) Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma in IT (1080 GLH)

16 August 2019

Dear Colleague, In May, I wrote to you regarding our investigation into reported malpractice for the above unit. Please be reassured, we have taken all relevant steps during the marking process to ensure that no learners have been advantaged or disadvantaged due to issues relating to the security of the assessment.

We mentioned in the communication that we would be reviewing the assessment for unit 2, with a view to further enhancing security, for the January 2020 session. After listening to your feedback, and in discussion with our senior examiners we have decided to make the following changes to the January 2020 assessment and all subsequent series:

The assessment will be split into two parts, Part A and Part B. Part A will have a duration of 3 hours, total marks of 40. Part B will have a duration of 2 hours, total marks of 26. Both parts will be scheduled on the timetable for consecutive days. We are alerting you to these changes now in order to assist with planning, please see our updated timetable. We know that you will want to see updated Sample Assessment Material as soon as possible, and we will have this available in early September. Until then, please be assured that no unit content will change and therefore this should not negatively impact any teaching you have planned for this term.

We will send out further information regarding the improvements shortly.

We appreciate your support in ensuring that the security of our assessments is maintained. In the meantime if you have any concerns or issues regarding this message, please contact us.

Kind regards,

Jo Fowler Head of BTEC Assessment Head of Technical and Professional Asses:sment Pearson UK

The Edexel timetable has already been updated to reflect these changes

New Assessment Schedule for BTEC Unit 2 Creating Systems to Manage Information

We still don't know how this is going to work, but my guess is that you will get the part A paper on the 16th. You will then see the part B paper on the 17th, which is very similar to how Unit 14 currently operates so it will no longer be possible to share information.

This is very much a step in the right direction by Pearson to help stamp out mass cheating in this demanding BTEC.

The assessment window has now dropped from 10 hours to 5, so we still don't know what theory is going to be dropped if any. It may be that this will be like a normal exam, if that some material may not be asked, but you will still be required to study it. That material may crop up in future exams.