Edexcel IAL Portfolio of Evidence Results Explained: Your Grade, Your UMS and Your October 2026 Options
For IAL students in Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar — what your unit UMS really means and what you can still do about it.
TL;DR: Your Edexcel IAL portfolio of evidence results were released on 13 August 2026, and they do not work the way an ordinary results day works. Because IAL is modular, each unit was graded separately by an examiner against grade descriptors, then converted to the midpoint UMS mark for that grade — which is why so many students in the same class are holding identical UMS figures. No grade boundaries were applied to your portfolio, so comparing your mock score to the June 2026 boundaries will tell you nothing. If the grade is wrong, the route is a review of grading, requested by your school per unit, and the October series starts on Thursday 8 October 2026.
On this page
- What does a portfolio of evidence grade mean on your IAL statement of results?
- Why did everyone in my class get the same UMS mark?
- Why don't the June 2026 grade boundaries match your grade?
- Were students penalised for using past papers?
- Portfolio of evidence or calculated grade — which route were you on?
- How to ask for a review of grading — and the deadline that catches people out
- Your October 2026 Biology and Chemistry resit dates
- Will universities accept a portfolio grade?
- Frequently asked questions
What does a portfolio of evidence grade mean on your IAL statement of results?
An Edexcel IAL portfolio of evidence grade is a grade awarded by a trained Pearson examiner who read the work your school submitted and matched it to published grade descriptors, unit by unit. It is not your teacher's mark, and it is not a converted mock score.
Here is the part that is causing the most confusion this week, and it is worth being precise about. Pearson's guidance for centres states that where a linear qualification was graded by portfolio, the work was graded as a whole rather than marked, so the subject mark shows as zero on the statement of results and component results reports. That is the sentence being quoted everywhere.
It does not describe IAL.
IAL is a modular qualification. In Pearson's own results-report guidance for centres, International A Level and modular International GCSE results — across all assessment methods, portfolio included — carry individual UMS marks at unit and qualification level, visible in the broadsheet, the statement of results, the component results report and the contributing units report. If you sat IAL Biology or IAL Chemistry through the portfolio route, you should be looking at real UMS figures, not zeros.
So if your IAL statement shows a zero subject mark, that is worth raising with your exams officer rather than accepting as normal. It may be a linear entry you did not realise you held, or it may be a reporting issue. Either way, the modular rule is the one that applies to you.
Students sitting International GCSE this summer are on a different timetable and a partly different process — what happened at IGCSE level is covered separately, with those results landing on 20 August.
Why did everyone in my class get the same UMS mark?
Students awarded the same unit grade received the same UMS mark because the grade descriptors used in contingency grading are linked to the midpoint UMS for each grade. Pearson has said this directly.
This is the single most misread number on this year's statements. Three students holding 60 UMS in WCH12 has not happened because the school was downgraded as a block, or because the examiner could not tell them apart. It has happened because the examiner's decision was which grade , not how many marks — and once the grade is set, the UMS follows automatically from the midpoint.
It also means the usual arithmetic does not work. You cannot look at a unit UMS this year and read backwards into "I was two marks off an A". There were no marks.
Why don't the June 2026 grade boundaries match your grade?
Grade boundaries were not used at any point in contingency grading, so there is nothing to compare your result against. Pearson stated in its portfolio submission guidance that boundaries would not be applied and that experienced examiners would grade on the quality of evidence, skills demonstrated and breadth of knowledge.
Instead, examiners worked from qualification-specific documents published on Pearson's international contingency grade descriptors page, which lists separate descriptor sets for International AS and A Level Biology (XBI11 and YBI11) and for International AS and A Level Chemistry (XCH11 and YCH11), alongside the older XBNZ, YBNZ, XCHZ and YCHZ specifications.
One practical warning: those descriptor PDFs sit behind a secure download that requires a centre login. Your school can open them; you cannot. If you want to understand why a particular unit landed where it did, the person to ask is your subject teacher, who can read the descriptor and tell you which band your submitted work sat in.
Were students penalised for using past papers?
No published rule penalises portfolios for containing past papers. Pearson's centre portfolio submission guidance asked schools to submit full past examination papers wherever possible, treating them as the strongest available evidence, and only ruled out May/June 2026 papers themselves.
What did not happen is the conversion most families expected. A raw mark on a past paper was never going to become the grade. The examiner assessed the portfolio as a body of work: whether it was completed under exam conditions, whether it covered the breadth of the specification, whether it reached the harder end of the demand range, and whether performance held up consistently across the evidence.
In practice that distinction matters enormously for science. A portfolio built from three papers sat under proper conditions, covering the full unit content, reads very differently from a portfolio of strong but narrow classwork. Having spent more than twenty years marking Edexcel and Cambridge science papers, I would expect breadth and consistency to have carried far more weight than any single high score.
Portfolio of evidence or calculated grade — which route were you on?
Whether you received a portfolio grade or a calculated grade was decided by your entry pattern, not by anyone's judgement of you. Two separate processes ran this summer, and confusing them leads to requesting the wrong post-results service.
International contingency grading (portfolio) applied to modular students who had unit entries plus a cash-in entry for summer 2026 and either no banked results from a previous series, or only resit entries for units already banked.
Calculated grades applied where existing completed evidence was available — banked unit results, or coursework and speaking components finished in summer 2026. Pearson estimated the missing marks using the established JCQ process for estimating a missing mark, known as the z-score method, which positions you against the general performance of candidates on the units you did complete.
There is one trap worth naming, because it catches strong students. A candidate entered for the full IAL who has banked only IAS units is not eligible for a calculated IAL grade — Pearson requires at least one completed IA2 unit. Those candidates had to submit portfolios for the A2 Biology units they were due to sit, or the equivalent A2 Chemistry units. If that describes you, your grade came from evidence, and the review route below is the one that applies.
How to ask for a review of grading — and the deadline that catches people out
If your portfolio grade looks wrong, the correct service is a review of grading, not a review of marking. A senior examiner re-examines the original grade alongside the portfolio your school submitted, and the grade can go up, stay the same, or go down.
The mechanics, from Pearson's centre guidance:
- Your school applies on Edexcel Online as an EAR4. The service fee is £88.
- For unitised qualifications such as IAL, applications are made per unit — not per subject. Three shaky units means three applications and three fees.
- Your school can access, view and download the submitted portfolio through Learner Work Transfer after results day. Ask to see it before deciding.
- A review must be completed before any appeal. Appeals are submitted only by the head of centre or by private candidates, never by students directly.
- If you then appeal, the preliminary appeal must be submitted within 30 calendar days of the review of grading outcome, and any hearing application within 14 calendar days of the preliminary outcome.
The date most people are working from is 24 September 2026, which is the published deadline for reviews of marking and moderation across International AS and A Level in the Summer 2026 international post-results key dates. Do not assume it transfers automatically to the EAR4 service. Ask your exams officer to confirm your specific deadline this week rather than in three weeks' time.
One further point families rarely consider: because a review can lower the grade, it is a decision that needs the student's informed consent, and Pearson will not reinstate a pre-appeal grade once it has changed. If you would like a second opinion on whether a particular Biology or Chemistry unit is worth reviewing, you are welcome to message me on WhatsApp at +965 5137 5709 or email admin@chem-bio.info.
Your October 2026 Biology and Chemistry resit dates
The Pearson Edexcel IAL October 2026 series opens on Thursday 8 October 2026, and every Biology and Chemistry unit is available. These dates are taken from Pearson's final October 2026 IAL examination timetable.
| Code | Unit | Date | Session | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WCH11 | Structure, Bonding and Introduction to Organic Chemistry | Friday 9 October | Afternoon | 1h 30m |
| WBI11 | Molecules, Diet, Transport and Health | Monday 12 October | Afternoon | 1h 30m |
| WCH12 | Energetics, Group Chemistry, Halogenoalkanes and Alcohols | Tuesday 13 October | Morning | 1h 30m |
| WBI12 | Cells, Development, Biodiversity and Conservation | Wednesday 14 October | Afternoon | 1h 30m |
| WBI13 | Practical Skills in Biology I | Friday 16 October | Afternoon | 1h 20m |
| WCH13 | Practical Skills in Chemistry I | Tuesday 20 October | Morning | 1h 20m |
| WCH14 | Rates, Equilibria and Further Organic Chemistry | Thursday 22 October | Afternoon | 1h 45m |
| WBI14 | Energy, Environment, Microbiology and Immunity | Friday 23 October | Morning | 1h 45m |
| WCH15 | Transition Metals and Organic Nitrogen Chemistry | Monday 26 October | Afternoon | 1h 45m |
| WBI15 | Respiration, Internal Environment, Coordination and Gene Technology | Tuesday 27 October | Morning | 1h 45m |
| WBI16 | Practical Skills in Biology II | Thursday 29 October | Morning | 1h 20m |
| WCH16 | Practical Skills in Chemistry II | Thursday 29 October | Afternoon | 1h 20m |
Two planning notes. Entry deadlines for the October series are set separately from the timetable and are handled by your school, so confirm yours with your exams officer rather than relying on a date you have seen online. And note the eight-week window: from results day to WCH11 is under two months, which is enough time for one or two units done properly and not enough for four.
If you are rebuilding AS Biology from the ground up rather than patching it, the AS Biology course works through Units 1 to 3 in sequence, and there is a structured AS Chemistry route through WCH11 and WCH12 for students in the same position. Where the timeline is very tight, the condensed IAL Biology and Chemistry notes are built for exactly this kind of seven-week turnaround.
Will universities accept a portfolio grade?
Yes. Pearson has confirmed that results awarded this summer can be used to progress to the next step, including university applications, whether the grade came through a portfolio of evidence or a calculation.
In its guidance for students, Pearson describes working with UCAS so that UK institutions understand the arrangements and the context behind this year's results. It also acknowledges that it has not contacted every international university individually, and offers to speak to any institution directly if more information is needed.
That last offer is the useful one. If an admissions office outside the UK queries your result, you do not have to explain the contingency process yourself — your school can ask Pearson to contact them.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my IAL statement of results show a zero subject mark?
Zero subject marks are the expected reporting behaviour for linear qualifications graded by portfolio, not for modular ones. IAL students should see unit UMS marks, so raise a zero with your exams officer.
Can I see the portfolio my school submitted to Pearson?
Yes — schools can access, view and download submitted portfolios through Learner Work Transfer after results day. Ask your exams officer for a copy before deciding whether to request a review.
Is a review of grading the same as a remark?
No. There is no examination script to remark, so a senior examiner reviews the original grade against the submitted portfolio, and the outcome can be higher, unchanged or lower.
When do IAL October 2026 exams start?
The series begins on Thursday 8 October 2026, opening with Business and Physics Unit 1, and the first Chemistry paper (WCH11) falls on Friday 9 October. Biology Unit 1 follows on Monday 12 October.
Written by Hosni — Cambridge and Edexcel science examiner, author of five published science textbooks, and a Biology and Chemistry teacher with 20+ years of IGCSE and IAL experience.
Checked against Pearson's published contingency guidance and the final October 2026 IAL examination timetable on 14 August 2026.
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