Three boards teach it in England, not four -- and each marks the programming project on a different scale, with a different bar at grade A*.
Book a Free ConsultationA-Level Computer Science is a two-year qualification examined by three exam boards in England — AQA, Cambridge OCR and WJEC Eduqas — each of which marks its 20%-weighted programming project on a completely different scale: 75 raw marks at AQA, 70 at OCR and 100 at WJEC Eduqas. A fourth board sometimes named for this subject, Pearson Edexcel, holds no live UK A-level in Computer Science at all.
Our specialist A-Level Computer Science tutors work from your child’s actual exam board — AQA, OCR or WJEC Eduqas — building every session around that board’s own programming project mark scheme and written papers, not a generic computing course.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThree exam boards offer A-Level Computer Science to schools in England, according to Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications, searched for ‘A level Computer Science’ and retrieved on 8 September 2026: AQA (7517), Cambridge OCR (H446) and WJEC Eduqas (A500QS). All three show as ‘Available to learners’, and all three share the same operational start date — 1 September 2015. A fourth qualification is easy to find named alongside them, and it does not belong on that list.
Several third-party sites — an exam-guide page, a curriculum overview — list ‘Edexcel 9CS0’ or ‘Pearson Edexcel (9CP0)’ as a live UK A-level Computer Science specification. Two separate checks say otherwise. First, Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications carries no Pearson Edexcel entry for A-level Computer Science at all, under either code. Second, Pearson’s own subject page for its actual current Computer Science qualification above GCSE describes something different: a Pearson Edexcel International Advanced Level, coded XCP01 at International Advanced Subsidiary and YCP01 at International Advanced Level, first teaching September 2026 and first assessed May/June 2027 (IAS) or May/June 2028 (IAL). The qualification’s own specification is explicit that it sits outside UK regulation altogether: ‘these qualifications are not accredited or regulated by any UK regulatory body.’ Whatever a third-party code actually denotes, it is not a live, UK-regulated A-level.
A third confusion sits inside the third board’s own name. WJEC Eduqas — the entity behind code A500QS — is the qualification available to schools in England, and it is what the rest of this page covers. A separate qualification, plain WJEC (qualification number 601/5345/3), also carries a live Computer Science A-level, but Ofqual’s register lists its national availability as Northern Ireland and International only, and it is being wound down: an operational end date of 31 August 2028 and a final certification date of 31 August 2029. A school description that simply says ‘WJEC’ for a student sitting exams in England is very likely describing the Eduqas specification, but the exam entry code, not the shorthand, confirms it.
| Board | Spec code | Ofqual QN | Available in England | NEA / Component 3 raw marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | 7517 | 601/4569/9 | Yes | 75 |
| Cambridge OCR | H446 | 601/4911/5 | Yes | 70 |
| WJEC Eduqas | A500QS | 601/5031/2 | Yes | 100 |
| WJEC (non-Eduqas) | — | 601/5345/3 | No — Northern Ireland, International only; wound down by 31 August 2029 | — |
| Pearson Edexcel | no live A-level | — | No A-level in this subject | — |
Source: Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications, retrieved 8 September 2026.
All three boards weight their programming project at exactly 20% of the final A-level grade, with the remaining 80% split across two written papers. None of the three totals is out of 100 raw marks by default, and none is directly comparable to another board’s total without knowing the scale each one uses.
| Board | Component name | Raw marks | Sections | Weighting |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | Non-Exam Assessment | 75 | 5 | 20% |
| Cambridge OCR | Programming project | 70 | 4 | 20% |
| WJEC Eduqas | Component 3: Programmed Solution to a Problem | 100 | 9 | 20% |
AQA’s 75-mark NEA splits into five sections, with by far the largest single allocation — 42 of the 75 marks — going to the technical solution itself rather than supporting documentation, in AQA’s own words: ‘a lower proportion of marks for supporting documentation.’ The full section-by-section breakdown, with all five AQA mark allocations, is on our Computer Science tutor page — this page’s job is to show how the other two boards differ from it, not to repeat it.
OCR’s 70-mark Programming project splits into four sections, not five — more than a third of the total sits in the development stage on its own:
| OCR section | Raw marks |
|---|---|
| Analysis of the problem | 10 |
| Design of the solution | 15 |
| Developing the solution | 25 |
| Evaluation | 20 |
Source: OCR H446 specification, non-exam-assessment content section 3.1–3.4, ‘Version 3.0 (April 2026)’.
WJEC Eduqas splits its 100-mark Component 3 further still, into nine separate marking bands rather than four or five — no other page comparing these three boards lists Eduqas’s structure at all, let alone all nine bands:
| Eduqas band | Raw marks |
|---|---|
| Discussion | 5 |
| Investigation | 10 |
| Design | 15 |
| Prototype | 10 |
| Post-Prototype Refinement of Design | 5 |
| Software Development | 25 |
| Developmental Testing | 5 |
| Testing | 10 |
| Evaluation | 15 |
Source: WJEC Eduqas A-level Computer Science specification, Component 3 marking bands.
Whichever board your child’s school teaches, our expert A-Level Computer Science tutors help students plan and write the programming project against that board’s own mark scheme — not a generic checklist that fits none of them.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThe three totals scale to the same 20%, but the bar a student has to clear at the top grade is not the same at all. In the June 2026 series, AQA’s confirmed NEA boundary needed 69 of 75 available marks for an A* — 92% of the total. Cambridge OCR’s Programming project needed 63 of 70 — 90%. WJEC Eduqas’s Component 3 needed 79 of 100 — 79% exactly, since Component 3 is unscaled. That is a 13-percentage-point spread between the most and least generous board on what is nominally the same 20%-weighted element of the same qualification.
| Board | Component | Max | A* | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | NEA | 75 | 69 (92%) | 63 | 52 | 41 | 31 | 21 |
| Cambridge OCR | Programming project | 70 | 63 (90%) | 56 | 49 | 41 | 34 | 26 |
| WJEC Eduqas | Component 3 | 100 | 79 (79%) | 73 | 63 | 53 | 45 | 35 |
June 2026 series grade boundaries, published by each board: AQA, OCR, WJEC Eduqas. Percentages are this page’s own arithmetic on the raw marks each board publishes.
The gap matters in practice, not just on paper. A project that would comfortably clear the top grade against Eduqas’s 79% bar leaves no margin at all against AQA’s 92% bar, on exactly the same quality of work. A student changing school, or a school changing exam board between Year 12 and Year 13, is not changing ‘how hard the NEA is’ by a small amount.
AQA enters candidates under a different code depending on which programming language their Paper 1 used — 7517A for C#, 7517B for Java, 7517D for Python and 7517E for VB.NET — but all four are marked on an identical 375-mark overall scale, with identical June 2026 grade boundaries (A* 314, A 257, B 213, C 169, D 126, E 83) whichever language a student’s Paper 1 was set in. The language choice changes which questions a student answers, not the boundary the finished grade is marked against.
OCR runs no equivalent language-choice system. Its two written components — Computer systems (H446/01) and Algorithms and programming (H446/02) — are each worth 40% of the overall grade, matching AQA’s 40/40/20 split in total weighting, but OCR’s own AO-weighting table shows the two components are not internally identical: Computer systems carries 21% of the overall grade against AO1 (knowledge and understanding), 9% against AO2 and 10% against AO3, while Algorithms and programming inverts that pattern — 15% AO1, 18% AO2, 7% AO3. Computer systems leans more on recall; Algorithms and programming leans more on application, within the same 40% overall weighting.
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Our expert A-Level Computer Science tutors already know AQA’s, OCR’s and WJEC Eduqas’s own AO weighting and paper structure, and build every session around whichever board your child’s school actually teaches — not a generic syllabus.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThe clearest answer sits in OCR’s marking scheme, because OCR marks its 70-mark Programming project through named assessment objectives rather than a single holistic band. Its assessment-objective appendix — stamped ‘Version 2.6 © OCR 2023’ on the copy checked for this page, distinct from the front matter’s newer ‘Version 3.0 (April 2026)’ — breaks the same 70 marks down one level further than the section headings alone: AO 2.2 Analysis carries a maximum of 10 marks, AO 3.1 Design a maximum of 15, AO 3.2 Developing the coded solution a maximum of 25, and AO 3.3 Evaluation a maximum of 20 — the identical totals as the section-by-section figures above, because they describe the same 70 marks from a different angle.
Two of those bands split again, and the split is where marks are actually lost. Within the 25-mark Developing band, up to 15 marks reward the iterative development process itself and a further 10 reward testing that informs that development — testing is not a step bolted on at the end, it is marked throughout. Within the 20-mark Evaluation band, only 5 marks reward testing to inform evaluation; the remaining 15 reward evaluating the finished solution against the original success criteria set out in the Analysis section. A project that tests thoroughly but never returns to those original success criteria in its evaluation is leaving the larger of the two evaluation allocations on the table.
The overall grade boundaries below cover the whole qualification — all three components combined — not just the programming project. They are not on the same scale as each other: AQA and OCR publish raw marks out of a whole-qualification total (375 and 350 respectively), while WJEC Eduqas publishes a scaled points total of 500, because its two written components are each scaled by a factor of two before combining with the unscaled 100-mark Component 3. A ‘500’ total is not ‘worth more’ than a ‘375’ total; it is the same 100% of the qualification measured on a different scale.
| Board | Scale | Max | A* | A | B | C | D | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA (7517) | Raw marks, overall | 375 | 314 | 257 | 213 | 169 | 126 | 83 |
| Cambridge OCR (H446) | Raw marks, overall | 350 | 289 | 254 | 216 | 178 | 141 | 104 |
| WJEC Eduqas (A500QS) | Scaled points, overall | 500 | 395 | 349 | 291 | 233 | 175 | 117 |
June 2026 series overall grade boundaries, published by each board: AQA, OCR, WJEC Eduqas.
Our A-Level Computer Science tutors track each board’s own June 2026 grade boundaries, so sessions target the marks a student’s actual board and paper require — not a boundary from a different exam.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppA-level results feed directly into the next step for many Computer Science students: an application to study it at degree level, which for the strongest candidates can mean an Oxford or Cambridge interview. If that is where your child is heading, our Oxford and Cambridge Computer Science interview guide covers what each university’s process actually involves. To be clear about what we do and do not offer: Leading Tuition supports A-level Computer Science and the application process around it — personal statements, admissions tests and interview preparation — but we do not provide tuition for undergraduate degree courses themselves.
Three: AQA (7517), Cambridge OCR (H446) and WJEC Eduqas (A500QS), all shown as ‘Available to learners’ on Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications and all operational since 1 September 2015. Plain WJEC (not Eduqas) also holds a live qualification, number 601/5345/3, but its national availability is Northern Ireland and International only, with a final certification date of 31 August 2029. Pearson Edexcel does not appear in the register for this subject at all: its only Computer Science qualification above GCSE is a new International Advanced Level, first teaching September 2026.
No. Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications lists exactly three A-level Computer Science qualifications available in England — AQA, Cambridge OCR and WJEC Eduqas — and no Pearson Edexcel entry among them. Pearson’s own current Computer Science qualification above GCSE is a new International Advanced Level, coded XCP01 (IAS) and YCP01 (IAL), first teaching September 2026 and first assessed May/June 2027 (IAS) or May/June 2028 (IAL). Its own specification states plainly that ‘these qualifications are not accredited or regulated by any UK regulatory body’ — an international qualification, not a UK A-level.
They are two different qualifications. WJEC Eduqas is the version available to schools in England and the one this page covers. Plain WJEC’s A-level Computer Science is, according to Ofqual’s register, available only in Northern Ireland and internationally — not in England — and it is being wound down, with an operational end date of 31 August 2028 and a final certification date of 31 August 2029. A school description that simply says ‘WJEC’ for an English student is very likely the Eduqas specification, but the exam entry code, not the shorthand, is what confirms it.
The total differs by board, though the weighting does not. AQA’s Non-Exam Assessment is marked out of 75, Cambridge OCR’s Programming project out of 70, and WJEC Eduqas’s Component 3 out of 100 — but all three scale to exactly 20% of the final A-level grade, with the remaining 80% split across two written papers. A mark out of 100 is not ‘worth more’ than a mark out of 70; it is measured on a different raw scale before scaling to the same 20%. AQA’s own section-by-section breakdown is on our Computer Science tutor page; OCR’s four sections and Eduqas’s nine both appear above.
Not equally, and the gap is real. In the June 2026 series, AQA required 69 of 75 available NEA marks for an A* (92%), Cambridge OCR required 63 of 70 (90%), and WJEC Eduqas required 79 of 100 on Component 3 (79%) — a 13-percentage-point spread on what is nominally the same 20%-weighted element of the same qualification. A project that clears the top grade comfortably against one board’s scale is not automatically doing so against another’s, which matters if a student changes school or board mid-course.
Four things, weighted unevenly. OCR’s H446 specification splits its 70 marks into Analysis of the problem (10 marks), Design of the solution (15 marks), Developing the solution (25 marks) and Evaluation (20 marks). Within Developing the solution, 15 of the 25 marks reward the iterative development process itself and 10 reward testing that informs it. Within Evaluation, only 5 of the 20 marks reward testing to inform evaluation; the remaining 15 reward evaluating the finished solution against the original success criteria — the larger allocation, and the one a rushed write-up most often loses.
No. AQA enters candidates under a different code depending on the programming language their Paper 1 used — 7517A for C#, 7517B for Java, 7517D for Python and 7517E for VB.NET — but all four are marked on an identical 375-mark overall scale, with identical June 2026 grade boundaries (A* 314, A 257, B 213, C 169, D 126, E 83) whichever language a student sat. The language choice changes which questions a student answers on Paper 1, not the boundary the finished grade is marked against.
We support the A-level and the application to study it further, not degree-level tuition itself. If your child is applying to read Computer Science at Oxford or Cambridge, our interview preparation guide sets out what each university’s process involves; we do not provide tuition for undergraduate degree courses. Our specialist A-Level Computer Science tutors work from each board’s own specification — AQA 7517, OCR H446 or WJEC Eduqas A500QS — building a programme around the actual board, NEA mark scheme and language a student’s school teaches, from Year 12 through to results day.
Whichever board your child’s school teaches — AQA, OCR or WJEC Eduqas — our expert A-Level Computer Science tutors work from that board’s own specification, mark scheme and grade boundaries, not a generic computing course.
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