Paper structure, marks, NEA rules and current specification editions for AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC Eduqas and WJEC, set out side by side.
Book a Free ConsultationA-Level English Language is a single-subject qualification offered by five current UK awarding bodies: AQA (7702), Pearson Edexcel (9EN0), OCR (H470), WJEC Eduqas (601/5043/9) and WJEC itself (601/5346/5), the last available only to centres in Wales. Every live specification combines two or more written examination papers with a non-exam assessment component, but the number of papers, the total marks and the coursework word count differ by board.
Our expert A-level English Language tutors work across AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC Eduqas, building every programme around your child's own board's paper structure, NEA topic and current specification edition.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppOfqual's register currently lists five live, standalone A-level English Language qualifications: AQA Level 3 Advanced GCE in English Language, Cambridge OCR Level 3 Advanced GCE in English Language, Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in English Language, WJEC Eduqas Level 3 Advanced GCE in English Language, and WJEC Level 3 Advanced GCE in English Language. Leading Tuition already covers AQA's 7702 specification, Edexcel's 9EN0 and OCR's H470 in full paper-by-paper depth; this page is where all five sit side by side. Each board also runs a separate combined English Language and Literature specification, a different, sixth qualification family at every board with its own qualification numbers, which is out of scope here.
One widely read comparison guide, from the tutoring marketplace Tutorful, names AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas correctly but lists Cambridge International as the fifth board. Cambridge International is an internationally administered qualification aimed at overseas and private candidates, not the UK-regulated fifth option, WJEC (Wales). Getting the fifth board wrong matters to a family trying to work out which specification their own school actually follows.
No board has withdrawn its current A-level English Language specification; all five live today have been live throughout the current specification's life. Two earlier generations of the qualification did close, on shared national dates that applied across boards rather than to one subject or one awarding body: a 2000-launched generation, AQA's original English Language A specification among them, ended on 31 August 2009, and the following 2007-launched generation, at AQA, Edexcel and OCR alike, ended on 31 July 2017. Every board's current specification dates from the same 2015 reform, first taught from September 2015.
The paper count, the marks and how they combine into a final total are the most board-specific facts in this subject, and no competitor page in this page's own research sets out all five boards this way.
| Board | Spec code | Written exam papers | Non-exam assessment | Overall total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | 7702 | Paper 1, Language, the Individual and Society (100 marks, 40%) + Paper 2, Language Diversity and Change (100 marks, 40%) | Language in Action (100 marks, 20%) | 500 scaled marks |
| Edexcel | 9EN0 | Component 1, Language Variation (60 marks, 35%, 2 hours 15 minutes) + Component 2, Child Language (45 marks, 20%, 1 hour 15 minutes) + Component 3, Investigating Language (45 marks, 25%, 1 hour 45 minutes) | Component 4, Crafting Language (50 marks, 20%) | 250 (published grade-boundary total); raw components sum to 200 |
| OCR | H470 | Component 01, Exploring Language (80 marks, 40%) + Component 02, Dimensions of Linguistic Variation (40% of the A-level) | Component 03, Independent Language Research (40 marks, 20%) | 200 (published grade-boundary total) |
| WJEC Eduqas | 601/5043/9 | Component 1 (120 marks, 30%, 2 hours) + Component 2 (120 marks, 30%, 2¼ hours) + Component 3 (80 marks, 20%, 1¾ hours) | Non-exam assessment folder (80 marks, 20%) | 400 raw marks (our own sum of the four components above; not published by Eduqas as one figure) |
| WJEC (Wales) | 601/5346/5 | 5 units (2 AS + 3 A2), unitised structure | Unit 5, Language and Identity | 500 uniform marks |
Source: AQA's specification PDF, Edexcel's specification PDF, OCR's specification PDF, WJEC Eduqas's specification PDF and WJEC's specification PDF.
Two of those totals need a caveat rather than a bare figure. Edexcel's four components carry 60, 45, 45 and 50 raw marks between them, 200 in total, but the board's own June 2026 grade-boundary document reports results out of a scaled total of 250 — a raw mark total and a reported grade-boundary total are not the same figure and should not be added together or compared directly. And WJEC Eduqas's own specification does not state a single combined mark total in the passages retrieved for this page; the 400 shown above is Leading Tuition's own addition of its four separately published component marks, not a headline figure Eduqas itself prints.
OCR's own specification states that Component 02, Dimensions of Linguistic Variation, is worth 40% of the A-level, the same weighting as Component 01, but does not give its raw mark value in the terms Component 01 is given. The qualification's overall total, 200, and Component 01's 80 marks are both independently published, which is enough to place Component 02 at 40% without inventing a mark figure that was not found in the source.
Our A-level English Language tutors are experienced across all four boards commonly taught in England — AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC Eduqas — and start every programme by confirming the paper structure and NEA topic your child's own school actually uses.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppEvery board sets a different word count, a different name and a different level of topic freedom for its non-exam assessment (NEA) — the piece of internally marked, externally moderated coursework that sits alongside the written papers.
| Board | NEA name | Length | Topic constraint |
|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | Language in Action | 3,500 words (2,000-word investigation excluding data + 1,500-word original writing and commentary) | Free choice |
| Edexcel | Crafting Language | Two assignments, 30 and 20 marks; submitted only at the end of the course | Not stated in the source retrieved |
| OCR | Independent Language Research | 2,000-2,500 word investigation + 750-1,000 word academic poster | Not stated in the source retrieved |
| WJEC Eduqas | Non-exam assessment folder | 2,500-3,500 words | One of four named topics |
| WJEC (Wales) | Language and Identity (Unit 5) | Not sourced this session | Same four named topics as Eduqas |
Source: the same five specification PDFs linked above, each retrieved directly from the awarding body.
Both WJEC Eduqas and WJEC restrict their non-exam assessment to one of the same four named topics: language and self-representation, language and gender, language and culture, or language diversity. AQA sets no topic restriction at all, and neither the Edexcel nor the OCR specification pages retrieved for this research state a topic restriction in those terms — if your child's school uses either board, ask the school directly whether a topic list applies locally.
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A four- or five-character code identifies the qualification, not which printing of the specification a school, a tutor or a set of past papers is working from. Every one of these five specifications has been reissued at least once since the 2015 reform.
| Board | Spec code | Current edition |
|---|---|---|
| AQA | 7702 | Version 1.2, 14 October 2021 |
| Edexcel | 9EN0 | Issue 6, August 2024 |
| OCR | H470 | Version 2.0, April 2026 |
| WJEC Eduqas | 601/5043/9 | Version 2, January 2019 |
| WJEC (Wales) | 601/5346/5 | Version 2, March 2019 |
A family with a child about to begin the AQA course in Year 12 can find the year-specific detail on our Year 12 AQA A-level English Language page. A school or tutor citing a different version number to any of the five above is working from an older printing; check the front page of the relevant PDF against the dates in the table before relying on it.
Our expert A-level English Language tutors help students prepare for whichever combination of written papers and non-exam assessment their board sets, from AQA's Language in Action to OCR's Independent Language Research.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppA grade boundary is set fresh for each board, each series, based on that series' own paper difficulty. It is never shared or synchronised across boards, and the size and even the direction of the year-on-year move can differ.
| Board | Grade / level | June 2025 | June 2026 | Max marks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA (7702) | A* | 433 | 432 | 500 |
| Edexcel (9EN0) | A* | 174 | 182 | 250 |
| Edexcel AS (8EN0) | A | 58 | 58 | 100 |
| OCR (H470) | A* | Not sourced this session | 168 | 200 |
| WJEC Eduqas (601/5043/9) | — | Not located | Not located | — |
| WJEC (601/5346/5) | — | Not located | Not located | — |
Source: Leading Tuition's AQA board page, Pearson's own June 2026 and June 2025 grade-boundary PDFs, and OCR's own June 2026 grade-boundaries PDF.
AQA's A* boundary for 7702 fell by one mark between June 2025 and June 2026, from 433 to 432 out of a total scaled mark of 500. Edexcel's A* boundary for 9EN0 moved the opposite way in the same period, rising by eight marks, from 174 to 182 out of 250. Edexcel's separate AS-level qualification, 8EN0, did not move at all: its grade A boundary stayed at 58 out of 100 in both June 2025 and June 2026, even while the full A-level boundary above it was rising.
OCR is the only one of the five boards whose June 2026 documentation was found to publish boundaries below whole-qualification level: alongside the overall H470 boundary (A* at 168 out of 200), it repeats the exercise per component, so Component 01, Exploring language, needed 60 out of 80 raw marks for a grade A in the same series. AQA's and Edexcel's own June 2026 documents, in the versions retrieved for this page, give only the overall qualification boundary for English Language, not a paper-by-paper breakdown.
WJEC Eduqas and WJEC are both small-entry qualifications that publish their grade-boundary documents through a separate portal from AQA, Edexcel and OCR. No June 2026 boundaries document for either board was located within this research session, so no year-specific boundary is stated for either here — a gap this page states plainly rather than filling with a boundary carried over from a different board.
Not every board on the list above is actually available to every school. WJEC Eduqas's own specification states plainly that it "is not available for candidates in maintained schools and colleges in Wales" — despite the WJEC name, it is the England-facing brand, regulated by Ofqual rather than by the Welsh Government. WJEC itself is the reverse case: a Welsh-Government-regulated qualification whose own specification states it "is not available to centres in England." A school in England choosing "WJEC" by name alone, without checking which of the two it means, could be looking at a qualification it cannot actually enter.
For a school in England, the realistic choice sits among AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC Eduqas. WJEC (Wales) is a genuinely different, unitised qualification, assessed on a Uniform Mark Scale across five units (Unit 1, Exploring Language, code 2700U1, and Unit 3, Language over Time, code 1700U3, among them) rather than raw scaled marks, and it exists for centres in Wales, not as a fifth option for an English sixth form.
Our A-level English Language tutors confirm your child's exact board, paper structure and NEA topic at the very first session, then build a programme around AQA, Edexcel, OCR or WJEC Eduqas specifically, never a generic syllabus.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppFive. Ofqual's register lists AQA (specification 7702), Pearson Edexcel (9EN0), OCR (H470), WJEC Eduqas (601/5043/9) and WJEC itself (601/5346/5) as live, standalone A-level English Language qualifications. WJEC's own specification states it "is not available to centres in England", so for a school in England the realistic choice sits among the other four. Each board also runs a separate combined English Language and Literature specification, a different, sixth qualification family with its own numbers, and out of scope for this page.
No. English Language and English Literature are separate A-levels with separate specification codes at every board. Leading Tuition's own /subjects/a-level-english/ page is titled and headed "A-Level English Literature Tutor", not Language, which is worth checking if you have arrived here by mistake. English Language studies real spoken and written texts and linguistic theory across two or more exam papers and a non-exam coursework component; English Literature studies set literary texts. Confirm which subject a school's option form refers to before assuming which page applies.
Five, AO1 to AO5, at every board that publishes a full breakdown. OCR's own specification weights them at 27% for AO1, 22% for AO2, 28% for AO3 (the single largest), 12% for AO4 and 11% for AO5. This matters because at least one widely read competitor guide states the range as "AO1-AO4", one objective short of what AQA's and OCR's own specifications actually publish. Check a board's own assessment-objective table rather than a secondary summary before building revision materials around it.
OCR does. Its June 2026 documentation gives the overall H470 boundary (A* at 168 out of 200) and then repeats the exercise per component: Component 01, Exploring language, needed 60 out of 80 raw marks for a grade A in the same series. AQA's and Edexcel's own June 2026 documents, in the versions retrieved for this page, give only the overall, whole-qualification boundary for English Language, not a paper-by-paper breakdown, so a component-level target is only checkable at OCR.
No, they are two separately accredited qualifications from the same parent organisation. WJEC Eduqas (601/5043/9) is England-facing: its own specification states it "is not available for candidates in maintained schools and colleges in Wales." WJEC itself (601/5346/5) is the reverse case, Welsh-Government regulated, and its specification states it "is not available to centres in England." A school choosing "WJEC" by name alone, without checking which of the two it means, could be looking at a qualification it cannot actually enter.
Every board names it differently and sets a different length. AQA calls it Language in Action, 3,500 words split into a 2,000-word investigation and a 1,500-word original writing and commentary task. Edexcel calls it Crafting Language, two assignments worth 30 and 20 marks, submitted only at the end of the course. OCR calls it Independent Language Research, a 2,000-2,500 word investigation plus a 750-1,000 word academic poster. WJEC Eduqas's is a 2,500-3,500 word folder restricted to one of four named topics, the same four topics WJEC Wales sets for its own Unit 5.
Not the current specification, every board offering it today has offered it throughout. Two earlier generations closed on a shared national date rather than a board-specific one: a 2000-launched generation, including AQA's original English Language A specification, ended on 31 August 2009, and the following 2007-launched generation, at AQA, Edexcel and OCR alike, ended on 31 July 2017. All five boards' current specifications date from the same 2015 reform, first taught from September 2015.
No, they are set independently, board by board and series by series. Between June 2025 and June 2026 AQA's A* boundary for 7702 fell by one mark, from 433 to 432 out of 500, while Edexcel's A* boundary for 9EN0 rose by eight marks, from 174 to 182 out of 250, in the same period. Edexcel's separate AS-level boundaries, 8EN0, did not move at all across the same two series: the grade A boundary stayed at 58 out of 100 in both June 2025 and June 2026.
Whichever of the five specifications your child is sitting, our expert A-level English Language tutors build every programme around that board's own papers, marks and NEA requirements rather than a generic syllabus.
Leading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, and 91% of our students go on to achieve their desired grades. Read more on our GCSE English Language page, or see our A-Level English Literature page if that is the subject you meant.
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