One more board teaches it than A-level, and two of the four mark practical programming very differently from the other two.
Book a Free ConsultationGCSE Computer Science is a Level 1/Level 2 qualification offered in England by four exam boards — AQA, Cambridge OCR, Pearson Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas — one more than the three boards that teach it at A-level. All four hold live ‘Available to learners’ status on Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications, but they split sharply on how they mark practical programming: two require a scored on-screen exam worth 50% of the grade, and two do not.
Whichever of the four boards your child’s school teaches, our expert GCSE Computer Science tutors build every session around that board’s own paper structure and practical requirement — not a generic computing course.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppFour boards currently hold a live GCSE Computer Science qualification on Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications, each shown with ‘Available to learners’ status: AQA (8525), Cambridge OCR (J277), Pearson Edexcel (1CP2) and WJEC Eduqas (C500QS). That is one board more than A-level Computer Science, where only AQA, Cambridge OCR and WJEC Eduqas hold a live UK qualification — see our A-level Computer Science page for how those three compare. Pearson Edexcel, which teaches the GCSE, has never offered a UK A-level in the subject at all; its only Computer Science qualification above GCSE is a new International Advanced Level, a separate, internationally-assessed product rather than a continuation of its own GCSE.
| Board | Spec code | Ofqual qualification number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | 8525 | 601/8301/9 | Available to learners |
| Cambridge OCR | J277 | 601/8355/X | Available to learners |
| Pearson Edexcel | 1CP2 | 601/8058/4 | Available to learners |
| WJEC Eduqas | C500QS | 601/8291/X | Available to learners |
Source: Ofqual Register of Regulated Qualifications, retrieved 8 September 2026.
‘WJEC’ is not, on its own, enough to identify a GCSE Computer Science qualification, and three separate things carry the name. WJEC Eduqas (C500QS) — the qualification in the table above — is regulated by Ofqual and available to schools across England, Northern Ireland and internationally; its own specification states plainly that ‘this Ofqual regulated qualification is not available for candidates in maintained schools and colleges in Wales’. A second, older, plain-WJEC GCSE Computer Science (600/6442/0) also sits on Ofqual’s register, but its status there is ‘No longer awarded’, with a final certification date of 31 August 2018 — a retired, A*-to-G-graded qualification that, unlike any of the four live boards above, did carry a marked coursework component of its own. A third qualification, also titled ‘GCSE Computer Science’ and published live on WJEC’s own site, is regulated not by Ofqual but by Qualifications Wales, under the devolved ‘Made for Wales’ curriculum reform; that page states ‘Summer 2026 will be the final full assessment opportunity for this qualification’, with a resit opportunity in January 2027, before new Year 10 entrants move to a successor qualification on Wales’s own timetable — a devolved process entirely separate from the DfE replacement covered below.
This is the split a parent choosing between schools is least likely to find set out anywhere, because it is not one any single board’s own marketing has a reason to volunteer. It is sometimes said that no GCSE Computer Science qualification carries a marked practical element at all. Verified against all four boards’ own specifications and Ofqual’s register, that is only true for two of the four.
| Board | Written papers | Practical/on-screen component | Is the practical work marked? |
|---|---|---|---|
| AQA | Two papers, 90 marks each (180 total) | Practical Programming Statement (confirmatory only) | No — unmarked |
| Cambridge OCR | Two papers, 80 marks each (160 total) | Practical Programming (formal requirement) | No — does not contribute to the final grade |
| Pearson Edexcel | Paper 1, 75 marks (50%) | Paper 2, on-screen exam, 75 marks (50%), Python 3 — plus its own separate unmarked practical statement | Yes — 50% of the grade |
| WJEC Eduqas | Component 1, 100 marks (50%) | Component 2, on-screen exam, 80 raw marks (50%), Python 3 minimum — plus its own separate unmarked practical statement | Yes — 50% of the grade |
Sources: AQA 8525 specification, Ofqual on OCR J277, Pearson Edexcel 1CP2 specification, WJEC Eduqas C500QS specification.
AQA and Cambridge OCR grade the whole GCSE on two written papers only. Their practical requirement is an unmarked ‘Practical Programming Statement’ — a school’s own written confirmation, in AQA’s words, ‘that it has taken reasonable steps to ensure that each learner has had the opportunity to undertake a programming task or tasks’. Ofqual’s own record of OCR’s J277 states the equivalent requirement directly: ‘The Practical Programming is a formal requirement for all learners but does not contribute to their final grade.’ Pearson Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas take the opposite approach, building a scored, on-screen programming examination worth exactly 50% of the qualification into the grade itself — and then, on top of that marked component, each also requires its own separate unmarked practical statement, the same confirmatory step AQA and OCR use as their only practical requirement. A school on Pearson Edexcel or WJEC Eduqas is therefore not choosing between ‘a practical GCSE’ and ‘a written GCSE’; every one of the four boards has some form of confirmed coding practice, but only two turn any of it into marks.
Our GCSE Computer Science tutors work from whichever board’s own paper or component structure your child’s school actually uses — including the Python skills a scored on-screen exam demands on Pearson Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppIt depends on the board, and on two of the four boards it is fixed rather than a school’s own choice. Pearson Edexcel’s specification mandates Python 3 for its on-screen Paper 2, telling students to ‘answer the questions onscreen using Python 3’. WJEC Eduqas sets Python 3 as a minimum for its on-screen Component 2. AQA instead lets a school’s own taught language decide, entering candidates under a different paper option depending on whether they have been taught C#, Python or VB.NET, while Cambridge OCR sets its written papers in its own Exam Reference Language pseudocode alongside whichever language a student has actually been taught in lessons. A student’s real day-to-day experience of ‘the exam’ therefore rests as much on their school’s board choice as on the specific language a teacher happened to choose.
Yes. The Department for Education’s response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review states, on page 29 of the document: ‘We will replace the computer science GCSE with a GCSE in computing that better reflects the breadth of the curriculum.’ A second, separately worded commitment appears earlier in the same response, on page 24: ‘We will also replace the computer science GCSE with a broader offer that reflects the entirety of the computing curriculum whilst continuing to uphold the core principles of computer science such as programming and algorithms, and explore the development of a level 3 qualification in data science and AI.’
The government’s response document itself is dated 5 November 2025 on its own gov.uk landing page, which reads ‘Published: 5 November 2025’ and ‘Last updated: 10 December 2025’ — a date confirmed a second, independent way by the PDF file’s own embedded creation metadata, which also records 5 November 2025.
No first-teaching date has been published for GCSE Computing specifically. The same document sets a general aim, elsewhere in the same response, that some GCSEs ‘in national curriculum subjects’ will be ‘ready for first teaching in 2029’ and the rest ‘for first teaching in 2030’ — but that passage does not say which subjects fall into which group, and Computing is not named in it at all. Any specific first-teaching or first-examination year stated for GCSE Computing goes beyond what the government has actually published; this page states none, and treats the replacement as confirmed in principle but undated in practice. Read the government response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review in full.
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Our expert GCSE Computer Science tutors already know AQA’s, OCR’s, Pearson Edexcel’s and WJEC Eduqas’s own paper and component structures, and build every programme around whichever board your child’s school actually teaches.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThe overall boundaries below cover the whole qualification, not a single paper, and the four are not on the same scale as each other — WJEC Eduqas reports a scaled 200-point total rather than a raw mark total, because its 80-mark on-screen component is scaled before combining with the 100 unscaled marks from Component 1. A ‘200’ total is not ‘worth more’ than a ‘150’; it is the same 100% of the qualification measured on a different scale.
| Board | Scale | Overall max | Grade 5 | Grade 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AQA (8525) | Raw marks, overall | 180 | 93 | 72 |
| Cambridge OCR (J277) | Raw marks, overall | 160 | 92 | 77 |
| Pearson Edexcel (1CP2) | Raw marks, overall | 150 | 60 | 46 |
| WJEC Eduqas (C500QS) | Scaled points, overall | 200 | 98 | 80 |
June 2026 series overall grade boundaries, published by each board: AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel, WJEC Eduqas.
Reading grade 5 as a share of each board’s own maximum shows the two extremes clearly. Cambridge OCR sets its grade 5 at 92 of 160 — 57.5%, the highest of the four boards. Pearson Edexcel sets its grade 5 at 60 of 150 — 40.0%, the lowest. That is a spread of 17.5 percentage points between OCR’s and Pearson Edexcel’s thresholds on a nominally equivalent ‘strong pass’ standard — this page’s own subtraction of one published raw-mark threshold from the other, not a figure either board states itself. AQA and WJEC Eduqas sit between the two, at 93 of 180 and 98 of 200 respectively.
Our GCSE Computer Science tutors track each board’s own June 2026 grade boundaries, so sessions target the marks a student’s actual board requires — not a boundary from a different exam.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThree boards teach A-level Computer Science in England — AQA, Cambridge OCR and WJEC Eduqas — one fewer than the four at GCSE, because Pearson Edexcel’s only Computer Science qualification above GCSE is a new International Advanced Level rather than a UK A-level continuation. A student on Pearson Edexcel’s GCSE whose sixth form wants to continue the subject will therefore move to a different exam board, not stay with the same one; our A-level Computer Science page sets out how the remaining three boards compare, including their programming project marking and June 2026 grade boundaries. For AQA’s and OCR’s own paper-by-paper GCSE structure in more depth, and the ten Python errors GCSE and A-level students most often make, see our Computer Science tutor page — it is not repeated here. And for general GCSE exam-year planning, dates and revision sources across every subject, see our GCSE resources for parents, or our wider GCSE tuition page for support across other subjects.
However your child’s school teaches it — AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel or WJEC Eduqas, written papers or a scored on-screen exam — our GCSE Computer Science tutors build a programme around that board’s own requirements from the first session.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppFour: AQA (spec 8525), Cambridge OCR (J277), Pearson Edexcel (1CP2) and WJEC Eduqas (C500QS), all shown as ‘Available to learners’ on Ofqual’s Register of Regulated Qualifications. That is one more board than A-level Computer Science, where only AQA, Cambridge OCR and WJEC Eduqas hold a live UK qualification — Pearson Edexcel’s only Computer Science qualification above GCSE is a new International Advanced Level, a different, internationally-assessed product. A school or website that simply says ‘WJEC’ for GCSE Computer Science needs the exam entry code to confirm which of three different WJEC-branded qualifications is actually meant.
For two of the four boards, yes, and it is marked. Pearson Edexcel’s Paper 2 and WJEC Eduqas’s Component 2 are each a scored, on-screen programming examination worth 50% of the final grade, sat in Python 3. AQA and Cambridge OCR take the opposite approach: both grade the whole GCSE on two written papers, and their practical requirement is an unmarked ‘Practical Programming Statement’ — a school’s written confirmation that a student had the opportunity to code — which, per Ofqual’s record of OCR’s J277, ‘does not contribute to their final grade’. A claim that no GCSE Computer Science has any marked practical element is only true for half the boards.
It is a school’s own written confirmation, required in some form by all four boards, that a student has had the opportunity to undertake a programming task during the course — not a mark that counts towards the final grade. AQA’s specification describes it as ‘a true and accurate written statement made by each school or college which confirms that it has taken reasonable steps to ensure that each learner has had the opportunity to undertake a programming task or tasks’. Pearson Edexcel and WJEC Eduqas require this same confirmatory statement in addition to their own separately marked, 50%-weighted on-screen programming exam.
No — three different qualifications carry a ‘WJEC’ name, and only one is the live GCSE an English school would enter. WJEC Eduqas (C500QS) is the Ofqual-regulated qualification available to schools in England; its own specification says it ‘is not available for candidates in maintained schools and colleges in Wales’. Plain WJEC’s older GCSE Computer Science (600/6442/0) is marked ‘No longer awarded’ on Ofqual’s register, with a final certification date of 31 August 2018. A third, Wales-domestic ‘GCSE Computer Science’, regulated by Qualifications Wales rather than Ofqual, is being retired on its own timetable, with Summer 2026 as its final full assessment and a resit in January 2027.
It depends on the board. Pearson Edexcel mandates Python 3 for its on-screen Paper 2, and WJEC Eduqas requires Python 3 as a minimum for its on-screen Component 2. AQA lets a school’s own taught language decide, entering candidates under a different paper option for C#, Python or VB.NET, while Cambridge OCR sets its written papers in its own Exam Reference Language pseudocode alongside whichever language a student has actually been taught. A student’s real experience of ‘the exam’ therefore depends as much on their school’s board choice as on the language their teacher chose to teach in.
Yes. The Department for Education’s response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, published 5 November 2025, states plainly: ‘We will replace the computer science GCSE with a GCSE in computing that better reflects the breadth of the curriculum.’ No first-teaching date has been published for this replacement specifically. The same document sets a general aim that some GCSEs in national curriculum subjects are ready ‘for first teaching in 2029’ and the rest ‘for first teaching in 2030’, but it does not say which subjects fall into which group, and Computing is not named in that passage.
It depends entirely on the board, and the gap is real. In the June 2026 series, Cambridge OCR set its grade 5 at 92 of 160 overall marks — 57.5%, the highest of the four boards — while Pearson Edexcel set its grade 5 at 60 of 150 — 40.0%, the lowest. AQA required 93 of 180 and WJEC Eduqas required 98 of its scaled 200-point total. That is a spread of 17.5 percentage points between OCR’s and Pearson Edexcel’s thresholds on a nominally equivalent standard — a school’s choice of board can genuinely change how far off a grade 5 a student’s raw performance sits.
Yes, but with one fewer board. Three boards teach A-level Computer Science in England — AQA, Cambridge OCR and WJEC Eduqas — against four at GCSE. Pearson Edexcel, which teaches the GCSE, has no live UK A-level in the subject at all; its only Computer Science qualification above GCSE is a new International Advanced Level, a separate, internationally-assessed product rather than a UK A-level continuation. A student on Pearson Edexcel’s GCSE whose sixth form wants to continue the subject at A-level will therefore be moving to a different exam board, not staying with the same one.
Whichever board your child’s school teaches — AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel or WJEC Eduqas — our expert GCSE Computer Science tutors work from that board’s own specification, paper structure and grade boundaries, not a generic computing course.
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