AQA (8662) and Pearson Edexcel (1GN1) are the only boards offering it in England — here is how their papers, tiers and vocabulary actually differ.
Book a Free ConsultationGCSE German is a modern foreign language GCSE offered in England only by AQA, under specification 8662, and Pearson Edexcel, under specification 1GN1. Both reformed their GCSE German together for first teaching in September 2024, with first exams sat in June 2026. OCR does not offer GCSE German at all, and Eduqas, the WJEC brand serving England, lists only an AS/A-level German, not a GCSE.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppAQA, under specification 8662, and Pearson Edexcel, under specification 1GN1, are the boards that set GCSE German for schools in England. AQA's own subject page lists 8662 as its current German GCSE, first teaching September 2024, with its next scheduled exam on 10 May 2027, while the previous specification, 8668, is listed for past papers only with no further exam date shown. Pearson Edexcel's own qualifications page confirms its German (2024) specification, first teaching 2024 and first assessment 2026; the specification document itself carries the code 1GN1 on its cover page, Issue 2, dated May 2025.
Three boards a parent might reasonably expect to also offer GCSE German do not. OCR's own complete GCSE subject list, an alphabetical page running from Ancient History to Science, carries no German, French, Spanish or any other modern foreign language entry at all; German would sit between Food Preparation and Nutrition and Geography if it existed, and it is not there. OCR's individual qualification web pages cannot be used to check this instead: a deliberately invented OCR qualification address returns the same generic HTTP 200 page shell that a genuine OCR qualification page does, which is why the complete subject list, not a single qualification URL, is the evidence used here.
Eduqas, the WJEC brand that actually serves schools in England, lists only 'AS/A Level German' under its own German entry on its complete qualifications page, with no GCSE at all. This matters because at least one widely read revision-content guide currently describes what it calls 'the revised Eduqas specification', grouping GCSE German into five broad themes. Eduqas's own site publishes no such specification, so that description cannot be confirmed at the only source that would settle it, and it should not be treated as current.
A genuine WJEC GCSE German does exist, but it is not the same qualification. It is approved by Qualifications Wales rather than Ofqual, available only to centres in Wales, and will be awarded for the first time in Summer 2027, a different regulator, a different cohort, and a first award more than a year after AQA and Edexcel's reformed specifications were first examined. WJEC's earlier, 2016-teaching GCSE German is itself being phased out: Summer 2026 is its final full assessment opportunity, with a January 2027 resit subject to demand, and centres were told not to enter learners onto it in Year 10 from September 2025.
Almost certainly, yes. AQA's GCSE German (8662) and Pearson Edexcel's GCSE German (1GN1) were reformed together, both first taught from September 2024 and both examined for the first time in June 2026. Any child who started GCSE German in Year 10 from September 2024 onward, or who is currently partway through the course, is on one of these two reformed specifications, not a qualification a school might have used before.
The outgoing specifications carry no further sittings on either board. AQA's own subject page lists its previous German GCSE, 8668, for past papers only, with no future exam date shown. Pearson Edexcel's legacy (pre-2024) German qualification page no longer resolves independently at all; requesting it now returns an HTTP 302 redirect straight to Pearson's general GCSE qualifications list.
The first cohort to sit the reformed specifications produced a genuine, measurable change in French and German grading in the summer 2026 exam series — Leading Tuition's analysis of why GCSE French and German grades rose in 2026 covers the entry shifts and grade-boundary detail in full. Ofqual's own 2019 decision to align French and German grading standards with Spanish, which took effect from the 2020 exam series onward, is the starting point for that story, not the 2024 specification reform itself — the two are related but separate changes, four years apart.
Both boards examine German across the same four skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing, split into four papers worth 25% each, for a total of 200 marks, with a Foundation tier (grades 1–5) and a Higher tier (grades 4–9) on both specifications. Where they genuinely differ is the order candidates sit the papers in, and one specific piece of mark scaling.
AQA sits its papers in the order Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing. Pearson Edexcel sits Speaking first, then Listening, Reading and Writing. AQA's Foundation-tier Listening paper is the only component identified in the specifications reviewed here that is not marked out of a flat maximum at both tiers: it is set at 40 raw marks and scaled by ×1.25 to a maximum of 50, matching the other three papers. Every other paper, on both boards, is marked out of 50 directly.
| Component | AQA (8662) | Pearson Edexcel (1GN1) |
|---|---|---|
| Paper order | Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing | Speaking, Listening, Reading, Writing |
| Weighting per paper | 25% each (200 marks total) | 25% each (200 marks total) |
| Speaking paper | Conducted and audio-recorded by the teacher, marked by an AQA examiner | Internally conducted, externally assessed; Foundation 7–9 min, Higher 10–12 min, plus 15 min preparation |
| Foundation Listening marks | 40 raw marks, scaled ×1.25 to 50 | 50 marks, no scaling identified in the specification reviewed |
| Tiers | Foundation grades 1–5, Higher grades 4–9 | Foundation grades 1–5, Higher grades 4–9 |
Source: AQA GCSE German (8662) specification, Version 1.0, 8 December 2023; Pearson Edexcel GCSE German (1GN1) specification, Issue 2, May 2025.
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Our GCSE German tutors teach to the paper order and mark scheme your child's board actually uses, not a generic language course built around neither specification.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppBoth boards land on an almost identical vocabulary size, and this is not a coincidence: AQA's own specification states that students are expected to know 1,200 lexical items for Foundation tier and a further 500 for Higher tier, 1,700 in total, and that this list incorporates the words set out in the Department for Education's own subject content, Annex E. Pearson Edexcel's specification uses the same structure in near-identical wording: 1,200 words used at both tiers, plus an additional 500 words used at Higher tier only. For a parent comparing boards, the vocabulary demand itself is not really a choice between AQA and Edexcel, it is a DfE-set floor that both specifications build on in the same way.
Where the two specifications diverge is pronunciation. AQA's specification includes a named appendix, 'Sound Symbol Correspondences (SSCs)', setting out the German sound-spelling pairings, long and short vowel sounds, the 'sch' and 'ch' combinations among them, that students are taught to recognise as a distinct, listed component of the course. Pearson Edexcel has no equivalent named appendix; instead, pronunciation is assessed directly inside Paper 1, where a 12-mark Read Aloud task specifically tests it as part of the speaking paper. Both approaches examine pronunciation somewhere in the qualification, AQA names it as reference material, Edexcel marks it as an exam task, but a tutor preparing a child for one board's Paper 1 without knowing this difference is preparing for the wrong kind of pronunciation practice.
The two specifications also organise their content differently. AQA groups GCSE German into three broad themes: People and lifestyle, Popular culture, and Communication and the world around us. Pearson Edexcel uses six narrower thematic contexts instead: My personal world, Lifestyle and wellbeing, My neighbourhood, Media and technology, Studying and my future, and Travel and tourism. The underlying vocabulary and skills are the same DfE-set core either way, but a revision resource built around one board's theme headings will not map cleanly onto the other's.
Neither board's speaking assessment is coursework, and it is worth being precise about what each one actually is, because 'speaking coursework' is not a term either board uses for its current specification.
On AQA, the speaking test is conducted and audio-recorded by the student's own teacher, then marked by an AQA examiner, the teacher runs the test, an external examiner grades it. On Pearson Edexcel, the speaking paper (Paper 1) is internally conducted and externally assessed, the same underlying model in Edexcel's own wording, with a Read Aloud task worth 12 marks built into it specifically to test pronunciation.
Both structures replace the old-style continuous coursework model that GCSE modern languages used before the current reform cycle. Ofqual's own 2019 grading-standards notice, the same decision that aligned French and German grading with Spanish, records that MFL teachers themselves were 'supportive of the removal of controlled assessment' as part of the same reform programme that produced the current linear, end-of-course structure. That is a teacher-reported preference recorded by the regulator, not a claim this page makes on its own account.
Preparing for the speaking exam is board-specific. Our GCSE German tutors drill AQA's teacher-recorded test and Edexcel's Read Aloud task differently, because the two are marked differently.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppNo. OCR's own complete GCSE subject list, an alphabetical page running from Ancient History to Science, carries no German, French, Spanish or any other modern foreign language entry. If OCR offered GCSE German it would appear alphabetically between Food Preparation and Nutrition and Geography — it is not there. OCR's individual qualification web pages cannot be used to check this instead: a deliberately invented OCR qualification address returns the same generic HTTP 200 page shell that a genuine OCR qualification page does, so the complete subject list is the only reliable evidence either way.
No. Eduqas's own complete qualifications list shows only 'AS/A Level German' under its German entry, with no GCSE listed at all. This is worth stating plainly because at least one revision-content guide currently describes what it calls 'the revised Eduqas specification' for GCSE German, grouping the language into five broad themes. That specification could not be found anywhere on Eduqas's own site, so it should not be relied on — the only real Eduqas German qualification is at AS and A-level.
No, and the distinction matters. Eduqas is the WJEC brand used in England, and it does not offer GCSE German at all, only AS/A-level. A genuine WJEC GCSE German does exist, but it is regulated separately by Qualifications Wales rather than Ofqual, is available only to centres in Wales, and will be awarded for the first time in Summer 2027. It is not an option for a school in England, and it is not the same body of work as anything Eduqas publishes.
Both boards use the same grade structure on their reformed specifications: Foundation tier covers grades 1 to 5, and Higher tier covers grades 4 to 9, on both AQA (8662) and Pearson Edexcel (1GN1). Because Higher tier's lowest available grade is a 4, it suits a child who is already secure at that standard across listening, speaking, reading and writing; Foundation suits a child whose realistic ceiling sits at grade 5 or below. The decision is made by the school, subject by subject, usually from mock results in Year 11 rather than fixed in advance.
Grades in French and German moved for the first cohort examined on the reformed 2024 specifications, in the same June 2026 series this page's GCSE German information is drawn from. Leading Tuition's dedicated analysis of the 2026 GCSE French and German results covers the entry-count shifts between boards and the grade-boundary detail in full, rather than repeating it here. The starting point for that story is a 2019 Ofqual decision, unrelated to the 2024 specification reform, that required exam boards to align French and German grading standards with Spanish from the 2020 exam series onward.
There is no board-published difficulty ranking across GCSE languages, and this page does not attempt to invent one. What is verifiable is the vocabulary demand: both AQA and Edexcel expect students to know 1,200 words at Foundation tier and a further 500 at Higher tier, 1,700 in total, a size set by the Department for Education's own subject content rather than chosen independently by either board. Beyond vocabulary size, difficulty depends on a child's existing language-learning strengths, which is a question for a subject specialist rather than a generic comparison.
The most reliable way is to ask the school's modern languages department directly, or check the entry code on any exam correspondence: AQA's current GCSE German is coded 8662, and Pearson Edexcel's is coded 1GN1 — a different code means the school is using something other than the current specification described on this page. Past papers and specimen assessment materials published on the school's exam board website will also carry the same code on their cover pages, which is the quickest way to confirm it independently.
Whichever board your child's school teaches, AQA's 8662 or Pearson Edexcel's 1GN1, our specialist GCSE German tutors build every programme around the actual specification, tier and paper order your child is sitting. We are rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, and 91% of our students achieve their desired grades. We also provide tuition across the full range of GCSE subjects and GCSE tuition generally.
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