WJEC GCSE History 2026

WJEC GCSE History is a Wales-only qualification, currently taught under two live specifications side by side: the outgoing 3100QS, sitting its final full assessment in summer 2027, and the current 3130QS, the only option for Year 10 entrants from September 2026 onward. Both editions grade on an eight-point A*-G scale rather than 9-1, and WJEC states on both specifications’ own covers that the qualification is not available to centres in England.

Is WJEC GCSE History available to a school in England?

No, and this holds across both live editions. WJEC’s outgoing 3100QS specification (Version 3, April 2025) and its current 3130QS specification (Version 6, June 2026) both carry the identical sentence on their own cover page. The scoping is not new to the 2026 redesign — it has held throughout.

The confusion this trips up has a specific cause: WJEC and Eduqas are not two names for the same thing. WJEC is the Wales-facing awarding organisation; Eduqas is its separately accredited England-facing brand, with its own specifications, its own codes and its own paper structures. A school in England that wants a WJEC-family GCSE History course sits Eduqas GCSE History, specification C100QS — examined across two components sat as four separate papers, a different shape from WJEC’s four units. Our GCSE History exam boards comparison covers Eduqas C100QS alongside AQA, Edexcel and OCR; the WJEC specification described on this page is not an option available to a family in England, whichever comparison they read.

Which WJEC GCSE History specification is my child actually sitting?

Two specifications are live at the same time in the 2026-2027 academic year, and which one applies depends entirely on when a student started the course.

The practical rule is simple: a student who began Year 10 in September 2026 is on 3130QS, the only specification WJEC allows for new entrants from that point on. A student already partway through the course — in Year 11, or continuing Year 10 study that started before September 2026 — remains on the outgoing 3100QS through to its final assessment in summer 2027, with a resit opportunity in January 2028 for anyone who needs it. WJEC’s own qualification page states this directly: “From September 2026, learners must not be entered onto this qualification in Year 10, they should be entered for GCSE History - Teaching from 2026.”

The new specification was not originally due to start this recently. WJEC’s own article confirms first teaching was delayed a year, from September 2025 to September 2026, following a joint announcement by WJEC, Qualifications Wales and the Welsh Government. That single-year delay is why two full cohorts — the Year 11s who began under the old timetable and the Year 10s who would otherwise have already started the new one — are still both live on different specifications in the same 2026-2027 academic year.

How much of WJEC GCSE History is exam, and how much is non-exam assessment?

The current 3130QS specification is unitised across four units, with two examined as timed written papers and two assessed as non-exam assessment (NEA) rather than in an exam hall.

Add the two NEA units together and 40% of the qualification is non-exam assessment — Unit 2 plus Unit 4. That is double the weighting on the outgoing 3100QS specification, where Unit 4, “Working as an historian”, was the only NEA unit and carried 20% on its own. WJEC’s own FAQ describes the new specification as carrying “an increased NEA weighting” than the one it replaces; the arithmetic checks out independently against both specifications’ own published unit weightings rather than resting on the FAQ’s wording alone.

The assessment objectives follow a similar split, and Unit 4’s AO4 is defined around historical-enquiry skills rather than interpretations — a different construct from the AO4 used by AQA, Edexcel and OCR’s GCSE History specifications.

Read the rows and the pattern is plain: Unit 1 and Unit 3, the two exam papers, carry no AO4 marks at all — that weighting sits entirely inside the two NEA units. Unit 2 and Unit 4 carry no AO1 marks in return. The exam papers and the NEA units are not testing the same skills in smaller doses; they are testing genuinely different things.

Which historical topics can a school choose, and who chooses them?

Schools choose the options, not students, and the current specification fixes a rule that the choice must span history: the combination selected for Units 1, 2 and 3 must include one medieval, one early modern and one modern option. Unit 4’s topic then has to avoid overlapping with whatever the school has already chosen elsewhere.

Unit 4 works differently again. Rather than choosing a fixed option, centres build a historical enquiry around two of nine set themes — culture, equality and inequality, ethnicity, international relations, peace and conflict, politics, religion, sex, sexuality and gender, and social and economic issues — with WJEC releasing two of the nine in the first week of September each year for that year’s cohort. The teacher identifies the historical topics that sit under each released theme, provided the topic does not replicate or overlap with any of the other units the centre has already chosen.

How does WJEC actually run the non-exam assessment units?

Unit 2 is delivered through WJEC’s own e-assessment platform, not on paper. The sources and interpretations for that year’s enquiry are released during the first week of June, a year ahead of the assessment window, and centres then have flexibility over exactly when between 7 January and 31 March their students complete the three-hour on-screen assignment. WJEC marks Unit 2 itself.

Unit 4 is different in both timing and marking. It is also externally set — the two released themes and the enquiry brief come from WJEC — but it is marked by the centre and moderated by WJEC, rather than marked externally. That is a genuinely different marking model between WJEC’s two NEA units, and worth knowing before a school’s own teachers start marking Unit 4 scripts.

WJEC states the regulatory reason for the shift to on-screen assessment plainly, in its own FAQ, and confirms it applies only to the new specification: “As part of their regulatory conditions, Qualifications Wales require that a proportion of all Humanities GCSEs are assessed on-screen within the first five years of teaching.” The outgoing 3100QS specification has no on-screen component at all — a further difference between the two live editions, beyond the exam/NEA weighting split covered above.

What grade will my child actually receive?

An eight-point A*-G scale, not the 9-1 scale used for GCSEs taken in England. WJEC’s current specification states this without qualification: “GCSE qualifications are reported on an eight-point scale from A*-G, where A* is the highest grade. Results not attaining the minimum standard for the award will be reported as U (unclassified).” The outgoing 3100QS specification carries near-identical wording, confirming Wales has not moved this GCSE to the 9-1 scale in either live edition — a genuine point of confusion for any family whose frame of reference is England’s system, where a top grade is a 9.

Underneath the letter grade, the current specification runs on a uniform mark scale (UMS). Units 1 and 3 each carry a maximum of 180 UMS points; Units 2 and 4 each carry a maximum of 120; the qualification as a whole carries a maximum of 600.

Two resit rules apply beneath the grade. For Pre-16 candidates, WJEC sets a terminal rule at 40% of the overall qualification, and each unit can be resat once, with the better of the two UMS scores counting toward the final grade. Post-16 candidates face no terminal rule at all, and there is no limit on how many times an individual unit can be resat.

The current specification’s first assessments land across two summers, not one. Units 1 and 3, and the submission of Unit 2, are assessed for the first time in summer 2027; Unit 4’s submission follows a year later, in summer 2028, which is also when the qualification is first awarded as a whole. A student who began 3130QS in September 2026 therefore has results for three of the four units a full year before the qualification itself is first awarded.

Does the entry code change if a student is taught in Welsh?

Yes, at every level of both specifications. The current 3130QS specification issues English-medium and Welsh-medium codes in parallel throughout — the qualification cash-in itself is 3130QS for English medium and 3130CS for Welsh medium, and the same U-series/N-series split runs through every unit and option beneath it. The outgoing 3100QS specification carries the identical structure: 3100QS for English medium, 3100CS for Welsh medium, with matching codes at unit level.

Nothing about the content changes between the two mediums — the same option lists, the same era-diversity rule, the same NEA arrangements apply whichever language a centre teaches in. Only the entry code differs, which is what allows WJEC to report results separately by medium of assessment while running one specification.

How a tutor plans around a unitised, part-NEA specification

A unitised, part-NEA specification changes what a lesson plan actually has to cover, in ways a linear, all-exam GCSE does not. Two dates matter more than any others: Unit 2’s sources are released in the first week of June, a year ahead of the January–March assessment window in which students complete it, and Unit 4’s two set themes are released in the first week of September, at the very start of the academic year in which they’re assessed. Both are fixed external dates a programme has to be built around, not worked out once term has already started.

The resit structure changes planning too. Because Pre-16 candidates can resit any individual unit once, with the better UMS score counting, a tutor working with a student who has already sat Unit 1 or Unit 3 once can identify precisely which unit is worth a second attempt, rather than treating the whole qualification as fixed after the first sitting.

Our expert WJEC GCSE History tutors work with students across Wales on whichever specification their school has entered them for, planning lessons around the actual units, the released Unit 2 sources and Unit 4 themes, and the option combination a student’s own school has chosen — rather than a generic GCSE History syllabus that assumes a single English exam board. 91% of our students go on to achieve their desired grades.

Frequently Asked Questions About WJEC GCSE History