OCR's AS English Literature (H072) is a separate, surviving qualification with its own texts, exam dates and a September 2027 changeover — not simply year one of the A-level.
Book a Free ConsultationOCR AS English Literature (H072) and A Level English Literature (H472) are two separately certificated qualifications, not a single course split into "year one" and "year two". A Year 12 student can sit the two-paper AS award in its own right, with its own grade scale and its own final assessment date. Checked against OCR's 12 May 2026 withdrawal notice, H072 is not one of the AS qualifications currently being retired — unlike two neighbouring OCR English AS awards.
Already know whether your child's school is entering Year 12 for the AS award? Our expert OCR English Literature tutors work with Year 12 students on both the H072 AS route and the full H472 A-level, and build the term around the specification and route your child is actually on.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppIt is its own qualification. OCR's specification-at-a-glance page states two separate completion rules on the same page: "Students must complete both components (01 and 02) to be awarded the AS Level in English Literature" against "Students must complete all components (01, 02 and 03) to be awarded the A Level in English Literature." The AS award (H072) is assessed on two components — Shakespeare and poetry pre-1900 (50%, 1 hour 30 minutes) and Drama and prose post-1900 (50%, 1 hour 45 minutes) — both marked "Closed text exam" on OCR's own table, for 120 raw marks in total and no non-exam assessment. The full A-level (H472) adds a third component, Literature post-1900, a 20%-weighted non-exam assessment, on top of two closed-text exam papers worth 160 written marks between them.
The grading scales differ too, and OCR states each in almost identical wording except for one symbol. The AS specification says: "AS level qualifications are graded on the scale: A, B, C, D, E, where A is the highest." The A-level specification says: "A level qualifications are graded on the scale: A*, A, B, C, D, E, where A* is the highest." A Year 12 student entered for AS alone is working towards a grade ceiling of A, not A*, because A* does not exist on that scale. Both specifications are badged by OCR as its "from 2015" generation of the qualification, with the AS first assessed in 2016 and the full A-level a year later, in 2017, reflecting the AS's one-year course against the A-level's two.
Not on the evidence currently published. OCR's withdrawal subject update, headed "Important: Withdrawal of selected Cambridge OCR general qualifications 12 May 2026", lists AS qualifications being retired across two tables, one with a final assessment of June 2027 and one with June 2028. H072 (AS English Literature) does not appear in either table, checked directly on 7 September 2026. Neither does H472, though A-levels are not generally part of this AS-focused withdrawal round.
Two neighbouring English AS qualifications are on that same list, for contrast: AS English Language (H070) and AS English Language and Literature (H074, the combined EMC award) both carry a final assessment of June 2027, with OCR stating "there will not be a resit opportunity after the final assessment opportunity." That detail belongs to those two qualifications, not to H072. OCR's stated reason for the wider round of withdrawals is a national decline in demand: "The demand for AS Levels nationally has declined significantly over the past decade, after the qualifications were decoupled from A Levels and no longer mandatory as part of an A Level." H072's absence from the current list is a finding about what OCR has published, checked on the date given, not a guarantee about a future update.
Whether your child's school is entering them for the standalone AS award or running straight through to the full A-level, our OCR English Literature tutors build the Year 12 term around the actual components H072 or H472 will be marked on.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppOCR's specification-at-a-glance page is explicit about the scale of the two courses: AS "students study a minimum of four texts, including at least one example of each of the genres of prose, poetry and drama", while the A-level "students study a minimum of eight texts, including at least two examples of each of the genres of prose, poetry and drama." AS Component 01 (Shakespeare and poetry pre-1900) offers a choice of one Shakespeare play from six: "King Lear Hamlet Othello Richard III The Tempest The Taming of the Shrew" — the identical six plays OCR sets for A-level Component 01. AS Component 02 (Drama and prose post-1900) is where the AS course stands most clearly on its own ground: a choice of one modern play from six named playwrights (Coward, Williams, Pinter, Bennett, Stenham, Butterworth) and one prose text from five named authors (Fitzgerald, Carter, Orwell, Woolf, Hamid), none of which is examined at A-level in this form.
At full A-level, Component 02 (Comparative and contextual study) restructures those same post-1900 prose titles into five named topic areas — American Literature 1880–1940, The Gothic, Dystopia, Women in Literature, The Immigrant Experience — each built around two set texts rather than AS's single free-standing choice, and Component 03 (Literature post-1900) adds an individually assessed unit unique to the full course: three texts chosen by the student, one of them published after 2000, with translated texts explicitly barred ("Texts in translation are not permitted"). A Year 12 student sitting only AS is not doing a scaled-down version of every A-level unit; they are doing a genuinely smaller, self-contained pair of components that OCR built to stand alone.
No, and OCR's own set-texts subject update dates the changeover precisely enough to show why. For AS Component 01, OCR states: "the current set texts will be assessed until June 2027. The new set texts for first teach September 2027 are listed below" — with first assessment of the new AS list given as June 2028. For A-level Component 01, OCR states separately: "the current set texts will be assessed until June 2028. The new set texts for first teach September 2027 are listed below" — with first assessment of the new A-level list given as June 2029. The two components are on different clocks: AS's current list runs one exam series ahead of the A-level's.
A student starting Year 12 in September 2026 sits inside both of those current-list windows throughout their course: an AS entry in June 2027 falls squarely within "assessed until June 2027", and if that same student continues to the full A-level in Year 13, their June 2028 sitting falls squarely within "assessed until June 2028". This cohort is, on OCR's own dates, the last one examined on the current AS list and, if it proceeds to A-level, the last one examined on the current A-level list too — not a cohort that changes texts partway through. The September 2027 first-teaching date belongs to the cohort starting Year 12 in September 2027, a full year behind this one, who are taught the new lists from their first lesson. New poetry set texts from that date add Elizabeth Barrett Browning and John Clare and drop Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Tennyson's Maud; new A-level pre-1900 drama set texts replace Marlowe's Edward II with his Doctor Faustus, add Aphra Behn's The Rover in place of Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, and replace Wilde's An Ideal Husband with his The Importance of Being Earnest — none of which touches a student already on the current lists.
OCR's own Final Examination Timetable June 2027 — the series this cohort would sit if entered for AS — schedules H072/01 (Shakespeare and poetry pre-1900) for Thursday 13 May 2027 morning and H072/02 (Drama and prose post-1900) for Friday 21 May 2027 morning. The document states its own status directly: "Final version of the timetable. Changes made since the publication of the provisional timetable are shown in red" — this is OCR's confirmed, not provisional, June 2027 calendar as checked on 7 September 2026.
For a sense of what a strong result looks like, OCR's June 2025 grade boundaries, its most recent published grade boundaries as checked on 7 September 2026, set the AS grade A boundary at 105 out of 120 raw marks (87.5%) and the minimum standard for grade E at 55 marks (45.8%). Those figures move each series with the cohort's performance and are not a guarantee for June 2027, but they show how tightly bunched the AS grade bands are: barely 50 marks separate a bare pass from the top grade across two 60-mark closed-text papers.
Not sure yet whether your child's school has entered them for the June 2027 AS sitting? Our OCR English Literature tutors help Year 12 students prepare for either route, working from the specification and set texts your child's school has actually confirmed.
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Three OCR-set dates now govern this cohort's Year 12 English Literature decision, and none of them move for an individual student:
| Date | What happens | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 12 May 2026 | OCR's withdrawal notice updated; H072 (AS English Literature) and H472 (A-level) are absent from both of its tables | OCR qualification withdrawals subject update |
| June 2027 | Final examination series for the current AS pre-1900 poetry set texts; H072/01 and H072/02 exam dates | Set-texts subject update; June 2027 exam timetable |
| September 2027 | First teaching of the new AS and A-level pre-1900 set texts — the cohort starting Year 12 that September, not this one | Set-texts subject update |
| June 2028 | Final examination series for the current A-level pre-1900 drama and poetry set texts | Set-texts subject update |
Sources: OCR's qualification withdrawals subject update and English Literature set-texts subject update, both checked 7 September 2026.
Two questions follow from that table, and both are worth putting to the school directly. The first is whether this cohort is being entered for the standalone AS award in June 2027 at all — OCR does not require it, and a school may choose to run straight through to the A-level instead. The second is which pre-1900 texts the school is actually teaching, since a student on the September 2026 Year 12 intake should be working from the current lists, assessed until June 2027 (AS) or June 2028 (A-level), not the lists that begin with the September 2027 intake a year behind them.
We start from the specification code on the exam entry, not from "English Literature" as a generic subject, because H072 and H472 are marked on different components, different mark totals and different grading scales. For a Year 12 student on OCR English Literature, the first session is spent establishing which route the school has actually chosen — a standalone AS entry in June 2027, or straight through to the full A-level in June 2028 — because the answer changes which of the AS or A-level set texts a term of tutoring should be built around.
Our tutors are specialist English Literature tutors who teach the board and the specification in front of them, several with Oxbridge English degrees, and we cover OCR's AS and A-level structure alongside AQA, Edexcel, Eduqas and WJEC. 91% of our students achieve their desired grades, and we are rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews. For the wider subject picture across boards, see our A-Level English guide; our English Literature tutor service covers GCSE and A-level together, and the A-level tutoring hub covers every other subject at this level.
Whatever your child's school has decided on the AS entry, our OCR English Literature tutors build the Year 12 term around it — from a single AS sitting in June 2027 to the full three-component route through to June 2028.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppIt is a separate, separately certificated qualification, not half of the A-level. OCR's own specification page states: "Students must complete both components (01 and 02) to be awarded the AS Level in English Literature" against a different statement for the A-level: "Students must complete all components (01, 02 and 03) to be awarded the A Level in English Literature." The AS award is graded A to E; the A-level is graded A* to E. A student can be entered for the AS award alone and receive a full, standalone qualification for it.
H072 does not appear in OCR's withdrawal notice of 12 May 2026, checked 7 September 2026. That notice does name other OCR English AS qualifications: AS English Language (H070) and AS English Language and Literature (H074, EMC) are both listed, each with a final assessment of June 2027. H072 (English Literature) and H472 (the A-level) are absent from both of the notice's tables. This is a finding about what the notice stated when checked on 7 September 2026, not a claim about what OCR will decide in future.
AS English Literature studies a minimum of four texts, including one example each of prose, poetry and drama; the full A-level studies a minimum of eight, with at least two examples of each genre. Both a Shakespeare play and the AS Component 02 modern-play and modern-prose lists are the same lists OCR draws on when it structures the A-level. Component 03, the individually assessed non-exam unit where a student chooses three post-1900 texts, exists only at A-level.
No. OCR's own subject update states the new set texts apply "for first teach September 2027", and that the current AS pre-1900 poetry texts are assessed until June 2027 while the current A-level pre-1900 drama and poetry texts are assessed until June 2028. A student starting Year 12 in September 2026 is taught throughout on the current lists: sitting AS, if entered, in June 2027, or the full A-level in June 2028, both inside the current texts' assessment window. It is the cohort starting Year 12 in September 2027, not the September 2026 cohort, that is first taught the new lists.
OCR's Final Examination Timetable June 2027 schedules H072/01 (Shakespeare and poetry pre-1900) for Thursday 13 May 2027 morning and H072/02 (Drama and prose post-1900) for Friday 21 May 2027 morning. In OCR's June 2025 series, its most recent published grade boundaries as checked on 7 September 2026, the AS grade A boundary was 105 out of 120 raw marks (87.5%) and the minimum standard for grade E was 55 marks (45.8%).
Only within the AS qualification's own assessment window, which is separate from the A-level's. OCR's general position on the neighbouring AS English qualifications it is withdrawing states plainly that "there will not be a resit opportunity after the final assessment opportunity" once a qualification's final series has passed. AS English Literature is not on that withdrawal list, so this specific restriction does not apply to H072 as checked on 7 September 2026, though it illustrates that an AS award's resit window is governed independently of the full A-level's timetable.
Two questions are worth asking directly. First, whether the school intends to enter the current Year 12 cohort for the standalone AS award in June 2027, or run straight through to the full A-level in June 2028 without a formal AS sitting — schools are not required to enter students for AS at all. Second, which pre-1900 texts the school is teaching, since a student starting Year 12 in September 2026 should be on the current lists, not the lists that begin with the September 2027 intake.
Checked 7 September 2026: specification codes, component structure, grading scales, withdrawal status, set-text dates and exam-timetable dates were verified directly against OCR's own qualification page, specification-at-a-glance page and subject-update notices. Last updated 7 September 2026.
One qualification, its own texts and its own June 2027 sitting. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews. Start with the A-Level English guide or the A-level tutoring hub.
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