Having taken GCSEs myself, I know just how hard it is to get your head around all of the different terms and concepts that you need to know about for your GCSEs. Exam boards are one of these key terms and as unimportant as they can often seem, knowing which exam boards your exams are with is often crucial. However, what you may find is that you may not actually know what an exam board is for GCSEs. Don’t worry, this article will take you through everything you need to know about GCSE exam boards in the UK.
Continue reading to have your questions about GCSE exam boards in the UK answered. This article will take you through what the different exam boards are for GCSEs, how each one is different and more.
Table of Contents
What are GCSE exam boards?
An exam board or an examination board is an official organisation that creates, sets and then organises the marking of exams for a specific qualification. In this case, that qualification is GCSEs.
You may have also heard an exam board being referred to as an ‘awarding body’, this is the same thing. To learn more about this, check out this article by Wingu Academy.
In the UK, there are 5 different exam boards for GCSEs. 4 of these operate primarily in England, these are AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and WJEC under its English brand, Eduqas.
Then for Wales, the main exam board is WJEC on its own. The main exam board for Northern Ireland is CCEA. However, for GCSEs, students may still be able to use any of the UK GCSE exam boards, regardless of whether they are in England, Wales or Northern Ireland.
To learn more about GCSE exam boards in the UK, check out this guide by the government.
Which exam boards are most popular for GCSEs?
Now that you’ve learnt what the different exam boards are in the UK that offer GCSE qualifications, we can talk about how these exam boards compare to each other. One way to look at this is to consider which exam board(s) is the most popular.
As mentioned above, the AQA exam board offers over half of the GCSE and A-Level qualifications in the UK. This makes it the most popular exam board for GCSEs in the UK.
Other than this, Pearson Edexcel and OCR are the next most popular exam boards in the UK. You can learn more about this by checking out this article by Third Space Learning.
What are the differences between each GCSE exam board?
In terms of GCSE qualifications, the differences between each exam board are fairly minimal. This is because qualifications, such as GCSEs, are taken nationally and so the standardisation of them is prioritised. This is done through the creation of the curriculum for GCSE study and the regulation of this as well as through the regulation of the exam boards themselves.
The regulation of the curriculum for GCSE study is done by the qualifications’ regulator. For England, this is done by Ofqual. To learn more about this, check out this guide by the government.
The qualification regulator for Wales is Qualifications Wales. You can learn more about Qualifications Wales by clicking on this link to their website.
For Northern Ireland, this is slightly different as the qualification regulator is also an exam board itself. As mentioned above, this is done by CCEA in Northern Ireland.
In terms of the exam boards being regulated, this is the role of the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ). JCQ is simply a membership of different qualifications providers, which includes the GCSE exam boards. To learn more about JCQ, check out this page on their website.
Despite this, there are some differences between the GCSE exam boards. This is generally due to the format of the exams for their GCSE qualifications as well as which subjects, they actually offer.
For example, with Pearson Edexcel, students can take GCSE Astronomy and with OCR, you can do GCSE Classical Civilisation. To learn more about these click here and here for the links to Pearson Edexcel and OCR’s respective qualifications pages.
Which exam board is hardest for GCSEs?
As mentioned above, the differences between the GCSE exam boards are minimal due to the regulations in place to make sure that they are all fair. This also means that no exam board should be harder than another for GCSE qualifications.
However, as there are some slight differences between the exam boards, particularly for exam format, students may perceive these aspects as harder. As the idea of which exam board is the hardest for GCSEs can only be looked at in relation to the actual exams themselves, to see how one exam board may be considered the hardest, we will need to break it down into individual GCSE subjects.
With so many different subjects offered as GCSE qualifications, it’s not practical to compare all of these between the GCSE exam boards. Instead, we can look at the compulsory subjects as all exam boards offer them and so they can provide useful insight when comparing them.
Check out the following sections to see how the 5 GCSE exam boards in the UK compare for the compulsory subjects of GCSE Maths, the GCSE Englishes and GCSE Combined Science. These sections will look at the exam format for each exam board as well as other exam figures, particularly the pass rate, to try and compare how hard each one is.
The following sections will include information and statistics about the exam set up for each of the compulsory GCSEs as well as the pass rates for each exam board. To learn more about the pass rates for each of these subjects for each exam board, click on the respective links: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC, CCEA.
Which exam board is hardest for GCSE Maths?
One of the main ways you can compare the exam boards is by looking at the pass rates for each subject. This is because how many students were able to pass can suggest how easy or difficult it was to be able to do this. However, it is important to remember that this may not be the case as there could be many other reasons as to why the pass rates are different, so it is best to not read into it too much.
For GCSE Maths, the “hardest” GCSE exam board for 2022, would seem to be WJEC. This is because it has the lowest pass rate of students achieving a grade 4/ C or above. To see these figures, look at the table below.
| Exam board | Pass rate |
| AQA | 63.5% |
| Pearson Edexcel | 65.9% |
| OCR | 67.68% |
| WJEC | 56.9% |
| CCEA | 79.9% |
Another way we could compare how hard each exam board is for a subject is to look at the difficulty in terms of the format of the exams themselves. This way of comparing the difficulty is much more subjective and so it will depend on what you consider more difficult to get a response. Look at the following table to see each exam board’s exam format for GCSE Maths.
| Exam board | Number of exams | Maximum marks |
| AQA | 3 (1 non-calculator, 2 calculator) | 240 (80 in each paper) |
| Pearson Edexcel | 3 (1 non-calculator, 2 calculator) | 240 (80 in each paper) |
| OCR | 3 (1 non-calculator, 2 calculator) | 300 (100 in each paper) |
| WJEC | 2 (1 non-calculator, 1 calculator) | 160 (for higher or intermediate tiers), 130 (for foundation tier) |
| CCEA | 3 (1 non-calculator, 2 calculator) | Dependent on components chosen |
To learn more about these exam formats, check out the specifications for each exam board by clicking on their respective link: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA.
Which exam board is hardest for GCSE English Language?
For 2022, it would appear that WJEC was the hardest exam board for GCSE English Language. This is because it had the lowest percentage of students achieving a grade C or above. Look at the table below to see how the exam boards compare for GCSE English Language.
| Exam board | Pass rate |
| AQA | 70.5% |
| Pearson Edexcel | 67.3% |
| OCR | 82.18% |
| WJEC | 65.3% |
| CCEA | 88.7% |
However, it’s important to remember that this could also be for other reasons rather than just the difficulty of WJEC GCSE English Language.
Once again, looking at how the exams are set up can be useful to compare with what you would consider harder or easier. Look at the table below to see how each exam board differs.
| Exam board | Number of exams | Maximum marks |
| AQA | 2 and spoken language NEA | 160 (80 marks each for written exams) |
| Pearson Edexcel | 2 and spoken language endorsement | 160 (64 on first written exam and 96 on the other) |
| OCR | 2 and spoken language NEA | 160 (80 marks each for written exams) |
| WJEC | 2 and spoken language NEA | 240 (80 marks for each unit) |
| CCEA | 2 and 2 controlled assessments (spoken language) | 420 (150 mark for each written exam and 60 marks for each controlled assessment) |
To learn more about these exam formats, check out the specifications for each exam board by clicking on their respective link: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA.
Which exam board is hardest for GCSE English Literature?
Once again, for the Summer 2022 exam series, it would appear that WJEC was the hardest exam board due to having the lowest percentage of students achieving a grade C or above. In this case, this is for GCSE English Literature, look at the following table to see how the exam boards compare for this subject.
| Exam board | Pass rate |
| AQA | 77.4% |
| Pearson Edexcel | 79.2% |
| OCR | 86.46% |
| WJEC | 70.7% |
| CCEA | 98.8% |
To see how the different exam formats may make you feel that one exam board is harder than another for GCSE English Literature, check out the table below. This information is taken from the exam board specifications, which you can find by clicking on their respective links: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA.
| Exam board | Number of exams | Maximum marks |
| AQA | 2 | 160 (64 on first paper and 96 on second paper) |
| Pearson Edexcel | 2 | 160 (80 in each paper) |
| OCR | 2 | 160 (80 in each paper) |
| WJEC | 3 | 158 (50 on first paper, 60 on second paper and 48 on third paper) |
| CCEA | 2 and controlled assessment | 180 (60 on first paper, 80 on second paper and 40 on controlled assessment) |
Which exam board is hardest for GCSE Combined Science?
Based on the pass rate, it would seem that for 2022, the hardest GCSE Combined Science exam board was AQA for its “synergy” specification. Other than that, being considerably lower and CCEA’s pass rate being considerably higher, the GCSE Combined Science pass rates are very similar with AQA Trilogy, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and WJEC all being within 1% of each other. To learn more about this, please refer to the following table.
| Exam board | Pass rate |
| AQA (Trilogy) | 60.8% |
| AQA (Synergy) | 46% |
| Pearson Edexcel | 61.1% |
| OCR | 60.77% |
| WJEC | 60.1% |
| CCEA | 93.3% |
Once again, considering the difficulty of an exam board is incredibly subjective and, in the end, it will be up to what you consider hardest rather than based on other people’s experiences. Due to this, another important way of considering its difficulty is looking at the different exam format, which you can see in the table below.
| Exam board | Number of exams | Maximum marks |
| AQA | 6 | 70 marks each |
| Pearson Edexcel | 6 | 60 marks each |
| OCR | 6 or 4 (A or B specification) | 360 (60 marks each or 3 papers with 95 marks and 1 paper with 75 marks) |
| WJEC | 6 and assessed practicals | 60 marks each |
| CCEA | 7 and assessed practicals | Depends on tier |
To learn more about this, please refer to these exam boards’ specifications, which you can find by clicking on their respective links: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR A, OCR B, WJEC and CCEA.
Who chooses your exam board for GCSEs?
Having learnt all of this information about the different GCSE exam boards, you may be wondering how you end up taking your GCSEs with the exam boards that you do and whose choice this is. To put it simply, this will depend on how you are taking your GCSE exams, whether this is at a secondary school, a college or if you’ve chosen to do them as a private candidate.
If you go to secondary school and completely follow their process for taking your GCSEs, then it will be your school that decides which exam board you do each GCSE with. The actual decision will come down to either the head of the GCSE subject or maybe even a GCSE teacher to decide which exam board students use for their exams.
In order to come to this decision, the head of subject or teacher will consider the benefits and drawbacks of each option as well as what would suit the school best based on the experience and expertise of staff. To learn more about this, check out this article by GCSE.co.uk.
However, if you take your GCSEs as a private candidate, the choice of which exam board you do is generally up to you. Despite having the freedom to choose, you may find that there are some limitations to this.
For example, you may find that which exam board you do may be based on the examination centre that you have chosen to do your exams at and which exams they actually do or have available. Otherwise, you may find that choosing your GCSE exam board will be more based on the resources that are available to learn the course or if you have a tutor and what they feel is best. To learn more about what you need to consider when choosing your exam board as a private candidate for GCSEs, check out this Think Student article.
An overview of the differing exam boards at GCSE
For more information about the five main exam boards, check out the following sections that will tell you the key things you need to know about each exam board.
AQA
AQA stands for Assessment and Qualifications Alliance and is one of the main exam boards that offer GCSE qualifications in the UK. AQA is arguably the most important exam board when considering GCSEs. This is because the AQA exam board covers more than half of the GCSE and A-Level qualifications taken each year.
After a series of mergers, the AQA exam board was officially established under the name Assessment and Qualifications Alliance in 1992, after the NEAB and AEB exam board merged together. However, AQA has existed in some shape or form since 1903, when the University of Manchester, the University of Leeds and the University of Liverpool came together to create the JMB, which offered public exams. To learn more about its history, check out this page on the AQA website.
Other than GCSEs, with the AQA exam board, students can take different qualifications, such as A-Levels, EPQs, Technical Awards, functional skills and ELC qualifications. To learn more about the qualifications that AQA offers, check out this page on their website. For more information about AQA, check out this page on their website.
Pearson Edexcel
Pearson Edexcel is another exam board that offers GCSE qualifications in the UK. While it isn’t quite as large as the AQA exam board, it is also one of the main exam boards for GCSEs in the UK.
Edexcel first began in 1996 after the merger of two smaller exam boards, London Examinations and BTEC. Later on in 2003, the Edexcel exam board was bought by the company Pearson, which describes itself as “the world’s leading learning company”, with this, Edexcel became Pearson Edexcel.
To learn more about the Pearson company, please look at this page on their website and for more on Pearson Edexcel, check out this page on their website. To learn more about the history of the Pearson Edexcel brand, check out this page on the Pearson Edexcel website.
Like other exam boards, Pearson Edexcel offers a range of other qualifications alongside GCSEs, including more academic ones, such as A-Levels, and functional skills qualifications, just like AQA. Unlike AQA, Pearson Edexcel also offers a wider range of vocational qualifications, such as BTEC qualifications as well as T-Levels and NVQs. To learn more about these qualifications, check out this page on the Pearson website.
OCR
OCR stands for Oxford, Cambridge and RSA. They are once again one of the main exam boards in the UK. OCR began in 1998 and like both AQA and Pearson Edexcel, this was following the merger of two smaller exam boards.
In the case of OCR, these exam boards were RSA, which had been operating since the 1800s and the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES). Due to its connection to the University of Cambridge, OCR is a part of Cambridge Assessment. For more information about OCR, check out this article by Tes Magazine.
Cambridge Assessment is simply a group of exam boards owned by Cambridge University, which also includes the Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) exam board, which offers international qualifications, such as IGCSEs. To learn more about the Cambridge Assessment group, check out this page on the Cambridge English website.
Other than GCSEs and A-Levels, OCR also offers over 100 different vocational qualifications. To learn more about this and about OCR in general, check out this page on the OCR website.
WJEC
WJEC stands for the Welsh Joint Education Committee and also goes by the name CBAC in Welsh. As the name suggests, WJEC primarily operates in Wales, although students may use it even if in other parts of the UK.
WJEC began in 1948 from an association of different local education authorities, so unlike the English exam boards it was not formed from universities or private companies. From there it continued to grow to what it is today as Wales’ main exam board and an important exam board in England and Northern Ireland.
Like all of the other exam boards, WJEC also offers other academic qualifications, such as A-Levels but also the Welsh Baccalaureate, as well as vocational qualifications, such as entry pathways and vocational awards. To learn more about the qualifications that WJEC offer, check out this page on their website. For more information about WJEC and its history, check out this page on their website.
Eduqas
As mentioned above, Eduqas is not entirely an exam board of its own as it is a brand of the WJEC exam board. The thing that separates Eduqas from the rest of the WJEC exam board is that Eduqas brand primarily operates in England, whereas WJEC as a whole’s main focus is in Wales.
Eduqas was set up by WJEC in 2014. This was due to the reformations of Ofqual regulated qualifications, namely GCSEs and A-Levels, leading to differences between how Wales and England offer GCSE and A-Level qualifications.
For example, for GCSEs, England chose to adopt the 9- 1 GCSE grading system, whereas Wales (and Northern Ireland) retained the lettered A*- G grading system. To learn more about this grading system, check out this Think Student article. (The 9- 1 GCSE Grading System)
Moreover, there are quite stark differences between how A-Levels are done in Wales and how they are done in England. This is because Welsh students may still need to take the AS-Level exams at the end of their first year of study as well as the A-Level exams at the end of the second year of study, whereas English students will only do the A-Level exams. To learn more about this difference, check out this guide by Qualifications Wales.
CCEA
CCEA stands for the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment. It primarily operates in Northern Ireland, but as mentioned above students may be able to use this exam board even while being in other parts of the UK.
CCEA was created in 1994, this was due to the Educational and Libraries Order of 1993 in Northern Ireland. Just like the other GCSE exam boards, CCEA was formed in order to replace former awarding bodies. In this case, CCEA replaced both the Northern Ireland Curriculum Council (NICC) and the Northern Ireland Schools Examinations and Assessment Council (NISEAC).
Like the other exam boards, CCEA also offers a range of other qualifications on top of GCSEs. However, due to the nature of CCEA, its role is wider than the other exam boards as it is also in charge of the Northern Irish curriculum and regulation. This is similar to the role of Ofqual in England and the role of Qualifications Wales is in Wales.
To learn more about the roles of CCEA, check out this page on their website. For more information about the history and origin of CCEA, check out this page on the CCEA website.