When do GCSEs start and finish?

If you are aware of GCSE exams, you will probably know that they’re typically taken at the end of Year 11. However, when it comes to specifics, such as when exactly these exams start or when they end, it can be a lot harder to draw this information to mind. Don’t worry, as all of your questions about when GCSE exams start and when they end will be answered in this article.

In short, GCSE exams will generally take place in May and June. However, there are also November exams that students can take to re-sit their GCSE English Language or GCSE Maths exams. For 2024, the summer GCSE exam series is between 9th May and 19th June. For the November 2024 resit exams, the first exam is 5th November and the last one is on 11th November.

Continue reading to learn more about when the GCSE exam season is. This article will explain when GCSE exams are normally held as well as go into depth about when GCSE exams are for 2024 as well as for 2025.

When do GCSES start in 2024?

For the main exam season, GCSEs will normally start in May for written exams, or more specifically the 2nd or 3rd week of May. To learn more about this, check out this article from The Education Hub.

For 2024, GCSE written exams start on 9th May. To learn more about when GCSEs started for 2024, check out this article from Third space learning.

This was fairly similar to previous years, look at the following table to see when GCSEs started between 2019 and 2024.

GCSE resit exams also take place in November for students who are over the age of 16 and wish to retake their GCSE English Language or GCSE Maths exams. For this exam series, GCSEs will generally start in the 1st week of November, which may also include the end of October. For more information about this, check out this gov.uk guide.

For 2024, the November GCSEs start on 5th November. To learn more about this, check out this guide by AQA. Once again, this is quite similar to previous years, look at the following table to see how this compares.

For more information about when the November GCSEs started for 2019 and 2022, please refer to these guides by Pearson Edexcel and AQA by clicking here and here respectively. Please note that these dates for the November GCSE exams are only applicable to the English exam boards as both WJEC and CCEA have slightly different periods.

When do GCSES finish in 2024?

For the summer exam season, GCSEs will normally finish in June for written exams, or more specifically the 3rd or 4th week of June.

For the 2024 GCSE written exams, the final exam date is on 19th June. To learn more about when GCSEs end for 2024, check out this article from Third space learning.

This was very similar to 2022, but was slightly different from the pre-pandemic exams. Look at the following table to see when GCSEs in the summer exam season ended between 2019 and 2024.

As mentioned above, GCSE resit exams also take place in November for GCSE English Language or GCSE Maths exams. For the November exams, GCSEs will generally end a few weeks later, still in November.

The end date for these November exams for 2024 is 11th November.

Look at the following table to see how this compares to other years from 2019 to 2024.

Once again, please note that these dates for the November GCSE exams are only applicable to the English exam boards as both WJEC and CCEA have slightly different dates.

What are the GCSE exam dates for 2024?

The key exam dates that apply to the vast majority of GCSE students are for the compulsory GCSE subjects. These are GCSE English Language, GCSE Maths and GCSE Combined Science with GCSE English Literature often being made compulsory by secondary schools themselves. To learn more about these compulsory GCSE subjects, check out this Think Student article.

The key dates for these exams change every year and will vary based on the exam board and the exact paper. However, particularly for compulsory exams such as these, the different exam boards may choose to put their exams on the same day.

To learn more about when each of these summer 2024 GCSE exams take place, please refer to the respective link to its exam board’s exam timetable in the following: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA.

What are the GCSE exam dates for GCSE English for 2024?

For 2024, most of the exam boards have the same exam date for GCSE English Language, however, the CCEA exam board does have a different exam date for these exams. For GCSE English Language paper 1, AQA has the exam set to be on 24th May. For CCEA, the first written GCSE English Language paper is instead on 8th May.

For GCSE English Language paper 2, most of the exam boards have set their exam date for 6th June. Whereas for CCEA, the second paper is on 20th May.

For GCSE English Literature paper 1, this exam date is 13th May. For the second paper, all GCSE exam boards have set the date as 30th May with the exception of CCEA which is the 20th May.

Please check the links provided above to take you to the relevant exam board website.

What are the GCSE exam dates for GCSE Maths for 2024?

For 2024, the first GCSE Maths paper is 16th May, the second is 3rd June and the third and final one is 10th June. These dates are all for AQA. Make sure you check your specific exam boards website for your relevant dates.

To learn more about when each of these summer 2024 GCSE exams take place, please refer to the respective link to its exam board’s exam timetable in the following: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA.

What are the GCSE exam dates for GCSE Combined Science for 2024?

For 2024, the GCSE exam board set the same dates for their main GCSE Combined Science or GCSE Science (Double Award) exams. This is with the exception of WJEC, which has a different date for one exam.

There are 6 papers for GCSE Combined Science, AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR and CCEA, all have similar dates. For AQA the 2024 exams are on the following dates:

Please refer to the respective link to its exam board’s exam timetable in the following: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, OCR, WJEC and CCEA.

If you want to learn more about the differences between combined and triple science check out our Think Student article.

How long is the GCSE exam period?

As mentioned above, the GCSE exam period will typically take place between May and June for the main exam series. However, GCSE exams don’t normally take place throughout the whole of these 2 months due to the exams starting later in May as well as the week off students have for half term at the end of May.

All in all, the GCSE exam period is actually about 4 weeks long rather than the whole 8 weeks of these 2 months. However, this may vary slightly depending on the year. To learn more about this, check out this Think Student article.

For example, for 2023, the summer exam series for GCSEs lasts 5 weeks rather than the typical 4. To learn more about this, look at the exam timetable from Pearson Edexcel here.

Also, for 2022, the GCSE summer exam series lasted 6 weeks. For more information on this, please refer to this guide by Pearson Edexcel.

When do GCSEs start in 2025?

Once again, the 2025 GCSE exams are set to take place between May and June, as normal. As of time of writing (April 2024) the exam dates and exam period are not yet set with exam boards having published ‘provisional’ exam timetables.

For 2025, the GCSE summer exam period is set to start earlier than normal in the week beginning the 5th May, a week earlier than usual. This exam series is set to end on 19th June.

To learn more about this, please look at the provisional exam timetable for summer 2025 by clicking on their respective exam board: AQA, Pearson Edexcel, CCEA.

When do students start learning GCSE content in secondary school?

GCSE students will typically take their exams at the end of Year 11 and will finish their learning a few months or sometimes just a few weeks before this. However, when they start learning the content may depend more on the school itself.

Government guidelines say that GCSEs are to taken by students who are 14- 16 years old. In school years, this translates to Year 10 and Year 11 or Year 11 and Year 12 in Northern Ireland. To learn more about this, check out this gov.uk guide.

However, some schools may start teaching the GCSE content or at least parts of it from Year 9 or Year 10 in Northern Ireland. Some secondary schools, including the one I went to, have chosen to do this due to the amount of content in GCSE courses and the struggle as a result of this to finish the course in time for exams. To learn more about this, check out this Think Student article.