What is the difference between edexcel aqa and ocr

AQA is also an education charity and merged a combination of examination boards in ; it is taught in 44 countries. The Welsh exam board is a charity that was founded in WJEC was traditionally taught in Welsh schools; however, their syllabus is now studied by many English schools more than 5, compared to less than in Wales. It is no secret that variation exists between the different examination boards — this can include the style of questions, the content included, and the difficulty level of the paper.

This meant that students had to successfully answer less than a fifth of the papers marks. This, however, makes the lowest year since , and marks it as the sixth year of decreasing levels, while achieving a C or 4 grade is at its lowest since , dropping 0.

You can see that there is quite a difference in exam grade boundaries between the examination boards. They highlight that one of their main focuses is ensuring that question papers are clearly written and laid out to students, which are written to a published set of GCSE Maths Accessibility Principles. Below we look at key aspects of each exam board to highlight some of their main differentiators. Although the Welsh exam board WJEC is also a member of the JCQ , we have not included it here in order to give a thorough comparison between the three main exam boards using the system.

The format for the exam series of each board is similar, with each consisting of three minute exams, one non-calculator exam and two calculator exams. Edexcel and AQA both have their non-calculator as paper 1, whereas OCR differs by placing the non-calculator paper in the middle of the series.

Additionally, each paper for OCR is out of marks rather than OCR states that this is to allow more scope for awarding method marks and rewarding students for each correct step towards an answer. You may want to reflect on whether more opportunity for method marks is more suitable for your students and if the placing of the non-calculator paper first or second informs your teaching and exam preparation.

All exam boards state that the papers increase in difficulty in terms of content and language as the papers progress but one notable difference with AQA is the presence of multiple-choice questions at the start. Assessment objectives are set by Ofqual for quality assurance and will be the same for all exam boards.

In summary, the three assessment objectives are:. The weighting of each assessment objective is the same for all three boards but differs from foundation to higher tier. The weighting of the topic areas again differs for higher and foundation tier. Although the content is common to all exam boards the presentation of the syllabus differs between the specifications. Content is cumulative so higher tier students could be assessed on any prior skills from foundation.

None of the awarding bodies provide a formula sheet within the assessment, so do check the specification of what students are required to learn and recall. Any additional formulae required will be given within the assessment. It would be wise to look carefully at past papers to compare styles of gcse maths questions and paper presentation to make an informed choice about what would be best suited for your students. You may find that even font type and presentation could influence your students perception of the papers, as illustrated in the example questions below.

AQA provides lines for students to show working on whilst Edexcel and OCR provide an open space, unless students are expected to write a sentence of two as part of a response, in which case lines will also be given.

AQA has around five multiple choice, 1 mark questions at the start and part way through the paper. This makes the questions accessible for all students to provide an answer, but you will need to prepare your students to make informed choices.

AQA includes questions where students must select an option by ticking a box before being prompted to provide a reason on a clearly indicated set of lines. OCR have these questions too and will often give short sentence prompts within the answer space to start students off. Edexcel have similar questions, but it will be stated that students must give reasons or show each stage of their working within the body of the text. This allows you to create a bespoke scheme of work using resources provided for the specification, which has been broken down into statements and mapped to individual teaching resources.

Once developed online, they are saved online for future adaptations and can be exported to Microsoft Word. Edexcel provides a series of schemes of work, including an interactive scheme of work which covers 1-, 2-, 3- or 5-year teaching, Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 4 transition and low attainers support. Each exam board offers support with resources in a variety of ways. They each have a website and subscriber platform where these can be accessed. Below is a list of resources provided free of charge by each exam board, as indicated on their websites.

A-levels are two year long courses with a set of exams at the end of the two years. AS levels do not count towards the two year A-level courses. Students often take between five and seven National 5 courses, each one year long with written exams in April and May.

Some subjects are also graded on their coursework. National 5 qualifications are the Curriculum for Excellence equivalent of the old Standard Grade Credit Level and Intermediate 2 qualifications.

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