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England, Wales and Northern Ireland have several exam boards; schools and colleges can choose freely between them on a subject-by-subject basis. Currently, there are five exam boards available to state schools: AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) CCEA (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment)
WJEC (Welsh: CBAC) is an examination board providing examinations, professional development and educational resources to schools and colleges in Wales and Northern Ireland under its own name, and the Eduqas brand for England.
AQA Education, [1] trading as AQA (formerly the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance), is an awarding body in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It compiles specifications and holds examinations in various subjects at GCSE, AS and A Level and offers vocational qualifications. AQA is a registered charity and independent of the government.
In England, AQA, OCR, and Pearson operate under their respective brands. Additionally, WJEC operate the brand Eduqas, which develops qualifications in England. CCEA qualifications are not available in England. In Wales, WJEC is the only accredited awarding body for GCSEs in the public sector, and thus no other board formally operates in Wales.
The Entry Level Certificate was launched as the Certificate of Achievement [4] (Certificate of Educational Achievement if offered by WJEC [5]) in September 1996, [6] with the first awards being made in 1998. The grades were originally known as Distinction (now Entry 3), Merit (Entry 2) and Pass (Entry 1). [7]
AQA; CCEA; Edexcel; OCR; WJEC; CIE; Traditionally, schools were restricted to one of a large number of regional examination boards, but now they can use any (though few outside Northern Ireland choose to use the Belfast-based CCEA). Furthermore, a number of boards have merged making a much lower number overall.
The JCQ provides rules and regulations concerning the exams. These are updated annually and published on the JCQ website. British examination boards for GCSEs and GCE A-levels (i.e. AQA, Edexcel, OCR, WJEC, CCEA) are obliged to comply with JCQ's regulations, whereas Cambridge International are not obliged to comply with them for their international GCSEs.
In June, Paper 3 of the Mathematics GCSE (Higher Tier, 1MA1/03) appeared to contain an exam question which was published in an AQA (another British exam board) Further Mathematics textbook. The exam question had the same diagram, values and answer as the question in the textbook. Pearson Edexcel said that they were investigating how this might ...