—·Exam Boards

AQA and OCR split GCSE English Language marks down the middle. Pearson Edexcel does not.

Two papers, 100% of the GCSE, and a department that assumes an even split finds out otherwise mid-timetable. Edexcel weights Paper 2 at 60% against AQA and OCR’s even 50/50 — and gives it twenty minutes longer to match.

Empower Educators 3 September 2026 6 min read

Read from AQA, Pearson Edexcel and OCR’s own current GCSE English Language specifications, current at the date of this article. Every board and paper is named below; sources are listed in full at the foot of the page.

Two pupils seated at desks in an examination hall, looking toward a whiteboard on a stand at the front of the room

Every GCSE English Language specification in England is assessed by two written papers and nothing else, so it looks like the simplest structure in the subject. Ask what each paper is worth and the boards stop agreeing.

AQA splits its two papers down the middle: fifty per cent each, same length, same marks. OCR does the same, with its own paper titles and twenty minutes longer on each. Pearson Edexcel does not. Its second paper is worth sixty per cent of the GCSE, not fifty, and runs twenty minutes longer than its first — a real, structural difference that a department moving between boards, or simply checking one for the first time, will not find by assuming the shape is the same everywhere.

Two papers, three different shapes

Below is each board’s current GCSE English Language specification, drawn to the same scale. The dividing line is where the marks actually split — not the middle of the bar.

AQA English Language (8700)

Paper 1Explorations in Creative Reading and Writing1 hour 45 minutes

Paper 2Writers’ Viewpoints and Perspectives1 hour 45 minutes

Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9–1) English Language (1EN0)

Paper 1Fiction and Imaginative Writing1 hour 45 minutes

Paper 2Non-Fiction and Transactional Writing2 hours 5 minutes

OCR GCSE (9–1) English Language (J351)

Paper 1Communicating Information and Ideas2 hours

Paper 2Exploring Effects and Impact2 hours

Drawn to one scale, out of 100% of the GCSE. AQA and OCR split down the middle; Pearson Edexcel does not — its Paper 2 is both worth more and runs longer.

What the extra ten points buys

The content on each paper is close across all three boards — one paper pairs fiction reading with creative writing, the other pairs non-fiction reading with transactional or viewpoint writing. What differs on Pearson Edexcel is not the material but its weight. Fiction and Imaginative Writing carries 40% of the qualification; Non-Fiction and Transactional Writing carries 60%, and the extra twenty minutes in the exam room is the same ratio applied to time.

A scheme of work built by copying an AQA half-and-half split onto an Edexcel course does not make Paper 1 wrong. It makes Paper 2 under-taught relative to what it is actually worth — ten percentage points of the final grade, spread across a topic that gets the same number of lessons as the one worth ten points less.

Part One is the only part that is board-specific, and it is quoted verbatim from the published specification.
AQA GCSE English Assessment Objectives, Empower Educators

Which is the reason a board-specific playbook exists at all rather than one generic English exam guide: the specification itself is the only reliable source for what a board actually rewards, and it changes what a department teaches and when, not just which past papers it practises on.

Same qualification, different exam-day timetable

Timing follows the same pattern as marks. AQA and OCR give both papers identical lengths — 1 hour 45 minutes each on AQA, 2 hours each on OCR. Pearson Edexcel does not: Paper 1 is 1 hour 45 minutes, Paper 2 is 2 hours 5 minutes. A mock exam timetable inherited from a previous board, or borrowed from a colleague at a school on a different one, can quietly give students the wrong amount of time to practise under — twenty minutes short is enough to change how a candidate paces a paper they have never sat for real.

Check the board before the scheme of work

None of this changes what makes a good English lesson. It changes how much of the term goes to which paper — and that is a decision a department can only make correctly once it knows which paper its own board actually rewards more.