Annual Report 2024-2025

Welcome to our latest annual report – the tenth since our establishment a decade ago – looking back over our activities during the 2024–25 academic year.

Our work to design and introduce a new suite of made-for-Wales National Qualifications for 14 to 16 year-olds has continued at pace and been a major focus over the past year. These qualifications are designed to meet the requirements of the Curriculum for Wales and are the result of extensive collaboration with learners, subject experts and teachers.

As planned, the first new GCSEs have been successfully introduced by WJEC for first teaching from September 2025, with the remainder approved ready for introduction ahead of first teaching in September 2026. These GCSEs will be accompanied by a widening suite of qualifications, including vocationally relevant VCSEs, Skills and Foundation qualifications for first teaching from September 2027.

Together these represent the most comprehensive reform of pre-16 qualifications
ever undertaken by Wales and is intended to give learners a coherent choice of
qualifications aligned to the Curriculum and designed to meet their diverse needs.
While pre-16 reforms have been our primary focus, we have also continued to work with further education colleges and awarding bodies to secure a sustainable range of post-16 made-for-Wales qualifications in land-based subjects, travel and tourism, and hospitality and catering. This has extended further the range of sectors where there are bilingual qualifications designed to meet Welsh learners’ needs.

Our work to reform qualifications sits alongside our vital regulatory role —
monitoring awarding bodies’ compliance with our rules and overseeing the awarding of GCSEs, AS and A levels. This year’s awarding processes were the first where there was a full return to pre-pandemic arrangements following the measures put in place to support learners as part of the Covid-19 recovery plan.

 We were pleased to see the exam series conducted without any significant incidents and with outcomes that have returned to broadly pre-pandemic levels. The maintenance of standards over time is one of our core responsibilities, so stability in outcomes is an important part of securing public confidence in the value of qualifications and integrity of the qualifications system.

Looking forward to the year ahead, we will be taking the final steps to securing the full range of National 14-16 Qualifications and contributing to the important change management activities undertaken by others. Recognising that many post-16 qualifications are delivered on a pan-UK basis, we will also be looking at the impact of reforms being proposed in England on the range and nature of qualifications taken by learners in Wales.

We would like to thank all of those who have helped us to deliver a successful year.

The schools, colleges and work-based learning providers who have delivered qualifications ‘on the ground’, and without whom the system could not operate. We would also like to thank the awarding bodies that have worked with us to provide valued qualifications and many other stakeholders who have given freely of their time to help us shape qualifications, that allow learners to progress onto their next steps in life, learning and work.

Finally, this year represented the final year in office of our chair David Jones OBE DL, who has led the Qualifications Wales Board since 2019, and we extend our thanks to him for his stewardship during some of the most turbulent years for qualification delivery ever experienced. 

The year in review - highlights