Approval criteria for new GCSE The Sciences (Double Award) 

Following the announcement that GCSE The Sciences (Double Award) will now be introduced for first teaching from September 2026, we have continued to involve stakeholders including relevant learned societies in our work. Together, we have agreed revised approval criteria (the conditions an awarding body needs to meet for their qualification to be approved) for this qualification.  

You can read the revised approval criteria in full here.  

We have also published a background information document explaining the changes in further detail, which can be accessed here.  

The key changes 

To align with the ambition of the Curriculum for Wales, learners will be assessed on their knowledge and understanding of the relationships and connections between different topics within biology, within chemistry and within physics.  

Learners will also have opportunities to develop their knowledge of the connections and relationships between topics across the three disciplines, supporting the integration of teaching and learning about connections across topics and aiding manageability of the overall qualification.  

The content requirements for units on biology, chemistry and physics have been reviewed, providing greater flexibility for WJEC, the awarding body for GCSEs in Wales,  to develop the qualification. 

Assessment of the qualification has also been reviewed to allow for a better spread of assessment across the two years of learning, reducing the time spent on assessment  for both learners and teachers at the end of the qualification. Learners will now take two exams for each discipline, enabling them to take one exam for each discipline in year 10 if they choose to do so. To support progression to post-16 study in the sciences, it is expected that learners will take the second of the exams for each discipline in year 11. This reflects the assessment arrangements for the current double award GCSE, which stakeholders have reported working well.  

We are working with WJEC to explore how unit grades for each assessment can best be reported, and have asked the awarding body to develop a process that ensures each of a learner’s unit grades can be reported on one transcript. We are confident that this will support learners in making their choices about possible future study in the sciences and provide centres with the information they need to support entry decisions.    

Next steps   

Development of GCSE The Sciences (Double Award) will fall into the timetable of other Wave 2 GCSEs (those being taught in schools from September 2026), in line with the timeline for development of GCSE Integrated Science (Single Award).  

WJEC is due to publish a qualification outline before the end of 2024. The final specification will then be made available to centres and learners in September 2025, one year before the qualification is due to be taught for the first time.  

Centres will continue to be able to offer the current range of science GCSEs for learners starting their studies in September 2025. These qualifications will then be replaced by the new GCSE The Sciences (Double Award) and the new GCSE Integrated Science (Single Award) for learners starting their GCSE courses in September 2026.