The DfE have published minor changes to the GCSE Subject Content for Computer Science which underpins the minimum requirements that Awarding Organisations (Exam Boards) must meet when designing specifications. The results of the 2024 consultation which has led to these changes can be found here. The changes come into effect for first examination in Summer 2027, which for the vast majority of schools will be Year 10 starting in September 2025. But have the changes gone far enough?
Summary of Changes
The changes are all removing specific detail from existing content, indicated below:
- representation of text, sound and graphics
inside computers - characteristics of systems architectures, including
- CPU architecture,
including Von Neumannand the role of the components of the CPU in the fetch-execute cycle
- CPU architecture,
- characteristics of systems architectures, including
- main and contemporary secondary storage and ways of storing data on devices
, including magnetic, optical and solid state
- main and contemporary secondary storage and ways of storing data on devices
- networks and the importance of:
common network topologies- the concept of networking protocols
, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and email protocols
The changes compared to the previous 2015 Subject Content can be found on this marked up document. This shows the original 2015 Subject Content with the removed content highlighted.
Why make the Changes?
The last changes to Subject Content were made in January 2015. The previous Conservative government consulted on changes to this subject content in May 2024 with consultation responses received by July 2024. The consultation focused on visual programming languages and clarity of the document rather than the specific content itself. E Armitage marked up a summary of the changes proposed in May 2024 which is a useful guide to the DfE’s proposals at the time.
The current Labour government is conducting a Curriculum & Assessment (CA) review for all subjects at all key stages. The government has therefore decided to delay any other recommendations for new subject content for GCSE Computer Science until after the CA review to avoid successive changes. This is why there are a set of minor changes which AOs can decide if they want to remove from their specifications. However, the big issue of OCR and AQAs hand written programming papers being unfit for pupose when it comes to assessment of programming has still not been addressed. This was an ideal opportunity for the DfE to impose the need for proper programming assessment using online or on-screen programming but it has been missed.
There are a range of documents in circulation, so here is a simple summary of the different documents:
| Document | Source | Link |
| DfE Subject Content 2015 | DfE | DfE 2015 |
| DfE Subject Content 2025 | DfE | DfE 2025 |
| Proposed DfE Subject Content 2024 | DfE | DfE 2024 |
| Changes from 2015 to 2024 proposals | E Armitage | DfE 2015-2024 |
| Changes from 2015 to 2025 DfE Subject Content | Paul Long | DfE 2015-2025 |
| Call for consultation on 2024 proposed changes to DfE Subject Content | DfE | DfE 2024 Consult |
| DfE response to 2024 consultation, published 31st March 2025 | DfE | DfE 2024 Response |
| AQA updated GCSE Computer Science Specification v1.3 June 2025 for first teaching from September 2025 | AQA | AQA updated Specification |
How will this impact my Teaching?
It’s very unlikely to impact your teaching unless the awarding body that you use decides to make changes to their specification. See below for the responses from each AO. In the meantime, if you are considering a change, I highly recommend Pearson Edexcel’s 1CP2 specification for its clarity, proper on-screen programming exam and well written questions and mark schemes.
What are the responses from awarding organisations?
On 1st April, OCR wrote to centres to inform them that they did not propose to make any changes to the J277 specification but would consult teachers during the next few months. It’s a shame they haven’t taken the opportunity to replace the paper-based programming exam with an on-screen one.
Edexcel have confirmed there will be no changes to their specification as this would be an unnecessary change when specifications are already likely to change in the next 2-3 years.
AQA have confirmed they intend to remove the content that has been removed from the DfE subject content, although I’m waiting to find out to what extent this will be.
Updated June 2025, AQA have now confirmed the changes they have made. These include:
- Removal of “in a computer” from 3.3.7a (representing sound)
- Removal of reference to “within the Von Neumann architecture” from 3.4.5a
- Removal of “optical storage” from 3.4.5g
- Removal of 3.5d entirely (LAN Topologies)
- Removal of the following protocols from 3.5f (3.5e in updated spec)
- Ethernet
- Wi-Fi
- UDP (User Datagram Protocol)
- FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
- Removal of FTP and UDP from protcols referenced in the 4-layer TCP/IP model 3.5i (3.5h in updated spec)
I’m waiting for updates from Eduqas.
My thoughts
I’m pleased that the DfE have decided to remove some of the specific content that had become dated. For example, optical media is no longer relevant and the FTP protocol is very niche. However, this could lead to AOs watering down their content too much by removing all named protocols from their specifications and all topologies for example.
The star and mesh topologies are still very much relevant with star being the preferred wired topology and the mesh topology used with the Internet of Things (IoT). There is now a risk that AOs will remove topologies completely from their specifications.
Whilst optical media is no longer relevant, magnetic tape is still the preferred option for non-cloud backups amongst traditionalists and solid state devices are the default method of storage in most personal devices. We also haven’t finished with hard disk drives yet. AOs still need to include “ways of storing data on devices” but are not forced to use any of these 3 options. This is a good move as AOs no longer need to categorise storage devices into optical, magnetic or solid state which was always a bone of contention with OCR specifically requiring these phrases to be used by students when answering a question about the type of device.
The removal of Von Neumann architecture does not really make much difference, although it could carry the risk of AOs focusing on different architectures, although I doubt it. AOs still need to cover components of the CPU and this already varies significantly between AOs with AQA requiring knowledge of the names of the registers, Edexcel requiring knowledge of the buses used to carry data and OCR requiring knowledge of registers but not their names. This will continue to leave this very open to AOs to decide what will be covered, with some possibly choosing the minimal components of ALU, clock and control unit. I suspect that eventually, AOs will remove any reference to the stored program concept, despite it being a simple concept to understand.
The removal of inside computers is a sensible one as it did not make any sense in the first place. It’s not going to impact on what can and cannot be covered for representation of text, sound and graphics, but there is a risk that AOs may misinterpret this as meaning they are expected to look at other methods of representing text, sound and graphics. It would have been clearer to have replaced “inside computers” with “digitally”.
The fact that the DfE has not addressed the unfit for purpose programming exams from AQA and OCR is very disappointing. OCR are exploring options for an online programming exam using their own IDE within a secure portal, but how it is assessed and the limitations of the IDE will be self-regulated by OCR and there is no clarity as to when this might be implemented or whether OCR will continue to wait until a more substantial review of subject content is made. It is unclear from the CA review’s interim report whether the four key focus areas will cover the fitness of purpose of programming assessment. There has also been a missed opportunity to correct the incorrect terminology of “erroneous” and “invalid” test data which are shown as different definitions, when they are in fact both the same (i.e. both just invalid test data).
It’s also a shame that AQA haven’t taken the opportunity to replace the paper-based programming exam with an on-screen one, nor have the removed the unnecessary AQA ‘pseudocode’ (which is really a reference language) and they haven’t corrected the incorrect use of the terminology “sample resolution” to be “bit depth”.
OCR and Edexcel choosing not to make any changes does make sense in terms of stability, but there was an opportunity for a bit of tidying up here, particularly removing references to outdated technology such as optical storage and to some extent FTP. There was also the opportunity to remove references to confusing areas of technology at this level such as Ethernet. AQA chose to remove content based on the review which means centres can either to continue as they used to (if they want stability) or remove those small parts from their teaching. Removing Ethernet, UDP and FTP was a good call by AQA but it’s a shame that AQA removed Wi-Fi because these protocols and the advancing versions are very relevant. AQA’s removal of network topologies is disappointing because star and mesh are very relevant, but it is in line with the removal of topologies by the DfE from the subject content. The impact on teachers and content developers will be minimal and there is no need for new content to be created.
And the final small disappointment, as with OCR and AQA, is that Edexcel didn’t use the opportunity to correct their misconception of the definition of iteration.
Due to the complexity of the CA review, it will be at least Autumn 2025, probably early 2026, when the final report is published and even then I suspect that there will be another 6 months where the DfE propose new subject content for a range of GCSEs, probably including Computer Science, followed by a consultation and final publication of subject content. AOs will then be required to write new specifications which will need to go through the Ofqual accreditation process which can also take a few months and then the specifications need to be published in time for endorsed publishers to produce text books and other resources ready for teachers to plan a new curriculum. It’s therefore my view that it will be at least 2028, if not 2029, before we see any changes to the exams, with this affecting year 10s starting in September 2026 or more likely September 2027. In the meantime, I cannot imagine that OCR or AQA will want to change their specification or methods of assessment until a major change is imposed upon them, particularly as OCR have always wanted to maintain the status quo as much as possible.