top of page
Search
Writer's picturePaul Robson
Sep 14 min read

GCSE Computer Science Grades

OCR Exams Analysis 2024

As usual there has been lots of discussion online about the government announcing a change on the approach to Computer Science grading. Lots of people have argued that those higher grades haven’t happened for their schools. People have been discussing the changing grade boundaries over time. We are here to talk about the OCR GCSE 2024 grade boundaries and what percentage of students were awarded each grade.

J277GCSE Computer Science Knowledge Organisers


Who are Smash Your Exams?

Smash Your Exams are two highly experienced Computer Science teachers with over 35 years of combined teaching experience. Our GCSE results were in the top 4% of the country in a school with a below-average P8 score. We also had A Level results in the top 20% of the country. 


We offer a range of excellent resources for you to use with your students and improve your grades. We offer knowledge organisers, a year-long year 11 revision plan, a suggested scheme of learning order and many more resources coming online all the time.


We work with schools on consulting. Whether that will be setting up an outstanding department, supporting you in improving your department's results or consulting on the approaches to the NEA, we can help. We can also offer online tutoring for students at both GCSE and A Level if they need it. Link


Exam boundaries

All the data we are using here is taken from the grade boundaries document provided by OCR. We compared the boundaries from 2022, 2023 and 2024. The boundaries from 2022 are a little bit different as students had a list of what could come up that year. We will mainly focus on comparing 2023 and 2024 GCSE Computer Science. 


Paper 1 

Looking at the data below we can see that the boundaries dipped slightly against 2023 for grades 9 and 8. For grades 7 to 1 there was a minimal amount of change from the boundaries from the 2023 series. This would show the grade 9 and 8 students find this paper slightly more challenging than the 2023 paper.


OCR Paper 1

Max

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

2022

80

67

60

54

46

38

31

23

16

9

2023

80

69

63

57

50

44

37

27

17

7

2024

80

65

61

58

51

44

38

27

17

7

Average

80

68

61.5

55.5

48

41

34

25

16.5

8

2023 to 2024 diff


-4

-2

1

1

0

1

0

0

0



Paper 2

We see a big jump in the boundaries from 2023 GCSE Computer Science paper 2. If you compare the papers you would say the 2023 paper 2 was significantly more challenging than the  2024 paper. This was a big issue and OCR even gave an official apology for the paper 2 in 2023. We therefore expected a jump but not a significant as it was this year. We see the marks changing by 7 marks for a grade 9 in the paper. It’s between 8 and 5 where we see a huge increase. It took 9 to 10 more marks than the previous year to gain the same grade. There is also a large jump in the boundaries for grade 4 but this tapers off at the bottom grade. 


OCR Paper 2

Max

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

2022

80

65

59

52

44

37

29

22

14

7

2023

80

64

56

49

41

33

26

19

12

5

2024

80

71

65

59

51

43

34

25

15

6

Average

80

64.5

57.5

50.5

42.5

35

27.5

20.5

13

6

2023 to 2024 diff


7

9

10

10

10

8

6

3

1


Overall 

Due to the paper 2 boundaries rising significantly this shift also went into the final marks required for each grade. You can see below that for some grades you need  11 more marks to get the same grade this year as you did in 2023. You could also say you need nearly 7% more marks going from year to year. That is quite a jump. I think the paper 2 this year may have been too reasonable and therefore caused OCR to have to raise the boundaries to keep grades comparable to 2023.


OCR Total

Max

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

2022

160

132

119

106

90

75

60

45

30

16

2023

160

133

119

106

91

77

63

46

29

12

2024

160

136

126

117

102

87

72

52

32

13

Average

80

132.5

119

106

90.5

76

61.5

45.5

29.5

14

2023 to 2024 diff


3

7

11

11

10

9

6

3

1


Did the higher grades go up?

We were told that this year the number of students gaining higher grades at 9, 7+ and 4+ would be higher than it has previously. It was found that by looking at the previous data Computer Science was graded harsher than other subjects. So did this change happen? 


We can see from the data above that the % of students gaining the top grade of a 9 rose significantly over 2023. It almost doubled from 4.87% up to 8.17%.  This rise also continued for the % of students being given an 8+ or 7+ grade. This also occurred for grades 9 right through to grade 4. So we now know the JCQ and government recommendations have been followed by OCR.

Cumulative %

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

U

2024

8.17

17.9

27.37

42.34

55.82

67.33

79.88

89.37

96.79

100

2023

4.87

13.28

23.25

36.72

50.59

63.54

77.6

89.17

97.02

100

Change

3.3

4.62

4.12

5.62

5.23

3.79

2.28

0.2

-0.23

0


% each Grade

9

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

1

U

2024

8.17

9.73

9.47

14.97

13.48

11.51

12.55

9.49

7.42

3.21

2023

4.87

8.41

9.97

13.47

13.87

12.95

14.06

11.57

7.85

2.98


GCSE Computer Science Resources

J277GCSE Computer Science Revision Lessons


Delivery Plan(Coming soon) Revision plan(Coming soon)


981 views0 comments

Comments

bottom of page