GCSE and A-Level changes in 2026: what actually affects your child

If you have read the headlines this year you could be forgiven for thinking GCSEs are about to change under your child’s feet. They are not. The big reforms are real, but they are years away. For a student in Year 10, 11, 12, or 13 today, the changes that matter are smaller and more specific, and they are worth knowing precisely.

The curriculum review: important, but not yet

The independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, chaired by Professor Becky Francis, published its final report in November 2025, and the government published its response at the same time. It keeps GCSEs and A-Levels, and it sets out a programme of change: less time in exams, a reformed English Language GCSE with a clearer purpose of its own, and a more diverse range of texts in English Literature without adding to the amount of content.

The timetable is the part that matters for families. According to the government’s response, a new national curriculum is due to be published by spring 2027, for first teaching in September 2028. Reformed GCSEs follow, with first teaching in 2029 for some subjects and 2030 for the rest, and updated A-Levels after that.

In short: nothing in the curriculum review changes the content or the length of the GCSEs and A-Levels your child will sit in 2027 or 2028.

One change does arrive sooner, though it affects schools rather than students: the English Baccalaureate is being removed from school performance measures, and Progress 8 is being reformed. It changes how schools are judged, not what your child is examined on.

The new French, German, and Spanish GCSEs

This is the change that has actually happened. The reformed language GCSEs were first taught in September 2024 and first examined in summer 2026, so a student sitting French or Spanish in 2027 is in only the second year group ever to take them.

• —Vocabulary is defined: a published list of 1,200 words at Foundation tier and a further 500 at Higher.
• —Dictation: students write down short spoken passages, with credit for accurate spelling.
• —Reading aloud: the speaking test includes reading a short passage out loud, followed by an unprepared conversation.
• —Translation in both directions, into and out of English.

Ofqual reported that overall results in French, German, and Spanish in 2026 were slightly higher than in 2025, in the first year of the new courses. That is reassuring, but it does not mean the papers are easy: they reward different habits from the old ones, and a student revising the old way will feel it. We have written a separate post on what changed and how to prepare.

English Literature: new texts on some boards

There is no change to the GCSE English Literature course itself, but some boards have refreshed what can be studied, and a few of the new texts are examined for the first time in 2027. The most important is a new poetry anthology on Eduqas GCSE English Literature, and at A-Level there are new optional texts on AQA and new Shakespeare plays on OCR. Our English Literature post has the details.

Maths and the sciences: the formula sheets stay

Students sitting GCSE maths, physics, and combined science have been given formulae and equation sheets in the exam since 2022. In May 2026 Ofqual decided that these sheets will continue for the rest of the life of the current specifications, so they are not going away.

On-screen exams

Ofqual consulted in 2025–26 on allowing a small number of GCSEs to be taken on screen, excluding the largest subjects such as English and maths. The outcome has not yet been published, and schools would have several years’ notice before any on-screen exam. It does not affect students sitting exams in 2027 or 2028.

The dates for summer 2027

• —Monday 10 May 2027: the first exam on the common timetable.
• —Friday 18 June 2027: the last GCSE exam.
• —Tuesday 22 June 2027: the last A-Level exam.
• —Wednesday 23 June 2027: the contingency day, which students must keep free.
• —Thursday 12 August 2027: A-Level results.
• —Thursday 19 August 2027: GCSE results.

Language speaking exams come earlier, in a window across April and May chosen by each school, and individual paper dates differ by board. Our key dates page keeps the full calendar.

What this means this autumn

For almost every family, this autumn is about the same thing it always is: the mocks. Mock results feed predicted grades, and predicted grades feed sixth-form and university offers, so a mock is worth preparing for properly and learning from properly. That is the one change you can make happen this term.