OCR GCSE Computer Science grade boundaries 2025: every grade

OCR GCSE Computer Science grade boundaries 2025

The table below is from OCR's June 2025 GCSE boundaries document (version 1.0, 21 August 2025), with 2024 beside it. Computer Science has no Foundation and Higher tiers, so all nine grades come from one set of two papers. Each paper is 80 marks and counts for half.

Our OCR GCSE Computer Science guide describes Paper 1, Computer systems, and Paper 2, Computational thinking, algorithms and programming. The board-wide boundaries for 2025 cover every other GCSE we list.

Every grade went up in 2025

The rise runs from the bottom of the scale to the top. Grade 9 went from 136 to 141 (+5), grade 7 from 117 to 123 (+6), grade 4 from 72 to 78 (+6) and grade 1 from 13 to 20 (+7). Grades 3 to 8 each rose by 6 marks, grade 9 by 5, and grades 2 and 1 by 7. The 2024 numbers are from OCR's document of 13 March 2025.

Ofqual's account is that grade boundaries vary from year to year to reflect the difficulty of each paper. A rise at every grade is the sign of papers that were friendlier to score on, so the same raw mark earned a lower grade than the year before.

Paper by paper, 2025

In 2025 the Computer systems paper needed 70 for a notional 9 and the programming paper needed 71. Paper 1 jumped from 65 to 70 at that top grade, a rise of 5 marks, while Paper 2 stayed level at 71. By grade 4 both papers had risen, Paper 1 from 38 to 41 and Paper 2 from 34 to 37. These paper boundaries are for information, because OCR awards the grade on the total.

Marks to grade: a Computer Science example

A candidate scores 54 on Paper 1 and 51 on Paper 2, so 105 out of 160. The 2025 boundaries are 93 for a 5 and 108 for a 6. 105 is above 93 and below 108, so the grade is a 5, 3 marks short of a 6. In 2024 the 5 was 87 and the 6 was 102, so the same total would have been a 6 then, with 3 marks above the line. That is what a year-on-year rise can do to a fixed performance.

OCR's How do we calculate your GCSE grade? says the same thing: a mark equal to the boundary earns the grade, and one mark fewer drops you to the grade below.

Computer Science advice from the numbers

• Programming marks decide a lot. Paper 2 includes a 30 mark programming section, so practise writing and tracing code, not only theory.
• No calculator, so show conversions. Binary, hexadecimal and file size questions are done by hand on both papers.
• Aim a few marks above the line. The grade 4 line moved 6 marks in a year, which is 4% of the total.
• Know there are no tiers. Everyone sits the same papers and every grade from 9 to 1 is open.

Sit today's Computer Science paper

Computer Science has a short timed paper of 8 questions each day. It is not an OCR paper, so read the result as a pointer. A share of 49% was the grade 4 line in 2025 and 77% was the grade 7 line.

Read next

UK · GCSEOCR GCSE Computer Science grade boundaries 2026OCR GCSE Computer Science (J277) June 2026 boundaries for grades 9 to 1, with Paper 1 and Paper 2 figures and three years side by side.