WJEC GCSE Maths grade boundaries 2025: each grade on each tier

WJEC GCSE Maths grade boundaries 2025

These are the figures from GCSE Grade Points (Non Uniform Mark), June 2025. Maths is a linear qualification: both units are sat in one series, you add the marks, and the total gives one grade. The tier comes first, because the specification awards A* to C on Higher, B to E on Intermediate and D to G on Foundation.

Each boundary as a share of the marks

The shares show how different the three papers are. A Higher C needs 18% of the marks, while an Intermediate B needs 66% and a Foundation D needs 50%. Each tier has its own papers, so the marks for one tier cannot be compared with another's.

The two units

Unit 1 is a non-calculator paper and Unit 2 allows a calculator. On Higher and Intermediate each is 1 hour 45 minutes and 80 marks, and on Foundation each is 1 hour 30 minutes and 65 marks. The specification says that some questions use multiple choice, and that candidates should be familiar with the content of GCSE Mathematics-Numeracy too. WJEC's sheet gives notional unit boundaries for 2025:

Read the four columns in the order the tier awards them: A*, A, B, C for Higher, B, C, D, E for Intermediate and D, E, F, G for Foundation. WJEC says these figures are for guidance only and are not official grades. On the Higher tier the calculator unit had the higher notional A*, 63 against 59.

A Higher tier example

A candidate gets 40 out of 80 on the non-calculator Unit 1 and 46 on Unit 2, a total of 86 out of 160. In 2025 that is above the B boundary of 60 and below the A boundary of 92, so the grade is a B, 6 marks short of an A. Look up the same 86 on the Intermediate table and it falls below the B boundary of 106 and above the C boundary of 69, which shows why a total only makes sense against its own tier.

What happened in Wales in 2025

JCQ's Wales release for 21 August 2025 says 13.4% of Mathematics candidates got A*/9 to A/7 and 49.0% got C/4 or above. For 16-year-olds, taking the best outcome from the November and summer series, 18.2% reached an A and 56.8% a C, from 33,006 entries. JCQ also reported 13.6% and 52.1% for Mathematics-Numeracy, which is a separate qualification.

Looking at the 2026 series

The next series moved the Higher boundaries down by 2 to 4 marks at every grade and left the Intermediate D and E where they were. The 2026 page has the full table. Do not plan around one year's marks.

Try it with today's paper

Sit Maths Higher or Maths Foundation and mark it. These are 8 question papers with 25 to 35 marks, made by us. Work out your share of the total and compare it with the table of shares above. If you scored 19 out of 30 on Higher, that is 63%. That is above the 58% share that an A needed in 2025, but it is one short paper, so take it as a pointer. See the mean of several with the Mean, Median and Mode Calculator.

Read next

UK · GCSEWJEC GCSE grade boundaries 2025: marks for every gradeThe official June 2025 WJEC GCSE grade boundaries for Maths, Computer Science and the sciences, how to read WJEC's sheet, and a worked grade.