How grading works in A Level Religious Studies
13 January 2025
Richard Barrow, Religious Studies Subject Advisor
There has been some discussion in the Religious Studies community recently about the rate of A* grades for A Level RS. In this blog I will explain how grading works in general, and then look at the specific requirements for achieving A* in particular.
Grading isn’t marking
Our online resources on marking and grade boundaries include videos which give an overview of this whole process.
The first thing to note is that grading (the process of awarding candidates a grade) is not the same as marking (where examiners award marks to scripts). As our simple guide to marking and grading states:
Grading (usually referred to as ‘awarding’) is a separate process from that of marking and takes place after all (or nearly all) the marking is completed. For A Level and GCSE, marks are awarded using a detailed mark scheme and the marks are assigned to scripts independently of any consideration of grade-worthiness. The process of categorising marks into grades takes place later.
Examiners for OCR A Level Religious Studies undergo bespoke training every exam series: this is called standardisation. Examiners do not have grades in mind when marking for A Level Religious Studies, but rather levels (and then the placement of the essay within the level). You can find the levels of response in previous mark schemes and sample assessment materials on our website.
Linear qualifications
The awarding of grades for A Level Religious Studies must be understood in the context of linear qualifications. As our guide to how we calculate A level grades says:
A Levels are ‘linear qualifications’. This means all the assessment takes place at the end of the course. Linear qualifications are made up of a number of separate exams or non-exam assessment (coursework) called ‘components’.
For A Level Religious Studies these three components are: H573/01 Philosophy of religion; H573/02 Religion and ethics and H573/03-07, the Developments in religious thought units.
Component marks
The ‘component marks’ are the marks for each of these three components. These are ‘raw’ marks – they are simply the marks the candidate achieved out of 120 for each paper. For those people who taught the pre-2016 A Levels it is worth pointing out that the current system (since 2016) does not use Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) in the way that previous A Levels did.
For some qualifications the component marks can be weighted. However, for A Level Religious Studies the three components are equally weighted. Therefore, the total marks are calculated simply by adding the three sets of marks to give a total out of 360.
What are the qualification grade boundaries?
The marks out of 360 needed to achieve each lettered grade are the grade boundaries. From the 2024 A Level Religious Studies grade boundaries you can see that a student would have needed 295 or more to get an A* grade. It’s important to note that grade boundaries can vary year to year: grade boundaries for previous series can be found in the archive.
How are the grade boundaries determined?
It is through the process of awarding that qualification grade boundaries are determined. An Awarding Committee meets for each specification (such as A Level Religious Studies). Together with Assessment Standards (the OCR department that oversees the setting and running of assessments) they determine the location and suitability of the grade boundaries. The aim of awarding is to recommend grade boundaries so that there is comparability of standards from one year to the next. As our simple guide to marking and grading says:
This is achieved by combining: (i) Expert judgement on the performance standards exhibited on the candidate work (‘scripts’). (ii) Statistical information in the form of a range of data.
The scripts that the Awarding Committee look at are examples of work from that series and previous series, in order to ensure that there is a consistency of standard over time. In particular the Awarding Committee for A Level Religious Studies looks at scripts to help determine where the grade boundaries for E and A should fall.
The statistical information that Assessment Standards looks at includes both data from the marking (the distribution of marks) and also data about the prior attainment for the cohort of students taking that qualification.
Cohort referencing
The reason that Assessment Standards look at prior attainment is that A Levels are cohort-referenced rather than criteria- or norm- referenced.
Cohort referencing – outcomes are based on a fixed relationship with the statistical profile of the cohort (we know x about this group and can therefore predict y outcomes – prediction matrices are used to inform decision making).
Cambridge Assessment Network
Information about the prior attainment for that year’s cohort taking A Level Religious Studies across all exam-boards is used to produce a statistical model for grading for that exam series. This model is then adjusted to reflect the specific prior attainment of the particular set of students taking (in this case) OCR A Level Religious Studies for that series – a prediction matrix.
‘Prior attainment’ for A Levels is performance at GCSE. It is important to note that GCSE performance is for the average score across the GCSEs taken, not performance in a particular subject (e.g. Religious Studies). Also, the overall cohort prior attainment is not measured simply in terms of a single (mean) average. The distribution of the cohort’s GCSE performance across the deciles underpins the distribution of grades in the matrix. This whole process of producing the prediction matrix is overseen by Ofqual:
For all subjects (except mathematics), where there are at least 500 matched learners, each awarding organisation must create for each specification its own prediction for its specific cohort of 18-year-old matched learners. The prediction must be based on the relationship between A level outcomes in England in that subject for 18-year-old learners in 2023 and the GCSE outcomes for those learners in 2021.
Summer 2024 Data Exchange Procedures in England - GOV.UK
The task of the awarding process is to use this prediction matrix in conjunction with the professional judgement of senior members of the examining team to determine exactly where grade boundaries should lie.
A Levels are not criterion or norm referenced
It should also be noted that A Level Religious Studies (and indeed all other A Levels and GCSEs) is not norm-referenced or criterion-referenced. Here are some helpful definitions for these alternative approaches to grading and assessment:
- Criterion referencing – using performance descriptors or other fixed criteria for comparison (it is possible here for the whole cohort to attain top or bottom grades)
- Norm referencing – outcomes are based on a fixed distribution (there is a fixed percentage of candidates gaining each grade every year or session)
Cambridge Assessment Network
The significance for A Level Religious Studies is that there are no necessary and sufficient conditions for achieving particular grades (because A Levels are not criterion referenced) beyond getting the minimum number of marks for the grade boundary for that year.
Nor do A Levels like Religious Studies have fixed quotas for grades which stay the same year-to-year, as this Cambridge Assessment blog notes. This Ofqual blog also addresses common misconceptions about criterion and norm referencing in assessment.
How the percentage of A* grades is determined
The A* boundary for A Levels is calculated on an arithmetical basis in line with the prediction matrix:
In specifications with only one entry option, and in each entry option of specifications with multiple options, the A* boundary (at subject level or at entry option level) is set so that the outcome for matched candidates at grade A* most closely meets the predicted outcome.
Appendix 1A Summer 2024 Data Exchange Procedures in England - GOV.UK
In other words, the percentage achieving A* for that series is decided by the awarding process, and the grade boundary for A* follows.
What are the criteria to get an A* in A Level Religious Studies?
Given all of the above, then there is only one criterion for achieving A* – getting the same or more marks than the grade boundary determined for A* for that year. Another way of putting is that you need to get into the top x % of student performance for that qualification for that year, where x represents the % of students achieving A*.
You can find the results statistics for 2024 (showing the percentages of students achieving the different grades) on our website. For the 2024 series the top 6.85% achieved A*. You can view the archive of the results statistics for previous years.
Again, those familiar with the previous A Level specifications will remember that for those qualifications the question of how A* were achieved was slightly more complex (as the FAQs for the old A Levels shows) and memories of that process might persist. To reiterate though, the only criterion now is getting the same or more marks than the grade boundary for that year.
As we have previously noted, examiners are not thinking about lettered grades when they mark. Therefore, there is no particular ‘A* feature’ that they are looking for: the descriptors in the mark-scheme refers to levels, not grades.
What can students do in order to target A*?
A frequent and very understandable query we get from teachers and students is: what are the best ways to target A* success?
For all the reasons already stated, there is no ‘secret sauce’ for A*’s and nor is there an OCR ‘house style’ for essays (for any grade). However, the same tips for raising attainment in general apply to A* grades as much as any other grade. The skills and knowledge and understanding specified in the mark scheme level descriptors are mentioned across all the levels, so achieving a particular level is a question of how well the candidate demonstrates the skills and knowledge and understanding. My blog on writing A Level Religious Studies essays provides 10 tips that students could usefully focus on.
In addition, our new (and completely free) e-learning resource on OCR Train contains marking exercises (with exemplars and commentaries). You can find it on our secure teacher website, Teach Cambridge, under Training > Online courses.
Our range of professional development events, particularly Exploring the Exam, are also invaluable in explaining the examiner’s perspective when marking.
Stay connected
Share your thoughts in the comments below. If you have any questions, you can email us at religiousstudies@ocr.org.uk, call us on 01223 553998 or message us on X (formerly Twitter) @OCR_RS. You can also sign up to subject updates and receive email information about resources and support.
If you are considering teaching any of our qualifications, use our online form to let us know, so that we can help you with more information.
About the author
Richard studied philosophy and has a BA, MA and M.Phil from the University of East Anglia. Before joining OCR, he taught religious studies and philosophy for nearly 20 years at sixth form and university level, and has particular research interests in Learning Theory, Retrieval Practice and Flipped Learning. In his free time he enjoys weightlifting, rugby, gardening, nature/conservation and military history and also spends a lot of time looking after his children’s pets.
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