Approval Criteria outline the prerequisites awarding bodies must meet in order for us to approve a qualification for use on publicly funded courses of education in Wales. 

There are two types of criterion documentation for GCSE qualifications: 

1. GCSE Qualification Approval Criteria: This is suite level approval criteria that applies to all GCSE subjects. 

2. GCSE Subject-level Approval Criteria: These documents set out our design requirements for GCSE qualifications on a subject level. This includes:  

  • the purpose and aims  
  • content 
  • assessment arrangements 
  • grading  
  • reporting

These documents are available for subjects that we have approved for first teaching since September 2025.