AS and A Level Art and Design: understanding updates to our mark schemes
22 September 2026
Karl Goodere-Dale, Art and Design Subject Advisor
When you’re teaching Cambridge OCR Art and Design qualifications, you’re balancing a lot, especially at this time of year: returning to the classroom, planning lessons, supporting students, organising practicals and keeping on top of updates.
In this blog, I’ll explain how we have updated the AS and A Level marking criteria and the available support being provided.
What exactly has changed?
As part of our focus on making assessment straightforward, we’ve refined our AS and A Level Art and Design mark schemes. To support you when making assessment decisions we’ve improved our assessment criteria descriptions, especially for Level 6 and Level 1.
You can view a full explanation along with details on support available and answers to frequently asked questions in our subject update.
Why are we making these changes?
These changes have been made following customer feedback from centres, with a focus on making assessment more accessible and easier to apply in the classroom.
Although the assessment objectives remain the same, the updated mark schemes are designed to help teachers make clearer and more confident assessment decisions, especially where work can be considered exceptional.
The updated mark schemes aim to:
- improve clarity when awarding marks
- support greater consistency in teacher assessment
- help centres better understand the key expectations at different levels, especially in the highest levels.
What will be different?
The revised mark schemes introduce clearer assessment criteria, helping teachers identify where evidence sits within the mark range more effectively.
The updated assessment criteria have been refined to make expectations easier to understand and apply. The new descriptors also help to differentiate more effectively between performance levels, supporting teachers in making accurate and confident judgements particularly at the highest levels of achievement.
When assessing work in June 2028, teachers should refer closely to the updated mark scheme wording and guidance, particularly when making judgements of work in the highest attainment levels or work that previously would have been awarded a mark that fell into Level 1 or 2.
Teachers should make full use of the available mark range. Previous examination series grade boundaries and outcomes should not influence your marking decisions.
Referring to both the updated mark schemes and exemplar materials will help ensure your marks are awarded accurately and in line with the required standard.
Below are links to the new specifications
What hasn’t changed?
The overall qualification approach and structure remain unchanged. The assessment objectives, marking levels and marks within each level remain the same, with only the descriptors being updated..
How we will support you
New assessment resources and professional development courses will support the revised assessment criteria, helping teachers understand and apply the criteria consistently for assessment in summer 2028. Exemplars for the new mark scheme will be published later this year, with essential professional development following in the next academic year.
Looking ahead we understand that changes to assessment materials can raise questions, and we are committed to supporting teachers throughout the transition.
Over the coming months, we will be sharing further information, guidance and support materials to help centres become familiar with the revised mark schemes ahead of first assessment in summer 2028.
Stay connected
If you have any questions, you can email us at art&design@ocr.org.uk or support@ocr.org.uk, or call us on 01223 553998. You can also sign up to subject emails to make sure you get the latest news, updates and resources.
If you are considering teaching any of our qualifications, use our form to let us know, so we can help you with more information.
About the author
Before joining Cambridge OCR, Karl taught creative subjects in secondary schools and held a variety of roles, including Head of Department. He brings extensive experience of GCSE, A Level and BTEC qualifications and has previously been a Cambridge OCR examiner.