Welcome to your Pearson Edexcel Religious Studies September 2025 subject update!
Hello colleagues,
Welcome back to school! We hope your 2025 academic year is off to a great start. We want to share this update which contains professional development events and teaching resources to enhance your classroom experience. Whether you’re a new or experienced teacher, our resources are here to support your success. Let’s make this year fantastic together!
Best wishes,
Jenna Wyatt
Religious Studies Subject Advisor
Septembers update includes:
Join us in the Autumn term for our online training events which will provide feedback and insights on the May/June 2025 exam series for Religious Studies qualifications.
Live event - GCSE Specification A - 06 October 2025 at 16:30-18:00 BST
Live event - GCSE Specification B - 20 October 2025 at 16:30-18:00 BST
Pre-recorded event - A-Level - November (Date / Time TBC)
Book your place on one of the training events
For teachers teaching GCSE specification A or B, join us 17 November (16:30-18:00 GMT) for this online training event on Assessment and Marking.
We’ll cover:
We have two upcoming online events designed to provide focused subject knowledge support for for the 'Living the Christian Life / Practices' section, featured in the 'Christianity' area of study, for Pearson Edexcel's GCSE in Religious Studies (specifications A and B) and 'Living the Muslim Life / Practices' section, featured in the 'Islam' area of study.
To book your place and find out more please click the links below:
Christianity – Insight into the teaching of Living the Religious Life / Practices
Islam – Insight into the teaching of Living the Religious Life / Practices
Just a reminder for AS and A Level Religious Studies teachers to view the update we sent out to centres during the first week of September outlining the AS and A Level refinements.
Details on the amendments can be viewed through the following link:
Please note, the updated specifications will apply from September 2025 for new Year 12 students, with first assessment in Summer 2026 (AS) and Summer 2027 (A Level). You can start using the updated Anthology straight away.
Grade boundaries identify marks required to achieve each grade. They are set for each exam series to ensure answers of the same quality achieve the same grade across series. These vary year on year due to a range of factors and this is the same for all subjects. This is expected as each paper is looked at individually based on its questions/answers and the cohort that year.
Grade boundaries for each paper are set by senior examiners who check the quality of students’ responses at key boundaries.
You can see grade boundaries for each exam series on our website by selecting the appropriate qualification:
The grade boundary documents for each qualification time are included below:
Notional Component Grade Boundaries - June 2025 - GCSE (9-1)
Grade Boundaries - June 2025 - GCSE (9-1)
Notional Component Grade Boundaries - June 2025 - International GCSE (9-1)
Grade Boundaries - June 2025 - International GCSE (9-1)
Grade Boundaries - June 2025 - International GCSE Modular (9-1)
You can also use our free Access to Scripts service to view your candidates’ marked exam scripts online or download as a PDF. It is available from results day until the 12 December 2025.
Providing a rich source of information, you can use this service to help make decisions about requesting a review of marking, but it can also help inform future teaching and learning and gives insights and visibility that performance data alone cannot provide.
If scripts have been marked ‘traditionally’ (ie not online), you will need to request them, free of charge, by 12 December 2025, via the Post Results section of Edexcel Online as in previous exam series.
Note, you will need 'Exam viewer' in your Edexcel Online profile if you want to download candidate scripts from results day. Please ask your Exams Officer if you need this adding to your profile.
Discover more about Access to Scripts, along with FAQs and a step-by-step User Guide.
In response to customer requests, we have produced guidance to clarify the level descriptors for the 'Clarify' and 'Analyse' questions and to translate the existing descriptors into language that is more accessible for students.
To access the resources, click the links below:
Every month, we release an edition of 'Topic of the Month' with the aim of supporting cultural capital and stimulating discussion within the classroom.
This resource ties a current news event to our qualification content and enables students to see the bigger picture of what they are learning and how it relates to the world around them. Each edition includes a link to an article alongside some key discussion questions to encourage thought around the subject.
June's topic relates to the establishment of Chelmsford's first permanent Hindu temple, highlighting its significance for the local Hindu community.
August's topic relates to to an article, written by Antara Haldar for Project Syndicate* and is entitled “Pope Francis and the Soul of Economics“.
Teaching GCSE International Religious Studies from September 2025?
Get up to speed with our short video which gives you a quick overview of the latest Specification and Sample Assessment updates, so you’re ready for first teaching in September 2025 and confident about the refinements for first assessment Summer 2027.
The recording of our online session “Judaism – Insight into the teaching of Jewish beliefs” is now available to watch. Whether you joined us live or couldn’t make it, this is your chance to explore key ideas and classroom strategies at your own pace.
Link to the delegate pack:
