🇬🇧 United Kingdom · Exam board
CCEA revision,
with a team behind it
Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment
Northern Ireland's awarding body, with its own GCSE grading scale including a C* grade.
CCEA both regulates and awards qualifications in Northern Ireland. Its GCSEs keep letter grades and add a C* between B and C, which does not exist anywhere else in the UK. Many NI schools also enter students for AQA or Edexcel in some subjects, so it is common to be sitting a mix.
CCEA at a glance
- Qualifications
- GCSE · AS and A-Level · Entry Level qualifications · Occupational Studies
- Grading
- GCSE A*, A, B, C*, C, D, E, F, G. A-Level A* to E, with AS carrying forward into the full A-Level.
- Exam series
- Main written series from mid-May to late June, with a November GCSE series.
- Results
- A-Level results in mid-August, GCSE results the week after.
Worth knowing about CCEA
The specifics below are the ones that change how you should plan. Always check the current specification with your school or the awarding body — specifications get revised, and the version you are entered for is the one that counts.
CCEA retains a modular AS and A2 structure in many subjects, so AS results in Year 13 count towards the final A-Level grade — the pressure is spread across two years rather than landing entirely at the end.
The C* grade sits between B and C and was introduced so NI grades map cleanly onto England's 9 to 1 scale. It matters when you are quoting grades to a university outside NI.
Because AS units carry forward, resitting a weak AS module is a real strategy here in a way it is not in England's linear A-Levels.
Many NI students sit a mix of CCEA and English board specifications across their subjects, so it is worth checking the board subject by subject.
What each teacher does for CCEA
All eight are AI, and we say so plainly. What is real is the output: sessions in your calendar, sources in your book, citations checked, cards queued until you can recall them cold.
Daniel · Study planner
Takes your CCEA subjects and works backwards from the real timetable. Main written series from mid-May to late June, with a November GCSE series. Sessions land in your calendar as real events with reminders, and the plan adjusts when a week goes wrong.
Sarah · Subject tutor
Explains at the depth CCEA actually assesses, with worked examples, then asks the questions that check you have understood rather than just followed along.
Tommy · Quizzer
Turns each concept you get into a spaced-repetition card and brings it back at widening intervals until you can produce it cold. GCSE A*, A, B, C*, C, D, E, F, G. A-Level A* to E, with AS carrying forward into the full A-Level. Most of the gap between where you are and where you want to be is recall under pressure, not understanding.
Margaret · Librarian
Finds sources, summarises them at three depths, imports them into your subject book and formats the citations in MLA, APA, Chicago or Harvard.
Eleanor · Writing coach
Reads your extended answers and essays for structure and argument, and shows you where a marker stops following you — without rewriting it for you.
Charles · Citation checker
Checks every in-text citation points at a real entry in your bibliography, and flags the ones that do not before a marker does.
Penny · Proofreader
Catches grammar, spelling, and the sentences that technically parse but will not survive a tired examiner.
Sam · Accountability
Tracks what you actually did against what the plan said, and tells you early when CCEA preparation has slipped far enough to need a different plan rather than more willpower.
Subjects students bring us
These are the CCEA subjects we see most. The teachers are not limited to them — if you are sitting something rarer, tell them during onboarding and the plan covers it the same way.
- Maths
- English Language
- English Literature
- Biology
- Chemistry
- Physics
- Double Award Science
- History
- Geography
- Irish
- Religious Studies
- Business Studies
- Learning for Life and Work
CCEA: fair questions
What is a C* grade?
A CCEA GCSE grade sitting between B and C, introduced to align Northern Ireland's letter grades with England's 9 to 1 scale. It is a Northern Ireland grade — when you apply elsewhere, admissions teams read it as roughly equivalent to a grade 5.
Does the modular AS and A2 structure change how I should revise?
Considerably. Because AS units count towards the final grade, a weak AS year is worth addressing directly rather than hoping to make it up at A2. Daniel plans with both years in view and flags when a resit would move your overall grade more than extra A2 revision would.
I am sitting CCEA for some subjects and AQA for others. Is that a problem?
Not at all, and it is common. Set the board per subject during onboarding — the teachers track them separately, so the History plan follows one timetable and grading scale and the Biology plan follows another.
Other boards in United Kingdom
AQA
The largest GCSE and A-Level board in England, used by around half of all entries.
Pearson Edexcel
GCSEs, A-Levels, International GCSEs and the BTEC vocational route, all under one board.
OCR
Strong in Computer Science, Classics, PE and the sciences, with a distinctive question style.
WJEC & Eduqas
The Welsh awarding body, sitting Made-for-Wales GCSEs in Wales and Eduqas specifications in England.
SQA
Scotland's national qualifications — National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher, on their own calendar.
Start your CCEA plan today.
Seven days free, no credit card. Ninety seconds of onboarding and Daniel has your CCEA subjects, your exam dates and a week you can actually follow.
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