Welcome to our Autumn 2025 newsletter

I hope you’ve all had a truly wonderful summer holiday and a well-deserved break to rest, reset, and hopefully enjoy some sunshine. As we head into this new term, I wanted to take a moment to warmly welcome you back. Whether you spent the summer travelling, creating, reading, or simply recharging at home, I hope it has given you the energy and inspiration to begin the coming months with fresh ideas and motivation.

As we step into autumn, it feels like the perfect time to embrace creativity in all its forms. This time of year often brings a renewed sense of focus and an opportunity to reimagine your classroom environment, explore new projects, and develop thoughtful lessons that capture the curiosity and imagination of your learners. I hope this term brings you fresh ideas and opportunities that’ll support both your teaching and your own creative practice, as we work together to make it a successful and inspiring few months.

This newsletter is here to support you. Inside, you’ll find a range of key resources, general updates, and important information to help guide you through the months ahead. We’ve carefully put this together to make sure it’s as useful as possible for you, offering practical guidance, reminders, and insights that can support your planning, teaching, and subject leadership this term. We hope it becomes a go-to tool to keep you connected and up to date.

As always, please remember that we’re here for you. If you ever need further support or simply want to ask a question, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re only an email or a call away, and it’s so important to us that you feel supported in your work.

Also, keep an eye out for our list of upcoming Curriculum Connect sessions. These will include exploring the summer results, looking ahead to the new academic year, and discussing a variety of interesting themes with dedicated question and answer sessions. We’re also excited to be joined by some inspiring guest speakers this term to share their expertise and insights with you. More details about these can be found in this email.

We’re looking forward to working with you over the year ahead and receiving the Government’s Curriculum and Assessment review when it’s published.

If any members of your team would like to receive subject-specific updates, they can easily sign up for AQA subject update, so they’re always informed and part of our community.

Sandra Allan
Subject Lead for Creative Arts

Curriculum Connects

Curriculum Connect: Exploring summer 2025

Join the Creative Arts team for an overview into the AQA results from the summer 2025 exam series. Uncover the latest national trends in your subject, gain insider insights from examiner reports, and discover strategies to boost success in the year ahead. Plus, we'll share a roundup of must-have resources and events you won't want to miss. These sessions are available to book now on our website.

Please note we will not be covering student responses with commentaries during these sessions, you'll have the opportunity to see those at our NEA Planning and Preparing for 2026 events. 

• Curriculum Connect: Supporting students with SEND in Art and Design 
• Curriculum Connect: Supporting students with SEND in Art and Design (on-demand) (a recording from the curriculum connect session we offered last term) 
• Curriculum Connect: Early Careers Support for Teachers of Art and Design
• Curriculum Connect: GCSE and A-level Art and Design: Preparing for Component 1
• Curriculum Connect: GCSE and A-level Art and Design: Preparing for Component 2
• Curriculum Connect: GCSE and A-level Art and Design Q&A/Networking

Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery

The Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery offer workshops in the gallery and outreach sessions that link to the collection and their temporary exhibition program.

Where the Light Falls: Winifred Joseph's Rural Archive, opening 30 September – This exhibition offers a unique insight into 20th-century rural life, and the people who enriched it. Perfect for students to explore Narrative, Identity, Human Figure, Portraiture, The Everyday, Landscape, and Social Documentary.

Find resources for the Winifred Joseph exhibition with links to other related artists. Further resources can be found on the Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery website

Visit Petersfield Museum and Art Gallery for more information about their workshops and in-school sessions.

Find everything you need on myAQA

Make sure you’ve got the materials and guidance to create engaging and effective learning experiences. Whether it’s schemes of work, community links or teaching guides, we’ve got what you need.

To access the resources, visit the plan, teach and assess tabs on our GCSE or A-level web pages. Resources are also available on our Centre Services secure web page. 

• Data Insights on Centre Services – see how your school, subject, class and individual students have performed and dig deeper into your students’ results. 
• Find summer 2025 question papers, mark schemes, and examiners’ reports, all in one place on Centre Services. See what is available and when.
• You can find each of the grade boundaries on our website and the overall results statistics with cumulative pass rates for the whole AQA cohort. 

Art and Design standardisation index

GCSE and A-level Art and Design: Every year we hold live exhibitions of students’ work showcasing different approaches from schools and colleges around the country. The exhibitions cover all six titles with a range of marks at each level. The examples can support your teaching, be shown to students and help you standardise work. To help you find the examples you need, please use the standardisation index to identify which title, component, set and mark is available in each of the standardisation books on Centre Services. You can find the books by using the standardisation filter.

myAQA

Log into myAQA for post-results services to find information and deadlines and easy summary guide.

Free CPD courses and events – autumn 2025

For autumn 2025, we’ve developed a range of free professional development training courses to help you improve your knowledge and classroom confidence.

• GCSE and A-level Art and Design: Getting started
• GCSE/A-level Art: Assessment objectives and guidance for applying the assessment criteria grid
• A-level / GCSE Art and Design: EDI representation in Art and Design

Free face-to-face regional teacher standardisation

To support your marking, during each autumn term we hold live teacher standardisation exhibitions across England demonstrating learners’ work. The exhibitions cover all six titles and a range of marks, showcasing different approaches from schools and colleges around the country. They’re available for every school or college and will give you an opportunity to network with other local teachers and have individual conversations with presenters.

Registration is free and available to book now. You'll find all the details including dates and timings on our professional development pages.

Please watch our video to discover more about our Art and Design teacher standardisation events.

Why attend?

• Understanding the standard: Teacher standardisation events provide an opportunity to gain a clear understanding of the assessment criteria and standards expected. This can help teachers align their teaching and assessment practices with these standards, ensuring a fair and consistent evaluation of learner work.
• Enhancing teaching practice: By participating in standardisation events, teachers can learn from experienced presenters, gaining insights into best practices and effective strategies for supporting learners in their learning. This can help improve teaching practice and enhance the overall quality of art and design education.
• Ensuring fairness and consistency: Standardisation events help ensure that teachers have a consistent understanding of the assessment criteria, leading to fair and equitable assessment of learners' work across different schools and classrooms. This can help maintain the integrity of the qualification and provide a level playing field for all learners.
• Professional development: Attending standardisation events can contribute to teachers' professional development by enhancing their knowledge and skills in assessment and evaluation. This can benefit both teachers and learners by improving the quality of teaching and learning in art and design.

Enhanced twilight sessions

Enhanced twilight sessions for teacher standardisation, designed to provide more flexibility and support. These twilight sessions will run in the same format as our daytime sessions, ensuring comprehensive standardisation.

Increased capacity: Each twilight session can accommodate up to four teachers from your school or college, in addition to the standard two places in the daytime sessions. This means more of you can participate and benefit from this valuable training.

Support for busy schedules: We understand that taking time out of school can be challenging, especially for multiple members of your department. Therefore, we're offering support for those who are unable to attend the daytime sessions. Our twilight sessions provide a convenient option to make sure that no teacher misses out on this crucial opportunity.

Registration is free and available to book now. You can find all the details, including dates and timings by using the following links on our website:

• GCSE Art and Design: Teacher standardisation 2025/2026 (Twilight)
• A-level Art and Design: Teacher standardisation 2025/2026 (Twilight)

Summer 2026 exams

Externally set assignments (ESA)

Estimated entries for the summer 2026 exam series can be submitted via Centre Services between 1 September and 10 October 2025. If estimate of entries have been made, hard copies of the Externally set assignment (ESA) will be sent to your school or college and will also be available to download on Centre Services from 8am on 2 January for GCSE and 1 February for A-level. 

Component 2 updates and guidance

Use of internet reminder

Learners must not have access to the internet during the 10 or 15 hours of supervised time. Learners are allowed access to web-based applications, eg Adobe Creative Cloud, but all other internet access must be disabled.

Clarification on certification rules:

If a learner is unable to start or complete component 2

You can still enter the learner and certificate for the qualification based on the component 1 marks (60% of the course). You will credit zero marks for component 2. This will impact the overall grade, but they can still certificate for the qualification.

If a learner has completed the preparatory work and only part of the 10-hour or 15-hour formal supervised period for Component 2

For the formal supervised period, as per the specification, the first two hours for GCSE or three hours for A-level must be consecutive and completed as a minimum for the evidence of Component 2 to be included for assessment. You’ll need to make a note on the candidate record form to tell your moderator if this scenario applies.

If a learner has completed the preparatory period only for Component 2

A learner must complete the first two hours for GCSE or three hours for A-level of the formal supervised period to be able to enter component 2.

If a learner is fully prepared for the exam but is disadvantaged in other ways

This could be due to illness or unavoidable circumstances beyond their control. In these circumstances your Exams Officer can apply for special consideration in the normal way through Centre Services, more information can be found on our website.

Further support:

• GCSE Art and Design Notes and guidance: Practical Guidance for non-exam assessment / Notes and guidance: Marking guidance spidergrams.
• A-level Art and Design Notes and guidance: Practical Guidance for non-exam assessment / Notes and guidance: Marking guidance spidergrams.

Student Advisory Group – recruitment for 2025/26

We’re looking for learners to join our Student Advisory Group to help us make key decisions about the future of exams. We’d love to hear from learners who’ve completed AQA specification GCSEs since 2024, as well as from those taking AQA AS and A-levels. We also really want to hear from students taking our vocational qualifications, or vocational qualifications with any other exam board, as long as they have sat at least one AQA qualification.

Since the Student Advisory group began they’ve; represented the student voice each year at the Parliamentary Youth Reception, shared their views at the Curriculum and Assessment Youth Shadow Panel, fed into our Curriculum and Assessment call for evidence response, given insights on AI in the Classroom at the 2025 Festival of Education, helped with reviewing books for our English literature set texts list, and much more.

So if you know any learners who you think would be interested, please pass this on. Full details of the role and how to apply can be found on our website. Applications open on Monday 8 September and close at 5.00pm on Monday 22 September 2025.

Festive e-Card design competition for learners

We’re excited to launch the AQA festive e-Card design competition – an opportunity for your learners to showcase their creativity and design a piece of work to feature on AQA holiday communications sent to all our schools and colleges in December.

The winner will receive a framed copy of the final artwork and a £50 voucher. As well as seeing their work in our holiday communications, it’s a great opportunity for the winning student to put their accomplishment on their CV.

You can view last year's winning artwork, created by a learner from Temple Learning Academy in Leeds, here.

Theme for artwork submissions: ‘Winter wonderland’.

Closing date for entries is midnight on Friday 10 October. Check you’re eligible to apply by reading the terms and conditions. The winner will be announced on Friday 28 November. Good luck! If you have any questions, please email art@aqa.org.uk. To enter the Festive e-Card design competition, please complete this entry form.

Contact our team

Help is never more than a click away. If you have a question, we’ve got the answer.

Email art@aqa.org.uk

Call us on 01483 437 750 8.00am–5.00pm Monday to Friday.