New A Level Business - frequently asked questions

As more and more students consider Business for A Level, we want to ensure our qualification prepares them for their chosen next steps, whether that's further education or the world of work.

To help achieve this goal, we undertook a review of our existing specification. This involved gathering feedback from teachers and other key stakeholders on what they like, what they'd like to see more of, and areas for improvement.

Our new qualification has been created in line with our findings, ensuring it’s relevant to today, meets students’ needs, and helps them to succeed in the future as commercially minded, innovative individuals.

Our A Level Business has now been accredited by Ofqual for 2026. This means you can start teaching it from September 2026 – all you need to do is download the specification, sample assessment materials, and our resources and get teaching!

Please make sure you delete any draft specifications and sample assessment materials you may have been using for your planning.

You should also ensure you are no longer teaching our previous A Level specification (H431) to any new cohort of students – i.e. those starting their A Level studies from September 2026.

First assessments for our new A Level Business will take place from summer 2028.

To help us support you and ensure you have access to all the resources you need, including a free licence for a digital student book for all your students, please let us know if you're planning to teach the qualification by filling in this form.

Our changes have been designed with all students and all teachers in mind, including non-specialists.

Our handy mapping guide highlights how our A Level has changed in more detail – making your transition to our new specification as seamless as possible.

Key changes include:

Specification changes

• An improved specification layout, with topics now grouped logically to help support co-teaching and planning.
• Reduced and streamlined content – for example, we’ve removed accounting concepts, normal distribution, and standard deviation.
• A stronger focus on the practical application of business, with reduced emphasis on theories and models.
• New, contemporary content like work-life balance and customer experience.
• Refreshed, popular topics such as sustainability and the use of technology in business.
  

Assessment changes

• Multiple choice questions on every paper
• A formulae booklet for use during exams
• A maximum mark tariff of 14 marks
• Consistent paper structures, with each being worth a total of 90 marks
• Fewer question types, used consistently across all three papers
• A smaller number of clearly explained command words
• Shorter, engaging case studies that support focus and reflect real-life business contexts
• Each paper covers different content, while also encouraging a holistic view of Business, with Paper 3 giving students the opportunity to bring ideas together from across the specification.

Yes, a new student book from Cambridge will be available ahead of the first teach in September 2026 (estimated publication: summer 2026).

Available in print and digitally, the book has been written by experienced business teachers and is mapped to our redeveloped A Level Business (H436) specification, offering comprehensive coverage of the content. It also includes activities, tools, and opportunities for exam preparation.

We’re pleased to offer all schools and colleges delivering our new A Level Business a free site licence for this digital student book.

This licence will giving everyone in your school or college the opportunity to access the book and its full contents online if they need it for teaching or learning. Find out more about this.

Whether you're new to Cambridge OCR or have been teaching with us for a while, we’ll offer a range of free support and resources to help you deliver our qualification with confidence.

Our comprehensive package includes:

• sample assessment materials and resources to help you navigate our exams
• curriculum planners
• comprehensive schemes of work for each component
• professional development courses
• a wide range of freely available planning, teaching, and learning resources
• candidate exemplars
• practice papers.

You will be able to find these resources on our secure platform, Teach Cambridge. If you already have a Teach Cambridge account, you will be able to log straight in. If you do not currently have access to the platform, please visit our website for guidance on how to gain it. You will also be able to sign up for a two-week free trial.

As well as this, you’ll have access to:

• an expert subject advisor to advise you, share updates and resources
• new teaching and learning resources from third parties.
• Active Results – our free results analysis service
• Access to Scripts – our free, on-demand service that allows you to download copies of students’ completed question papers
• ExamBuilder – our free question-building platform that helps you to build your own tests as our bank of past live-series questions grows.

If your school or college is already teaching other qualifications with us, you can download our A Level specification (H436) and start teaching from September 2026.

However, to help us support you and ensure you have access to all the resources you need, including your free site licence for a digital student book, please let us know if you're planning to teach the qualification by filling in this form.

Remember to check out our short switching guides too. These have been designed to help you compare our A Level to the AQA and Pearson (Edexcel) qualifications, making your move to us even easier

If your school or college doesn’t offer any Cambridge OCR qualifications currently, you may need to register with us. Please get in touch with our Customer Development Team, who can guide you through the process:

• 01223 553998 (option 3)
• customerdevelopment@cambridge.org

All you need to do is download our A Level specification and start teaching from September 2026. It may also be helpful to take a look at our mapping guide, which highlights what has changed.

Please make sure you delete any draft specifications and sample assessment materials you may have been using for your planning.

You should also ensure you are no longer teaching our previous A Level specification to any new cohort of students – i.e. those starting their A Level studies from September 2026.

To help us support you and ensure you have access to all the resources you need, including your free site licence for a digital student book, please let us know if you're planning to teach the qualification by filling in this form.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any specific questions:

• 01223 553998 (option 3)
• customerdevelopment@cambridge.org