The OCR exam board has issued an apology to all students and teachers impacted by errors in its A-level physics papers, and plans to investigate how the mistakes slipped through undetected.

The errors arose amid concern from subject experts that physics exam papers are too “obscure and convoluted”, contain too many mistakes and could have “serious detrimental effects” on students’ futures.

Five errors in total were identified by OCR. One was the inclusion of four numbers on a spreadsheet in paper 2 that did not match the values on an accompanying graph. The mistake was not noticed until after the exam was sat.

Two further errors were spotted in each of papers 1 and 2, before students had sat the exams, but after papers had already been distributed to schools.

For these, OCR was forced to issue “erratum notices” to accompany the exam papers.

An OCR spokesperson said the exam board was “sorry to the physics students and teachers affected by errors in A-level physics this year”.

The exam board is investigating its processes and “acting to ensure it does not happen again”, they added.

‘Very poor’ physics exam papers

Concerns about the exam papers have also been raised on social media. One physics teacher, who said their school had moved to OCR this year following concerns over last year’s AQA papers, commented that “this year’s papers were very poor”.

They added that “the number of mistakes alone in paper 1 and 2 is terrible”.

Another physics teacher responded, saying that “both the first and second [OCR] papers were riddled with errors, including a large incorrect data set in the second”.

In addition to its apology, OCR said that all candidates would be treated fairly with “appropriate measures” taken to ensure that none are disadvantaged.

The exam board said that it will contact schools closer to results day about this, adding that it is “grateful to teachers, students and the Institute of Physics for sharing their concerns and comments”.

OCR said: “We will do everything we can to use this moment to improve the quality of physics assessment.”

In a statement exclusively shared with Tes, Tom Grinyer, chief executive of the Institute of Physics, said he would contact the CEOs of both OCR and AQA “urgently seeking reassurances” on their plans to address a “worrying number of mistakes” in OCR’s A-level physics exams and continued negative responses about “obscure and convoluted” aspects of AQA’s papers.

Mr Grinyer said that given the ongoing issues, “this has the potential to be unfair to the young people sitting these important exams and could have serious detrimental effects on their futures”.

He added that the issues were “damaging to the reputation of physics” and would “risk perpetuating the myth that physics is ‘too difficult’”.

AQA ‘getting better’

This is the second year in a row that the Institute of Physics has felt it necessary to write to AQA. Last year it urged England’s largest exam board to take action amid reports that students were left in tears by its “unreasonably difficult” A-level paper 2.

The institute said it had conducted a small poll of physics teachers to gauge reaction to this year’s A-level papers.

Although some teachers said AQA’s paper 2 had improved significantly, 37 per cent of responses remained negative.

A head of physics at a school in Hampshire, who wished to remain anonymous but who considered changing exam board this year, summarised their feelings about AQA’s 2025 papers as: “Exams horrendous; getting better. But examiners still need to think what experience they’re leaving students with as their last experience of physics.”

They said they aren’t “immediately going to go and change exam board” and that while paper 2, which caused so much consternation last year, was hard and would have put students under a lot of time pressure, “all the questions were fair enough”

The head of physics added: “None of it made me want to spit feathers like I’ve been doing the last two to three years.”

However, several physics teachers vented frustration on social media, including Dr Dan Jones, head of physics at Haberdashers’ Monmouth School.

Dr Jones said: “Once again the AQA exam board has let down thousands of physics A-level students with a very poor set of papers overall...It is very damaging to the subject and the students who sat these papers.”

OCR’s and AQA’s physics A-level papers were sat on 23 May, 9 June and 17 June.

A spokesperson for AQA said it regularly reviews its exam processes to ensure that they are “as accessible and fair as possible” and that it had listened to last year’s feedback and taken steps to improve accessibility.

They added that the “best way to tell how students have found the papers” is through the marking process, and said the exam board is “happy” to meet with the Institute of Physics again this year.

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