This summer’s GCSE results are the first from examinations in three years. Results are significantly lower than last year but we should not read anything into that. After two years of grades increasing with the use of teacher-assessed grades, the government signalled its intentions early that we should begin the process of returning to pre-pandemic grade distributions. In September, the qualifications regulator, Ofqual, announced results would be around the midpoint of those in 2019 and 2021.
This is exactly what we have seen in today’s data. The proportion of entries from 16-year-olds awarded a grade 4 or above is down from 79% last year to 75% today, and the proportion getting the higher grades (grade 7 and above), which peaked at 30% in 2021, has fallen to 27% this year.
