Tens of thousands of teenagers have been forced to rethink their future options after GCSE results fell in England as ministers forced through plans to eradicate grade inflation accumulated during the pandemic.
Top grades in England were down more than four percentage points on last year’s results, leading to disappointment for many pupils – with 22.4% of results for 16-year-olds at grade 7 or above, equivalent to an A.
Results were expected to fall after the government announced plans to return grades to 2019 levels, though this year’s results still hovered slightly above pre-pandemic levels when 21.9% of grades were 7 and above. At the peak of grade inflation in 2021, 30% of entries were awarded top grades.
In English and maths – both compulsory for 16-year-olds in England – boys performed surprisingly well compared with pre-pandemic results. For boys, substantially higher proportions of entries gained grades 7 and above in English, up by two percentage points to 14.5% compared with 2019. The proportion of girls gaining a grade 4 pass or better fell slightly to 77.5%.
In maths it was a similar picture, with boys outperforming their 2019 benchmarks and girls doing slightly worse in the proportion gaining grade 4 or above. While 72.6% of 16-year-old boys gained a 4 or better in maths, only 71.9% of girls did the same.
The record decline in top grades was not as sharp as in last week’s A-level results, where grade inflation during the pandemic was greater than at GCSE level. The number of GCSE results registering a fail grade also returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The proportion of entries receiving a grade 3 or below – prompting a retake in English or maths – increased to 30% this year, similar to the 30.1% seen in 2019, which is five percentage points up on last year’s figure of 24.7%.
State schools in England, including academies, comprehensives, secondary moderns and grammar schools, outperformed their pre-pandemic results in top grades and in pass rates in most cases, while independent schools results were worse than 2019.
Grammar schools saw 59% of their entries gain 7 or above, while only 46% of entries from private schools gained the same. However, most independent schools take a mix of GCSE and other equivalent qualifications that are not included in Ofqual’s data, making comparisons difficult.
Among 16-year-olds in England the three science subjects, chemistry, biology and physics, all had slight falls in pass rates and in top grades compared with 2019, as did Spanish language.
While the top 10 most popular subjects remained the same, entries for business studies increased by 14.8%, while computing went up 11.6% and Spanish 11%. Overall, GCSE entries to modern foreign languages increased by 5.1% compared with last year, and 9.2% compared with 2019.
Among the high flyers, 1,160 16-year-olds got all grade 9s in England, two-thirds of them girls, while 120 pupils managed 11 or more 9s.
This year’s results also highlighted widening regional differences, with pupils in London once again outperforming those in the north of England. In the north-east, 17.6% of entries were awarded a grade 7 or above, up from 16.4% in 2019. In London 28.4% of entries were awarded top grades, up from 25.7% before the pandemic.
Headteachers expressed concern about the impact on pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, who were disproportionately affected during the pandemic and the subsequent cost of living crisis.
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “It is likely that the outcomes for many of these young people will be affected by these factors and this may also impact on the results of schools which serve disadvantaged communities.”
He added: “The government has failed to grasp the gravity of this issue. It did not invest sufficiently in education recovery from the pandemic – causing its own recovery commissioner to resign in protest – and it has failed to address the high level of child poverty in the UK. We are concerned that this will lead to a widening of the attainment gap between rich and poor.”
In Wales, which adopted a different approach to grading this year, there were falls in the proportion of 16-year-olds getting A and A* grades, dropping from 26% of entries last year to 22% this year. Northern Ireland recorded a 2.5-point fall in top grades.
Jeremy Miles, Wales’s minister for education, said: “It’s inspiring to see what our learners have achieved. These learners have had to face immense challenges impacting on their learning opportunities over the past few years as they’ve progressed through their secondary schooling and on to their GCSEs.”
In England, much of the additional support put in place last year for the first cohort to sit exams after the forced interruption caused by Covid was stripped away this year, though in maths and some science papers, students were given formulae and equation sheets.
More than half a million students in England picked up their results for GCSEs, while more than 390,000 certificates across 130 vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) were awarded.
According to England’s exams regulator, Ofqual, there is still some grading protection in place and allowances have been made where the quality of student work is a little weaker than before the pandemic.
The overall improvement in England’s maths and English results was boosted by Ofqual’s decision not to apply feedback from its national reference tests, which it uses to calibrate annual grade changes. This year’s reference tests showed significantly lower results in English than previous years, while results were also slightly lower in maths
Ofqual defended its decision, saying: “While outcomes in English are statistically significantly lower than in 2017 at grade 4, the chief regulator decided not to implement a downward change because this would be counter to the wider policy intent of providing protection for students.”
Jo Saxton, Ofqual’s chief regulator, said: “Today’s results mark the second year in a two-step process back to normal. We’re back to normal.”
In England GCSEs are graded using a numerical system from 9 to 1, rather than from A* to G, with 9 being the highest grade. A 4 is roughly equivalent to a C grade and a 7 is an A. In Northern Ireland and Wales, traditional A* to G grades are used.
In Scotland, results for national 5 qualifications published earlier this month showed the pass rate was 78.8%, down from 80.8% last year but still up from 78.2% in 2019.
