Community Celebrates GCSE Results Day

Community sends its warmest congratulations to all of those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who are celebrating the results of their GCSE exams.

We also recognise and celebrate the hard work of parents, teachers, teaching assistants, school leaders and support staff – all of whom have helped to shape this cohort of students, who will be making important decisions about the next stage of their education journey.

More than 6 million GCSE and level 1 and 2 technical and vocational results have been published today with results in England graded using the numerical 9-1 grading system across all subjects and all major exam boards.

Wales and Northern Ireland continue to award most subjects on the traditional A*-G scale, meaning that, as in previous years, comparisons of outcomes across the three nations need to be read with care.

Results this year are broadly stable, with an increase of 0.1 percentage points at grade 7/A and above and a decrease of 0.1 percentage points at grade 4/C and above. The overall proportion achieving a grade 1/G or above remains unchanged at 97.9%.

The Headlines

• Female students continue to outperform male pupils in English while male students continue to outperform their female peers in maths. This has been an ongoing trend for some years, but the gap between male and female performance continues to narrow overall.
• The overall pass rate in maths and English remains stable with 57.3% achieving 4/C and above in maths and 73.8% achieving 4/C or above in English literature.
• 57.4% of students achieved grade 4/C or above in science (down 1.4% from 2025), with 58.3% achieving 4/C or above in double science (up 0.5% from 2025).
• The ten most popular subjects at GCSE remain unchanged and include double science, maths, English language and history.
• 445,349 VTQ results were awarded and the most widely taken vocational and technical subjects were in leisure, travel and tourism, health, public services and care, and arts, media and publishing.

The legacy of the Covid-19 pandemic

Most of today’s Year 11 students began their GCSE journey having had their transition from primary to secondary school disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

For a generation that lost significant learning time before they had even chosen their GCSE options, these results represent more than a set of grades; they represent the ground made up since.

Schools have continued to report elevated levels of student anxiety and mental health need with referrals for support up 100% on pre-pandemic levels to over 1 million, according to the the fifth annual report from the Children’s Commissioner.

The workforce behind the results

Teaching assistants and other support staff have carried much of the additional pastoral and wellbeing load that this cohort has needed, frequently without the pay or recognition that matches the scale of that responsibility.

Community is encouraged by the Government’s plan to recruit 6,500 more teachers and we continue to call for action on recruitment and retention of teachers, and proper investment in the pastoral and support staff too.

Helen Osgood, Community’s Director of Operations and National Officer for Education & Early Years, said:

“Today belongs to the students who have kept going through a school journey unlike any other, and to the teachers, teaching assistants and support staff who have stood beside them every step of the way.  This cohort had their transition into secondary school disrupted before they had even sat down to choose their options, and they have had to contend with a level of pressure on their wellbeing and their learning that no generation before them has faced in quite the same way.  That they are opening these results at all is a testament to their resilience, and to the staff who never stopped believing in them.

“Community is enormously proud of every student collecting their results today, and of the teachers, TAs, school staff,  parents and carers who have supported them.  You have all earned this moment.  Congratulations to every one of you.”