Congratulations
Congratulations to all those students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland who are receiving their GCSE, and Level 1 and Level 2 VTQ exams results today.
Today, over 6.5 million results have been awarded to 1.1 million students across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and in spite of some the huge disruption students and teachers have experienced over the past five years, these results stand as testament to what is possible with hard work and dedication.
Regulation
Over the past two years Ofqual, the exams regulator, has been pursuing a back-to-normal plan after the grade inflation that took place in 2020 and 2021 when centre-assessed and teacher-assessed grades were used in place of exams during the pandemic. This means that the results this year are more similar to those pre-Covid, but do not necessarily reflect the additional hurdles that students have had to overcome. This Year 11 cohort was in Year 7 when the pandemic started, meaning their first two years of transitioning to secondary school were disrupted and some of the students will also have had their learning disrupted by the presence of collapse-prone RAAC at their school.
Results
The reformed GCSEs which were introduced in 2018 are mostly assessed through end-of-course examinations. Therefore it is good to see that top grades are in line with 2023 (21.8% 7/A and above compared with 22.0% in 2023 and 20.8% in 2019) and that “C” grade passes have also held steady (67.6% of grades at 4/C and above compared with 68.2% in 2023 and 67.3% in 2019). And over 13,000 top grades (3.5%) were awarded for Tech Awards and other VTQ courses.
This year French and German results were reported to be marked more leniently and more closely in line with Spanish. And whilst there has been an increase in French (up 1.8pp to 28.4% 7/A and 71.7% 4/C) and a significant increase in German (up 4.3pp to 32.5% 7/A and 77.8 4/C) the grades for Spanish now seem to lag behind (27.3% receiving 7/A and 70.5% 4/C).
And although Drama and Performing Arts have seen increases in the top grades, the number of entries continues its sad decline with almost 10,000 fewer entries in drama since 2019 and 3,000 fewer entries for Performing Arts.
Computer Science entries have seen a meteoric rise since 2019, with over 15,000 more entries. Grades have also seen a considerable increase (up 3.7pp to 28.3% at 7/A and 68.4% 4/C).
English and Maths grades remain settled falling around 0.6 percentage points for the highest grades (20.4% in English Literature and 16.9% in Maths), however it remains concerning that every year a fifth of teenagers fail to achieve the GCSE grades in both English and Maths needed to function and flourish in life. Pass rates at 4/C are down to 74% in English Literature and 59.5% for Maths.
Secretary of State, Bridget Phillipson commented “I do want to make sure that all young people have got a really firm foundation in English and Maths because that is the springboard for the rest of their lives,” and Community look forward to working with the Labour Party to support this pledge.
Well-deserved Praise
Whatever the issues that students, teachers and parents have faced, none of them should be allowed to undermine or detract from the genuine achievements shown in today’s results. Today is a day to celebrate all the hard work and commitment demonstrated by students and staff across the country. Well done!
If you are a member of Community and need advice or support, please contact our Service Centre at help@community-tu.org or on 0800 389 6332.
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