GCSE results are out this morning – here’s your handy Schools Week round up of the key trends.
All findings below, unless stated otherwise, are based on the figures for 16-year-olds in England only, which is why they may differ to what you read elsewhere.
1. Grade 5+ pass rate is 54.6%
We’ve always highlighted the grade 5 and above pass rate – considered a “strong” pass – because it’s how schools are judged in league tables. Grade 4 is a “standard” pass.
The grade 5-pass rate has risen slightly from 54.4 per cent in 2023 to 54.6 per cent this year. It is still slightly above the 53.5 per cent in 2019.
The grade 4-pass rate has also risen marginally from 70.3 per cent to 70.4 per cent. This is compared to 69.9 per cent pre-pandemic.
2. Top grades rise slightly
The proportion of top grades (7 to 9), which is equivalent to A*/A in old money) have risen by 0.9 per cent this year.
This summer, 22.6 per cent of grades were 7 and above, compared to 22.4 per cent last year. It’s remains above 21.8 per cent in 2019.
But proportion of the top grade 9s has risen by 2 per cent from last year. This has risen from 5 per cent to 5.1 per cent.
There were 1,270 16 year olds who achieved grade 9s in all subjects – up from 1,160 last year. This is still above 837 in 2019.
3. English and maths
There was a larger growth in top grades in English than maths. For English, 19 per cent were 7 or above, a 1.1 per cent rise on the 18.8 per cent last year.
In maths, this rise was just 0.5 per cent – 21.2 per cent were grade 7 or above compared to 21.1 per cent last year.
However, maths saw a larger rise at grade 5 and above of 1.7 per cent – 53.3 per cent compared to 52.4 in 2023.
For English, 55.4 per cent were a “strong-pass” compared to 55.1 per cent last year, a rise of 0.5 per cent.
All were above the 2019 results.
4. Art and design on the up as business growth plateaus
Double award science, maths, English, English literature and history again have the highest entries across the UK for all ages. The subjects accounted for more than half of entries altogether.
For the second year running, business studies saw the highest percentage jump in entries among subjects taken by more than 100,000 students.
Numbers have been growing since 2018, but this summer its rise dropped from 14.8 per cent last year to 9.7 per cent.
English witnessed the second highest percentage increase, up 7.2 per cent. Entries have swelled from 788,780 to 845,834.
Art and design subjects also recorded a 5.4 per cent rise in entries. This comes after they had the largest drop last year, a fall of 3.6 per cent.
Citizenship studies had the largest proportion drop in entries. Almost 22,000 students took the subject in 2023, compared to 20,790 this time around.
Some of the smallest subjects (with less than 100,000 entries) saw large percentage increases. Statistics (19.9 per cent), science (10.3 per cent) and music (8.7 per cent) experienced the biggest changes.
5. Girls versus boys
The gap between girls and boys has remained broadly the same.
This year, 25.5 per cent of grades issued to 16-year-old girls in England were 7s and above, compared to 19.8 per cent for boys.
The gap now stands at 5.7 percentage points, down slightly from 5.8 percentage points last year. Prior to the outbreak of Covid, the difference between girls and boys was 6.5 percentage points.
6. Regional disparities remain
The gap in top grades between the north east and London narrowed slightly from 10.8 percentage points to 10.7 this year. Despite this, it remains wider than pre-pandemic, when it was 9.3 percentage points.
The proportion of 7s and above in the north east is 17.8 per cent, up from 17.6 per cent in 2023. This compares to 28.5 per cent in London, up from 28.4 per cent last year.
The east of England (0.5 percentage points) and East Midlands (0.2 percentage points) were the only areas that witnessed falls in top grades since last year. The drop has brought the east Midlands back to 2019 levels.
Meanwhile, the south east saw the largest increase over the last 12 months (0.3 percentage points).
7. Private school grades above pre-pandemic
Last year, UK private schools were the only type of centre whose proportion of top grades fell below 2019 levels.
But today’s figures show the proportion of top grades at independent schools has risen to 48.4 per cent up from 47.5 last year. This is up from 48.1 per cent pre-Covid.
Free schools, which had fallen back to 2019 levels last year, also saw a rise. The proportion of top grades now stands at 21.6 per cent, having risen by 1.5 percentage points over the last 12 months.
At grammar schools the figure increased to 60.3 per cent, from 59.4 in 2023.
Secondary comprehensives (0.1 percentage points) and academies (0.2 per percentage points) also saw the proportion of 7s and above grow since last year, while it fell slightly in secondary moderns (0.2 percentage points).
