The proportion of top grades among the GCSE results for 16-year-olds in England has fallen since last year, with the overall pass rate also down, after pupils whose education has been disrupted by the pandemic sat the first examinations in three years.
Top grades of 7 and above – equivalent to A and A* – were down three percentage points this summer, in line with government plans to tackle grade inflation over the last two years, and bring results gradually down to pre-pandemic levels.
The proportion of pupils achieving grade 4 and above – 4 is a pass – also fell by four percentage points, from 79% last year to 75%, meaning thousands more pupils could now face resits in English and maths.
Girls continued to outperform boys – nearly one in three entries by girls in England got a grade 7 or above (30.7%) – though the gender gap at the highest grades narrowed by 1.6 percentage points compared with last year.
Figures published by England’s exams regulator Ofqual, meanwhile, showed that 2,193 16-year-olds in England got grade 9 in all their subjects – including 13 students who completed 12 GCSEs.
The fall in top grades – 7s, 8s and 9s – is not as sharp as in last week’s results from A-levels, which saw greater grade inflation during the pandemic. At A-level, results in England, Wales and Northern Ireland revealed top grades down by 8.4 percentage points on last year’s record results, while A*s alone decreased by 4.5 points.
As with A-levels, the GCSE decline was expected, after Ofqual announced that grades this summer would be pitched midpoint between 2019 and 2021, with a full return to pre-pandemic grades next summer.
The chief regulator, Jo Saxton, said: “Students collecting GCSE results today can be so proud of their achievements – a testament to their hard work and resilience over the past two years.
“As with A-level results, today’s GCSE results are higher overall than those of 2019, and – as we have always said – lower than in 2021, when there was a different method of assessment. It makes sense to compare this year’s results with those of 2019 when exams were last sat.”
The results come after two years of unprecedented disruption in schools due to the Covid pandemic, when schools closed, learning moved online and exams were cancelled and replaced with teacher assessment. Even once schools reopened, the disruption continued with large groups of children being sent home after contact with the virus and high levels of teacher absence.
This summer’s exams therefore included a number of adaptations intended to take into account lost learning due to the pandemic, including less content or fewer topics in some GCSEs and lower grade boundaries.
Passes in maths and English are critical for pupils seeking to progress. In maths, 24.9% of grades were below 4, up from 22.1% last year, though this is still down on 2019 when it was 28.5%. Likewise, in English, 22.2% of grades were 3 and below, two percentage points higher than the last two years.
In Wales close to 70% of results were C grade or higher. Some 69.7% of entries by 16-year-olds got at least a C, compared with 63.8% in 2019, the last time formal exams were taken in Wales.
Jeremy Miles, the Wales minister for education, said: “I welcome these results as we transition back to exams this year – it’s great to see what our learners have achieved.
“Don’t be too disappointed and don’t be too hard on yourself if things didn’t quite go to plan today. There are a range of options available to you, whether you’re unsure what to do next, or perhaps you didn’t sit your exams.”
Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “The fact that grades are generally lower this year compared to last year has nothing to do with the performance of pupils but reflects the decision by the government and Ofqual to move grading standards back to the 2019 standard in two stages, with this year representing a midpoint between 2019 and 2021.
“The government and Ofqual will now need to decide whether to put mitigations in place for next year. The strong indication we are hearing from school and college leaders is that this must happen because next year’s cohort will have also been heavily impacted by Covid.”
The most popular subject in terms of entries was science double award, with a total of 904,012 UK entries, up 0.9% on 2021, and maths remains the second most popular. Business studies saw the biggest percentage rise in entries of any major subject, jumping by 4.6%.
While pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland all take GCSEs, the devolution of education to each country’s governments has seen the course content, grading and methods of assessment diverge substantially, making any UK-wide comparisons difficult.
Traditional A*-G grades are used in Northern Ireland and Wales, while in England these have been replaced in with a 9-1 system, where 9 is the highest grade. In Scotland, where pupils received their exam results on 9 August, the pass rate at National 5 level fell to 80.8%, down from 85.8% in 2021.
About 7,000 students across England may not receive their BTec level 2 results as planned on Thursday. The examination board Pearson said it was attempting to provide any missing results as soon as possible. It comes after Pearson apologised last Thursday for BTec level 3 students not receiving their grades as planned on the day A-level and T-level exam results were released, throwing university places into doubt.
Kath Thomas, the interim chief executive officer of the Joint Council for Qualifications, said: “As planned – and as with last week’s A level results – these results are higher than the last set of summer exams in 2019, but lower than last year’s teacher-assessed grades. This reflects the special arrangements that were put in place to support students, schools and colleges through another challenging year due to Covid.”
