GCSEs 2024: what to expect from tomorrow’s results

Thousands of students across the country will discover their GCSE results on Thursday.

Grading standards this year will be the same as in 2023, when the distribution of top grades remained slightly above the level achieved in 2019.

Although last week’s A-level results actually showed an increase in performance, voices across the sector have been warning about the disruption that this year’s GCSE students have faced in their education, from pandemic lockdowns to the attendance crisis and the closure of school buildings containing reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

Here are the main trends and issues to look out for on GCSE results day.

GCSEs 2024: grading standards maintained

Ofqual has said it expects GCSE results to be broadly similar to those achieved in summer 2023.

The exams regulator is continuing with its back-to-normal grading approach from last year, 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.

It has said: “What we have asked examiners to do this year is to maintain standards from 2023 and ensure that the level of work this year is broadly comparable to last year.

“When making judgements about the quality of students’ work, we have asked them to bear in mind any residual impact of disruption on performance. Of course, results may rise and fall in different subjects, as happens in any normal year.”

The 2023 results brought an expected fall in the proportion of top grades compared with 2022 - but the proportion remained slightly above the 2019, pre-pandemic, level.

Last year 67.8 per cent of entries overall received a grade 4/C or above, and 21.6 per cent received a grade 7/A or above.

However, last week’s A-level results, which were also expected to be similar to 2023 levels, showed a rise in top grades above pre-pandemic highs.

Sir Ian Bauckham, chief regulator at Ofqual, said there had been no grade inflation in last week’s A-level results and “any change is largely due to the ability of the cohort”.

Disruption to education

Although grading has now generally returned to the pre-pandemic normal, headteachers and leaders have warned that the impact of Covid is not over.

This Year 11 cohort was in Year 7 when the pandemic started, meaning their first two years of transitioning to secondary school were disrupted.

This cohort has, however, been allowed to keep equation and formulae sheets in maths, physics and double science exams - a move that unions have urged to be made permanent.

Some of the Year 11s receiving their GCSE results on Thursday will also have had some learning disrupted by the presence of collapse-prone RAAC at their school.

Students at some schools may not have had specialist classrooms, such as science labs, or may have been learning on separate sites or in temporary buildings.

RAAC-affected schools were able to apply for extended deadlines for coursework.

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) confirmed that schools could apply for special consideration through the normal process if RAAC caused disruption on the day of an exam - such as through noisy building work.

A growing disadvantage gap?

As well as concerns about the ongoing impact of Covid on learning, schools have been facing an attendance crisis since the pandemic.

The levels of persistent absence for Year 11s for the autumn and spring terms have remained far above the pre-pandemic levels, at 27.6 per cent.

For disadvantaged students, this level rose to nearly half, at 46.4 per cent.

Some trust leaders have warned that this could lead to a bigger attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers in this year’s GCSE results.

Last year the attainment gap between the North and the South of England increased, and the key stage 4 attainment gap grew to its widest since 2011.

English and maths resits

In 2023 there was an increase in the number of students aged 16 failing to achieve the grade 4 they needed to pass in English and maths, meaning that they had to resit.

Many sector leaders have warned that the resit policy leaves students stuck in a cycle of having to retake multiple times.

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said in a report this week: “It must be soul-destroying to continually have to retake English and/or maths. Surely there is an urgent need for a policy rethink.

“Although [the policy is] well-intended, it looks to be utterly demoralising to pupils who find difficulty with these GCSEs.”

Resits in November can be taken in English language and maths. Students can resit any other GCSE subjects in summer 2025.

Some grading adjustment

Three subjects have had adjustments to their grading standards for summer 2024, Ofqual has announced - computer science, French and German.

Exam boards have been required to make positive adjustments at grades 9,7 and 4 for GCSE German this year, and grades 7 and 4 for GCSE French.

The adjustments are intended to better align the languages’ grading standards with Spanish.

Research shows that in GCSE computer science grading standards became slightly more stringent from 2014 to 2019. Examiners have been asked to award more generously at grades 9,7 and 4 this summer in recognition of this research finding.

EBacc entries expected to flatline

In his report looking at expectations for this year’s GCSE results, Prof Smithers also sets out how the percentage of students taking five GCSE English Baccalaureate (EBacc) subjects has stayed at around 40 per cent since 2014.

He has called for the EBacc performance measure to be scrapped.

The fact that EBacc entries have not increased is mostly due to relatively few students taking languages at GCSE, FFT Education Datalab said.

Provisional entry data shows that while uptake of languages at GCSE has increased this year, it has risen by less than the increase in the population of 16-year-olds, according to FFT.

The last year of Progress 8 for a while

There will be no replacement accountability measure for Progress 8 for the 2025 and 2026 exams, the Department for Education has announced - meaning that the scores based on this year’s results will be the last ones until 2027.

Progress 8 scores cannot be published for those years because the corresponding cohorts did not take primary tests due to the Covid pandemic. This means that the government does not have a starting point to measure their progress from.

The new Labour government could choose to make changes to the way exam performance is measured, as it has just launched a curriculum and assessment review led by Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the Education Endowment Foundation.

The review group can propose “amendments or alternatives” to existing performance measures. Recommendations are expected to be published next year.
 

• GCSE results day 2024: everything you need to know
• How much does attendance really affect GCSE results?
• GCSE results day: a head of department’s guide
• Concern over exam impact on student mental health

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