Confidence in GCSEs fell dramatically after last summer’s grading fiasco, according to a new YouGov survey.

Just 27 per cent of respondents said that GCSEs were trusted in 2020 compared with a trust level of 75 per cent in a normal year.

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And only around a fifth - 21 per cent - of respondents said that GCSE standards had been maintained, compared with 45 per cent of respondents agreeing with this statement in a normal year.

The survey results indicate that people felt there had been more of a negative impact on GCSEs being good preparation for further study in 2020, with just 38 per cent of respondents agreeing that GCSEs were a good preparation for the next stage of study compared with 73 per cent in a normal year.

Loss of confidence in GCSEs and A levels

In total, 43 per cent of the more than 3,000 respondents said they disagreed or strongly disagreed with the idea that GCSEs were trusted qualifications in 2020, and over half of headteachers who responded - 56 per cent - disagreed. Just over half of teachers - 51 per cent - said the same.

There was a similar decline in confidence seen for AS and A levels.

Less than a third (29 per cent) of respondents said they trusted AS and A levels last year compared with 82 per cent in a normal year, while only 20 per cent felt standards in the qualifications had been maintained, compared with 50 per cent in a normal year.

School leaders and teachers were also more worried about exam malpractice in 2020.

Teachers of GCSE, AS and A level were less likely to agree that they were confident that malpractice incidents were fairly investigated in 2020 - 41 per cent compared with 71 per cent in other years.

And just 37 per cent felt malpractice was properly reported when it happened in 2020 compared with 66 per cent in other years.