The attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their peers does not appear to have increased as a result of exams being cancelled, according to new research.
The gap may have actually closed slightly at the GCSE grade 4 or above threshold, new analysis by the FFT Education Datalab shows.
Philip Nye, a researcher with FFT Education Datalab, said: “The gap remains worryingly large - but many of us feared that disadvantaged pupils might have lost out with the cancellation of GCSE exams and the move to an alternative awarding approach. That does not seem to have happened.
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“All efforts should now be made to support disadvantaged pupils who will take their GCSEs in 2021 to ensure that the attainment gap does not widen next year.”
Tackling the GCSE results disadvantage gap
Analysing GCSE results from more than 1,200 secondary schools in England, researchers found that 78 per cent of non-disadvantaged students achieved a grade 4 or above in English and maths, compared with 56 per cent of disadvantaged students. This is a gap of 22 percentage points, whereas last year it was 26.
The difference between the share of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students achieving a “strong pass” in English and maths, which is a grade 5 or above, stayed broadly constant: 23 percentage points this year - it was 24 percentage points last year.
The gender gap in attainment remained at a similar level to last year as well.
However, given the unprecedented circumstances characterising this year’s exam results, we need to be careful drawing conclusions, Mr Nye told Tes.
He said: “I think it’s fair to say that this year’s results are somewhat different to previous years’.
“Given the problems with the process this summer, we should be cautious about drawing conclusions about the underlying ability of disadvantaged pupils and non-disadvantage pupils, or boys and girls.
“But what our results do tell us is that disadvantaged pupils don’t seem to have been further disadvantaged in the actual results handed out this summer - and it’s those results that act as the key to the range of post-16 options on offer.”
Asked whether the research findings would have been different if Ofqual-awarded results had been kept instead of centre-assessed grades, he said: “It’s very difficult to say how things would have looked had Ofqual’s approach been implemented.
“Given it was based on rank orderings supplied by schools, it’s possible that attainment gaps wouldn’t have looked much different to how they’ve ended up (albeit with much lower percentages of pupils of all kind getting grades 4+/5+). But it’s very hard to say, without having seen those alternative results.”
