Students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are receiving GCSE, BTec Tech Awards and other level 2 qualifications today, the first year that GCSE grades were expected to be similar to 2019 across all three nations.
It follows a growth in the percentage of passes in 2020 and 2021, when exams were cancelled because of Covid, and a phased effort to bring them back down. Last year, fewer passes in English and maths GCSE exams meant more students in England needed to resit.
About 200,000 students are getting results for BTec Tech Awards, BTec Firsts and BTec Level 2 Technical courses, while about 120,000 receiving results for Cambridge Nationals. Most students receiving results were in Year 7 when the first Covid lockdowns were announced, so have spent every year of their secondary education in the midst, or the wake, of the pandemic.
GCSE students in England were the final year group to be given formulae and equation sheets in maths and science in recognition of the disruption, while exams were back to normal in Wales and Northern Ireland. Exams were cancelled across the UK in 2020 and 2021 because of Covid restrictions, with pupils' grades based on teachers' predictions instead, which led to a spike in passes and top results before phased approaches were then introduced to bring results back down to 2019 levels.
In England, that happened last year, which is why it saw the steepest drop in the percentage of grades marked at 4/C or above. In Wales and Northern Ireland, this will be the first year that grades are expected to fall back in line with pre-Covid levels.
Overall, 68.2% of grades last year were marked at 4/C or above in 2023, with the changes in England last year - combined with more teenagers sitting GCSEs - meant that fewer students achieved grade 4 or above in maths and English. That, in turn, meant that tens of thousands more students needed to take compulsory resits, as students in England need grade 4s or above in English and maths to qualify for further study.
Last week, the percentage of top A-level grades rose for the first time since 2021 across the whole of England, Wales and Northern Ireland - but the picture was different depending on where you looked. The proportion of top grades rose in England but fell in Wales and Northern Ireland.
The pass rate for Higher exams in Scotland returned to its 2019 level this month while the pass rate for National 5s and Advanced Highers dropped further. Grading in England will be more generous for GCSEs in computer science, French and German this year, but exams regulator Ofqual said, external this was to do with ensuring standards were fair in these subjects, rather than compensating for Covid disruption.
