This years GCSE outcomes have proven a widening hole between the grades achieved within the north and south of the UK.
- High grades are nonetheless highest in London, with 32.6% of pupils attaining a grade 7 or above. When in comparison with final 12 months’s outcomes, highest grades (7+) have fallen most in within the South West, adopted by the North West. They fell the least in London.
- Outcomes are larger than pre-pandemic throughout all areas, however London has seen the largest will increase since 2019 adopted by the South East and East of England at 5.7%.
The autumn in prime grades (7+) is just not as sharp as in final week’s A-level outcomes, which noticed a lot higher grade inflation in the course of the pandemic. At A-level, leads to England, Wales and Northern Eire revealed prime grades down by 8.4 share factors on final 12 months, whereas A*s alone decreased by 4.5 factors.
As with A-levels, the GCSE grade decline was anticipated, after Ofqual introduced that grades this summer season could be drawn at a midpoint between 2019 and 2021, with a full return to pre-pandemic grades anticipated subsequent summer season.
- One other sample seen throughout each GCSE and A-level outcomes was that the largest drop within the prime grades was at impartial colleges, falling from 61% final 12 months to 53% this 12 months. At grammar colleges the quantity fell from 69% to 66%, and at comprehensives from 26% to 23%.
- Jon Andrews, Head of Evaluation on the Schooling Coverage Institute, stated that college students needs to be “proud” of their achievements, however stated the important thing level the federal government ought to take-away from immediately’s outcomes is the north-south divide.
“Maybe extra noteworthy, nevertheless, is that this morning’s outcomes present the persevering with divide within the attainment ranges between totally different areas of England.”
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“Whereas it’s unclear the extent to which it is a continuation of long-term tendencies of regional disparities, our analysis has beforehand highlighted training within the north and the midlands to have been, on common, extra severely impacted by the pandemic than in different components of the nation. It’s clear the Authorities should do extra to fight geographic inequalities in instructional outcomes.”
The Affiliation of College and School Leaders stated that mitigations needs to be put in place once more for 2023’s GCSE exams. They stated that subsequent 12 months’s cohort have additionally been “closely impacted” by the pandemic throughout their instructing, main as much as these exams.
