GCSE Results Day and A-Level Results Day: Our 2023 Breakdown
GCSE Results Day 2023 yesterday marks the last major grade release of another complicated exam season.
2023 has been a unique year logistically. Our GCSE learners have experienced pandemic education, and have had to learn remotely and in stressful conditions throughout some of their formative educational years—but experienced none of that at KS4. These learners were in Year 8 in March 2020 when the pandemic hit, multiple years away from their GCSEs, and as such, give us one of the first glimpses into the long-term futures of the ‘Covid Generation’ of learners.
A-Level students didn’t avoid the brunt of exam disruption so much: the majority of this year’s cohort were in Year 10 in March 2020 when the pandemic hit and the first remote education order was released, and are the age group that’s possibly experienced the most disruption to their end-stage exams in terms of the amount of exam-year learning time they’ve spent out of class.
Results day 2023 is being heralded as a benchmark for learners as it represents a true shift back to ‘business as usual’, although educators are likely finding post-pandemic education anything but a return to normal. What do A-Level and GCSE results look like in 2023, and what can they tell us about the possible learning and working futures of this generation of 16 to 18-year-olds?
A-Level Results Day 2023: How many people are going to
university next month?
• A-level results reflect the continuing journey to pre-pandemic grading.
• Grade breakdowns are broadly similar to 2019.
• 76.0% of students received grade C/4 and above.
• England has markedly lower results than other UK countries.
A-Level results day this year was a mixed bag that showed signs of recovery, interesting shifts in focus and choices for the freshman class of 2023, and a series of disappointing dips in progress deepening across regional and economic inequalities.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan MP offered those who may not have made the grade some comforting advice in her results day statement: “They won’t ask you anything about your A-level grades in 10 years’ time. They will ask you about other things you have done since then: what you have done in the workplace, what you did at university.”
A-Level Results Breakdown: the end of pandemic grade guardrails
A-Level grades in England are lower than in previous years, and lower on average than those in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, likely due to the choice made by English regulatory bodies to remove the series of Covid-era grade guardrails that have bolstered student performance over the past few years as part of a bid to combat grade inflation. Schools Minister Nick Gibb has commented in the week preceding the results release that exam results in England need to return to pre-pandemic levels to ensure A-levels carry “weight and credibility” with employers and universities—but also added that “additional protection” has been in place this year where grade boundaries have been altered if senior examiners found national evidence of a drop in standards compared with 2019.
How many people get an A* in their A-Levels?
At the top of the graph, things look positive: although the proportion of A* grades has dropped from 14.5% in 2022 to 8.6% in 2023, that’s still a 0.9% increase on 2019’s 7.7%.
There was, however, an 8%-point gap between students getting A-A* grades in south-east England and those in the north-east, wider than the 5-percentage point gap in 2019. It’s a trend that runs across the board: comparing this year’s university acceptances to pre-pandemic levels in 2019, the gap between the most and least deprived pupils has widened and is now at levels last seen a decade ago.
What about lower grades?
At the bottom of the curve, things look less positive—for the first time, more than 1 in 10 entries has been awarded an E or a U grade, which is a huge 10% increase on 2019. This means that learners are getting the grades to enter post-16 study, but a portion is failing to make the grade when it comes to the transition to post-16 education and testing in some or all subjects. It raises questions about stress, resources, and support, and some commentators on social media have even linked the dip to the spike in the number of learners taking STEM subjects, some of which have historically lower high-grade passes.
A-Level Results and University Admissions
Overall, 414,940 applicants have been awarded a place at a university or other post-18 learning destination—down 2.61% from last year, but an increase of 1.59% in 2019. UCAS chief executive Clare Marchant told BBC’s Today programme on the morning of the release of the results there has been a drop in the number of students getting a place at their first-choice university, but it’s been an expected one due to the removal of the Covid-era guardrails and a return to standard marking policy.
Some industry intakes have been impacted more than others, however. The Royal College of Nursing has analysed UCAS acceptance statistics and found a 13% drop in the number of people accepting places on nursing courses in England, a blow to the UK Government’s NHS Workforce plan.
T-Level Results Day 2023: An experiment in technical
and vocational education
A T-Level is a nationally recognised qualification for 16 to 19-year-olds that takes 2 years to complete and works closely with industry providers to give learners a training-first education. It was bought in to gradually replace the BTec National Diploma programme, but this move has proved slightly divisive amongst educators and education experts.
How many people took T-Levels this year?
It’s the second year that T-Levels have been awarded, but the first year that learners have been formally assessed. Data reveals 3,119 students, 90.5% of those picking up their results achieved at least a pass in their course, and 69.2% achieved a merit or above. Overall, this year, 22.2% of students achieved the top distinction and distinction* (the level above distinction) grades.
…But despite the strong leading figures, it’s not all good news. The 3,119 learners who received their grades this August used to be a cohort of 5,210 reported by the government to have started the two-year course in 2021. That’s a T-Level dropout rate of 1 in 3, and it follows an in-depth analysis by Ofsted that found many T-Level learners to have been ‘misled’ and that educators are ‘struggling’.
GCSE Results Breakdown: An expected dip, but
still making progress on 2019
• GCSE results reflect the continuing journey to pre-pandemic grading.
• Results are lower than 2022… but higher than 2019!
• 86.8% of students received grade C/4 and above.
• 34.5% received grade A/7 and above.
Again, it’s a week for mixed emotions if you’re in education, but the trend does track positively if we look at raw data on grades gained. As expected, grades at GCSE have fallen this year, but passing grades are still up on 2019 figures across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with those at 4/C or above up 0.9 percentage points (68.2% compared to 67.3%), and the highest grades (7/A and above), up 1.2% from 20.8% to 22%.
England has seen bigger falls in grades compared to the other nations, just like at A-Level: English top grades are 0.9 percentage points above 2019 levels, but Welsh top grades are still 3.3% above those achieved in 2019, and in Northern Ireland 4% above those achieved in 2019.
What schools get the best GCSE results crown in 2023?
The majority of state schools in England, including academies, secondary moderns, comprehensive schools and grammar schools, largely outperformed pre-Covid results in top grades and in pass rates. Independent schools and free schools saw proportionally fewer top grades than in 2019.
Grammar schools saw 59% of their exam entries awarded a grade 7 or above, while 47% of entries from private and non-grammar fee-paying schools were awarded the same. Meanwhile, 21% of entries from academies got a Grade 7-9, as did 19% of entries from comprehensives and middle schools.
What do these pass rates mean for the class of 2023 and for post-16 resourcing?
Opinions are divided: some believe that the return to pre-pandemic grading systems was the right way to combat grade inflation and re-establish grading on an even keel post-pandemic. Others feel that it has unfairly disadvantaged a generation of learners who although weren’t engaged in GCSE study when the lockdowns hit, have still been adversely impacted by it in terms of their learning, mental health, and confidence.
The Education Endowment Foundation commented that the dip in GCSE pass rates means many more young people will have to retake English and Maths for at least the next two years at school or college. This is required by the Department for Education, and a Grade 4 or above is needed for eligibility for Student Finance support when at university, but some worry that it’s likely to put a lot of strain on the UK’s post-16 sector.
Becky Francis, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation, commented:
“With the adjustments to grading, the number of pupils achieving a ‘standard pass’ in GCSE English and maths has fallen to 68%, a five-percentage point drop from last year. This means there’ll be more young people required to carry on studying for these qualifications in an already stretched post-16 sector. As things stand, many are unlikely to achieve a pass even through resits.”
What about SEN learners?
We don’t have targeted grade and performance breakdowns for SEN learners as part of the JCQ release about GCSE results and A-Level Results 2023: we do know anecdotally from educators all over social media that of learners with Special Educational Needs, many had difficult years grade-wise in 2021 and 2022. We also know that as a sub-set of pupils, they’ve been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, with an Ofsted report from 2021 exploring in depth a series of long-standing problems in the care and education of SEN learners.
It's not as bleak a year as the above might suggest, though—some schools and learners with SEN have had extremely successful years, and the UK government is currently investing in new provision for SEN learners with a number of new centres for access to high-quality specialised learning opening across England. Once complete, it’ll more than double the number of special free school places available across the country—from around 8,500 to 19,000—ensuring that many more children with SEN receive an education that’s tailored to their needs.
Whatever your grades, whatever your next steps on the learning and working journey are, we’d like to offer the Class of 2023 a huge congratulations from all of us at Scanning Pens. You’ve achieved something amazing!
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