There could be 230,000 fewer top tiers in the UK compared to 2021, but 230,000 more than in 2019, according to Professor Alan Smithers, director of the center for research into education and employment at the University of Buckingham. Professor Smithers said the change in this year’s GCSE results was likely to be similar to that seen in A-level results last week, when grades fell from pandemic highs but remained above 2019 levels. Last year, the proportion of GCSE entries with top grades rose to an all-time high after exams were canceled for the second year in a row due to Covid-19 and students received results set by their teachers. Overall, 28.9% of UK GCSE takers received one of the top grades, an increase of 2.7 percentage points on 2020. In 2019, when the exams were last held, only a fifth (20, 8%) of entries achieved at least 7 or A Grade. Prof Smithers said grades were expected to return to around half between 2021 and 2019, meaning disappointment for many. “In 2022, we can reasonably expect a drop in the top grades, with many more failing to reach the (C/4) pass level,” he said. “In England, the largest proportion of falls will be at grade 9 and many more will fall below grade 4. “We can take the A-level results as indicators. At A level the top grades were cut, but not by as much as the government wanted, I suspect because high grades were scored in the easier exams and lower grades for higher grades will be difficult to defend on appeal.” He said he expected girls to remain “well ahead of boys, with only a small narrowing of the gap since returning to the exam”. In the latest A-level results, girls continued to outperform boys overall, although the difference was narrower. The proportion of girls who got an A or above was 2.2 percentage points higher than boys this year, compared with a 4.8 percentage point gap last year. This year’s A-level results also showed a widening attainment gap between the most affluent areas of London and the south-east and north-east. While the gap between the south and the northeast was between 4 and 5 percentage points in 2019, it now stands at more than 8 percentage points. As with A-levels, it provided extra help for GCSE students with back-to-back exams, including more generous marking, advance information on topics, formulas and equation sheets for GCSE maths, physics and combined science exams. Prof Smithers said: “Girls were much further ahead at GCSE than at A-level, so I wouldn’t expect to see a significant impact on GCSEs, especially with the modified exams.” Figures covering GCSE entries by students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) on Thursday. While traditional A*-G grades are used in Northern Ireland and Wales, in England they have been replaced with a 9-1 system, where 9 is the highest. 4 is broadly equivalent to a C grade and 7 is broadly equivalent to an A grade. A study, published last week, found that 16-year-olds who qualify for free school meals are around 27 percentage points less likely to get good GCSEs than their less disadvantaged peers and concluded that the attainment gap between the poorest pupils and of the best -Classmates are as old now as they were 20 years ago.
