Students at Amersham and Wycombe College picking up their GCSE results.
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These subjects will be marked numerically – from a nine for the top-performing students down to one for those who have struggled.
Principal Andy Burton said: “After a fitful night’s sleep I am delighted to say that the Kingswood Secondary Academy is celebrating some markedly improved results compared to a year ago”. To be able to achieve performance like this consistently over a number of years is testament to the aspiration of the school for every single pupil. Take up for Science A Levels is encouragingly high, with half of this year group opting to take at least one STEM subject next year and one in five taking Physics, a notoriously male dominated subject.
Falls in English and maths were among the most shocking.
The proportion of entries awarded A* – C grades has risen by 0.4% this year to 79.1%.
The pass rate for the top grades has fallen again this year, as GCSE students from across the United Kingdom find out how they’ve performed on Results Day.
Statistics for school leavers show A*-C grades were down 1.3 percentage points to 69.5, A* results were down by 0.1 percentage points and A*-A by 0.6 percentage points.
“There is a significant movement in this year’s entries, which impacts on results and creates a very complex national picture”, said Michael Turner, the director of the Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents the combined examination boards.
“We see shifts not only between subjects but across qualifications and year groups. This is driven by several factors, including performance measures and resit policies in England”.
Just under 83% of girls sitting GCSEs gained A* – C grades, up 0.7% on past year.
The overall pass rate – those achieving A* to G – also slightly dropped from 98.6 per cent in 2015 to 98.4 per cent this year.
The provisional results show that the number of pupils achieving grades A*-C in mathematics has increased by a staggering 14 percentage points to 70 per cent and that attainment in English has also continued to improve to 72 per cent.
“Overall the vast majority of schools have improved on the progress their pupils are making against national standards – some are far exceeding it”. It replaces the government’s previous measure, the proportion of pupils achieving C or higher in five GCSE subjects including English and maths.
School-level results under the new Progress 8 measure will not be available until the Department for Education releases its official calculations later this year.
The previous “gold standard” (five or more good passes including English and maths) a year ago was 56 percent in the East Riding, compared to 53 percent nationally.
Now the focus is on which subjects to study next year in the sixth form. The entry decline was anticipated, given the 5% drop in pupil numbers.
“Teachers were faced this year with the introduction of less accessible syllabuses, including cuts to course work and no oral element in English”, he said. These students have coped with these challenges in a most mature way.
The exams are typically taken by school students aged 14-16, across the United Kingdom excluding Scotland.
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It is believed the boost in grades of 16-year-olds can be attributed to fewer early entries at 15 years old, after changes that discouraged schools from entering pupils early.
