The GCSE resit policy is in crisis. In summer 2025, 17.1 per cent of post-16 entries in maths and 20.9 per cent in English achieved a grade 4 or above. Despite billions spent and years of interventions, pass rates remain stagnant, leaving thousands stuck in a cycle of resits.
The curriculum and assessment review rightly called time on this cycle. It found that performance measures have contributed to repeated resits and premature exam entries. In response, the Department for Education will revise progress measures and is pushing for stronger accountability in English and maths teaching – not just compliance.
But policy alone won’t fix the problem. If we want different outcomes, we need different delivery. One practical solution is volunteer tutoring, which complements classroom teaching without unrealistically asking exhausted teachers to do more. Instead, it taps into a pool of trained volunteers including trainee teachers, retired professionals, and employer-supported volunteers who want to make a difference.
More hours, same outcomes?
From 2025-26, providers must offer a minimum 100 hours of in-person, whole-class teaching in English and/or maths for students below grade 4. It’s a bold bet that time on task will raise pass rates. But growing inputs without changing the design of learning may not improve outcomes, especially for vulnerable groups like care-experienced learners.
The shape of provision matters as much as the hours. Pairing the 100-hour rule with a scalable model of targeted volunteer support would help those who are most at risk. Volunteers can provide personalised attention that large classes cannot, turning mandated hours into meaningful learning.
From experience supporting care-experienced learners, a volunteer-led tutoring model backed by strong local partnerships offers three standout features:
Trained volunteers: Delivering structured one-to-one tutorials by specialist volunteer coaches either online or in-person can radically lower cost while sustaining personalisation.
Partnerships remove friction: Working with virtual school heads, local authorities and FE providers identifies learners early and starts tuition quickly.
Progress first, resit second: Focuses strongly on targeting knowledge gaps and confidence, aligned with the stepping stone qualifications recommended by the curriculum and assessment review.
This combination of teacher volunteering and fast start-up times can complement the 100-hour rule to help disadvantaged learners turn mandated hours into meaningful learning.
A blueprint for what works
FE leaders and policymakers could advocate the following to make this work:
Blend the 100-hour rule with targeted volunteer-led tutoring. By ring-fencing funds for disadvantaged groups to co-commission volunteer-led tutoring so that learners below grade 3 are quickly aligned and ready for the ‘stepping stone’ approach and content.
Brokering employer-supported tutoring. By working with business leaders and local authority leaders to leverage local skills improvement plans and recruit regional employer cohorts who provide trained volunteers.
Prioritising care-experienced learners. Setting a requirement for your college to ensure a care-experienced English and maths plan is put in place, with early diagnostics and tutoring offers.
Many will understandably contest whether volunteer tutoring can be reliable and big enough to scale-up. But there are many key learnings the volunteer-led model can introduce and for the interim at least, several reasons to suggest that it can plug the gap.
Prioritising online delivery for volunteer-assisted support would also eliminate travel time and broaden matching, enabling consistent monitoring. For care-experienced students whose placements often change, continuity is imperative for their equity. Volunteer tutoring would complement, not replace the 100 hours. Because volunteer-led tutoring is supplementary, it’s a model that works to provide flexible support that doesn’t cannibalise classroom capacity.
A moment for bold reform
The curriculum and assessment review offers a chance to turn the GCSE resit policy into something that works more effectively for learners, schools and colleges, and the economy. Success depends on designing effective provision for disadvantaged learners.
Volunteer-powered models like ours (which is sponsored by Harrow School) won’t solve everything. But they solve the central constraint on cost, without giving up one thing that we know changes trajectories for the hardest-to-reach learners – consistent and personalised attention.
If we pair this with the government’s renewed focus on time, progression and pathways, we can finally build a resit system that works for everyone.
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