There has been a small increase in the proportion of students achieving a grade 4 pass in their GCSE maths resit in England – but pass rates for English have continued to fall.
Results published today show that 17.4 per cent of the 185,727 post-16 learners taking GCSE maths in 2024 achieved a grade 4 or above – a 1 percentage point rise compared to last year.
This year’s maths resit grade 4 pass rate is, however, almost 4 percentage points lower than the pre-pandemic level of 21.2 per cent.
In English, 148,569 students entered to resit the GCSE in post-16 education and the proportion that achieved a grade 4 pass was 20.9 per cent. This is 5 percentage points lower than 2023, and almost 10 percentage points down on 2019.
The results mean there are over 31,000 more people who have gained their GCSE English grade 4 or above after failing to do so at school, and over 32,000 in maths.
Rising cohorts and gender gaps
A gender gap in pass rates is noticeable in post-16 GCSE English, where 25.9 per cent of females achieved a grade 4 or above compared to 17.3 per cent of males. In maths, the pass rate for females in 2024 was 18.2 per cent compared to 16.6 per cent for males.
Cohorts for both subjects were much higher in 2024: in English, there were 31,000 more resit entries compared to 2023 and 30,000 more entries to maths resits.
FE Week analysis shows that 175,898 pupils aged 16 failed to achieve a grade 4 GCSE maths in school this year and could need to resit the subject in 2024/25.
And for English, the data shows 181,682 didn’t achieve the grade 4 pass grade at school and are in line for retakes over the next year.
Where will Labour land on resits policy?
Introduced in 2014, the government’s resits policy forces students who have not achieved a grade 4 pass in English and/or maths GCSE by age 16 to continue to work towards achieving these qualifications as a condition of their places being funded.
Students who achieve a grade 3 have to retake their GCSE, while students with a grade 2 or below can either take a functional skills level 2 or resit their GCSE.
The policy has split the sector since its inception, with some arguing it is a vital lifeline for young people who struggled at school, while others say that forcing students to repeatedly retake the exams is demoralising.
In 2018, then shadow education secretary Angela Rayner vowed that a Labour government would scrap the resits policy. The party’s current education team have however been silent on the issue since coming into power last month.
Pepe Di’Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, congratulated students on today’s results but added: “We must recognise that this is not the story in England for a significant proportion of students who fall short of achieving at least a grade 4 GCSE pass in English and maths, and so will be consigned to a remorseless treadmill of resits in post-16 education under rules drawn up by the last government.
“As this year’s results show, most of these students once again fall short of the grade 4 benchmark in their resits. This is completely demoralising.”
Di’Iasio called on the government to use its current curriculum and assessment review, being led by Professor Becky Francis, to “scrap the requirements which compel mass resits”.
University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady echoed the call.
She said: “This should be the last year that students are forced to endure the resit nightmare. Labour’s curriculum and assessment review should begin by recognising student’s diverse array of talents and focus on empowering students to study subjects they enjoy and enable them to thrive.”
Cath Sezen, director of education policy at Association of Colleges, added: “After 10 years of condition of funding the time is right to review government policy and look at a different way to support students to gain crucial English and maths skills, rather than putting them through a system which can leave many of them feeling that they have failed again and again.’’
For a well rounded view, it’s probably also worth including the 2020/21/22 results.
Grade inflation during Covid for schools GCSEs meant there were fewer re-sits required in following years. As grades returned to normal, you’d expect fluctuations in re-sit volumes and results.
That being said, even before Covid and the data volatility caused by TAGs & CAGs, a grade 4 re-sit rate of around 20% maths and 30% English is terrible and a failure of policy & under-resourcing. The only winners are the awarding bodies who get repeat business.
What about the quality of the marks ? I mean, as the present marks are based on a national average, these don’t mean a thing. Almost useless. If everyone would do bad, the best of the bad would get a high grade, with the present system.
Why doesn’t the government, the ministry of education determine what the score to obtain is, in order to pass. If that would one available, the outcome of exams could immediately be determined, with needing to calculate with a national average. It would more over be possible to determine how good or bad students have done. A quality of education would be visible. Why, like at present, would ones mark be depending on the score of someone else ?
Agreed – this is a terrible system. My daughter was on track for an 8 in English Language from her last mocks. Despite getting a much HIGHER raw score on her actual GCSEs, she was awarded a 4 – because the AQA set the grade boundaries AFTER the results were all in. How are children supposed to strive for achievement when their future is based on such arbitrary criteria?
And what’s the point of trying to compare year-on-year achievement when the goalposts move so drastically each year?