English and Maths GCSE resit results 2017

Here are the results for all candidates aged 17 and over in the UK who sat GCSE Maths, English language and English literature in summer 2017.

These are the results for the old-style “legacy” GCSEs using the A*-G grading system. Next year, everyone (resits included) will have to sit the reformed Maths and English GCSEs, which use the 9-1 grading system (our qualifications expert Gemma Gathercole has explained the new grades here).

Maths GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+

  Maths GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+

Maths GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+ (cumulative)

English language GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+

English language GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+

English language GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+ (cumulative)

English literature GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+

English literature GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+

English literature GCSE results 2017 – UK – candidates age 17+ (cumulative)

*Page updated 17:47 on 24 August 2017 to upload the correct cumulative table for English literature

New 9-1 GCSE grading system and equivalent A*-G grades

In 2018 all pupils sitting Maths, English language and English literature will sit the reformed GCSEs, which use a new 9-1 grading system (where 9 is the highest), though the new numbers don’t correspond exactly with the old letters.

While this means it will be impossible to compare individual grades, Ofqual have named certain grades as “tie points”, so we will be able to make comparisons between bands of grades (see chart below).

Here’s a handy explainer of what the new grading system means for post-16 resits.

Tens of thousands more students will need to resit English GCSEs

Over 40,000 more students may need to resit their English GCSE next year than did this year, after failing to achieve the required grade 4 in the reformed exams.

There should be slightly fewer resits overall in maths, however.

Just under 160,000 pupils scored below the grade 4 threshold – equivalent to a D or below in the old-style grading system – in their English language GCSEs in 2017, while almost 145,000 achieved similar results in English literature.

In 2016, around 110,000 earned a D or below in English language, and almost 100,000 did the same in English literature – which represents roughly 50,000 and 44,000 more pupils falling below the 4/C boundary respectively.

The increase is due to both English disciplines being swelled by hundreds of thousands more entrants, after schools that used to enter their pupils into the iGCSE English exams opted for the regular GCSEs this year.

This influx of new pupils – around 150,000 more in English language and 120,000 more in English literature – makes comparative analysis difficult. What we do know for sure is that many more pupils in both disciplines achieved a grade 3 or under – a grade D equivalent – this year than did last year.

The total number of resits cannot be calculated accurately from these results, however, as students are required to pass only one English GCSE – either language or literature.

What also isn’t clear is whether the students who departed the iGCSE courses will do their resits at their schools, or whether they will flock to the nation’s college system.

The picture is different in the new-style maths GCSEs. In 2016, around 168,000 students achieved a D or below, but this year that figure is closer to 156,000 – meaning there will all-told be nearly 12,000 fewer resits in 2018.

The controversial resit policy is still relatively new; it was introduced in August 2013, following Professor Alison Wolf’s review of vocational education, using the core principal that any student who hasn’t achieved at least a C at GCSE maths and English by 16 must continue to work towards that grade.

It became a condition of funding a year later, and a year after that, it was extended to compel students with Ds to resit their exams rather than take a stepping stone qualification.

The skills minister both hinted at changes to the policy at the AoC conference in 2016. 

“It is clear that we need a credible, high-quality option for students for whom GCSEs are not appropriate or achievable,” said Robert Halfon.

His boss Justine Greening echoed these words, speaking of striking “the right balance” between pushing people to reach their potential and making sure “they’re not spending time running upwards against a brick wall that they’re not going to get over”.

Momentum for change appeared to have grown by December, when no lesser person than Ofsted’s then-chief inspector used his annual report to criticise the policy, saying: “While the policy’s intention to improve literacy and numeracy levels is well intentioned, the implementation of the policy is not having the desired impact in practice.” 

Nevertheless, in April this year, the DfE opted to maintain the status quo, claiming that “nothing has changed” and that it would “continue to examine” the policy “as stated in the industrial strategy green paper”.

Explaining new GCSE grades and what this means for post-16 resits

By this time on results day, we’re all now aware of the new style of numerical GCSE grading.

But if you’re still getting your head around whether a 1 or a 9 is the best grade, or wondering what this means for students starting post-16 courses this September and who will be subject to the English and maths funding condition, then this is the guide for you.

Which is best, 9 or 1?

First of all, the clue to the grading structure is in the title of these new GCSEs – they’re referred to by the regulator as “GCSE 9 to 1”. Grade 9 is the highest on the new scale and grade 1 is the lowest. Ofqual has produced this handy post card to explain how the new grades match the old ones.

So, a grade 4 is a C?

Well not quite. It’s not a straightforward relationship between old grades and new: there are now 9 grades, plus fail, in the system, whereas there were previously eight. In this first year, the same proportion of students who would have got a C or above will get a 4 or above in the new system. But not everyone who would have got a C will get a 4 – some will get a 5.

What’s a pass?

If I’m being pedantic, any grade is a pass: GCSEs span two levels. Grades D-G or 3-1 are level 1 outcomes and grades A*-C or 9-4 are level 2 outcomes. But what you really what to know is what constitutes a good pass. 

READ MORE: Which English and maths resits should your students take?

Here we’ve got some new terminology: the Department for Education announced in March that it would consider grade 4 to be a “standard” pass and grade 5 a “strong” pass.

What does this mean for the funding condition?

Funding condition requirements have not changed. Students who don’t achieve the required grade in English or maths must study that subject as part of their study programme. Students who achieve one grade below the requirement must be enrolled on a GCSE programme, whereas students on lower grades can choose to study GCSEs, Functional Skills or other eligible qualifications.

In the old system, students who did not achieve a C or above were subject to the funding condition. In the new system, it kicks in at grade 4 or above, so students achieving 3-1 or U will continue to study English and maths. Students with a 3 (a D in the old system) must be enrolled on a GCSE.

If your learners are not yet ready for assessment, they can continue to study the qualification until they are ready to be assessed

These requirements stay in place until a learner achieves grade 4 or above, or ages out of 16-19 funding. There is a no requirement, however, that a student is entered for examination at any specific time. So if your learners are not yet ready for assessment, they can continue to study the qualification until they are ready to be assessed. Remember though, as GCSEs are now linear qualifications, assessment is only available once a year, during the summer series.

There are relatively few opportunities for 16- to 19-year-olds to be exempted from the funding condition. Students undertaking an apprenticeship are exempted as apprenticeships have their own English and maths requirements, and students on short programmes lasting less than 150 hours are too. There is no exemption for students on part-time programmes lasting longer than 150 hours or students on traineeships. Students with specific SEN needs are not automatically exempt, but can be if there is evidence they could not attempt GCSE.

How many students got a grade 3?

Below are our estimates for the number of students falling into the grade 3 bracket. The figures below are taken from JCQ results statistics. Table 1 is for all students taking new GCSEs in English, English literature and mathematics in England. Table 2 is for all students age 16 but the figures are UK wide.

Table 1:

 
                                  

Table 2:

Will more students be doing resits?

So we’ve repeated our analysis of the JCQ figures from 2016. Table 1 is for all students taking GCSEs in English, English literature and mathematics in England. Table 2 is for all students aged 16, but the figures are UK wide.

Table 1:

Table 2:

So even our inexact figures suggest that the demand for resits this year will be higher, given that this year’s cohort of 16-year-olds is demographically smaller. It will be interesting to see if this is a trend or a one-off transition anomaly.

BREAKING: ESFA appoints Eileen Milner as its new chief executive

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has appointed a permanent chief executive to replace Peter Lauener.

Eileen Milner, who joins the ESFA from the Care Quality Commission, will start her new job in November, after which Mr Lauener is expected to retire. 

In his announcement, he wrote that the appointment process for the position of chief executive at the Institute for Apprenticeships “is still underway” and that “there will be an announcement about that in the autumn”.

“I will be working with Eileen on a handover plan,” he said, adding “I am sure she will want to meet external colleagues and partners as soon as she can, once she is in post.”

Ms Milner is currently the executive director of customer and corporate services at the CQC, and has worked across the public and private sectors. She brings what Mr Lauener described as “considerable experience at a senior level at the CQC, as well as at Northgate Information Solutions “, which is “a software and services business with a large presence in public services in the UK”. 

The AELP’s CEO Mark Dawe welcomed the appointment.

“It’s great that Ms Milner is bringing with her a mix of public and private sector experience which should stand her in good stead in the light of the levy and employer-led reforms. Her understanding of the need to maintain quality in the face of increased competition in the delivery of public services is also a big plus. 

“AELP wishes her every success in her new post.”

His sentiment was echoed by Kirsti Lord, the deputy chief executive of the AoC.

“Congratulations to Eileen Milner on her appointment as chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency,” she said. “She will bring a wealth of experience from the Care Quality Commission and will be able to use this in the education sector. AoC is looking forward to continuing the strong working relationship with ESFA.”

More follows

 

GCSE resits 2017: Sharp fall in maths results but English improves

Just under a quarter of the older students resitting their maths GCSEs achieved grades of A* to C this year, a sharp fall of 5.1 percentage points.

In English, however, the picture is somewhat rosier: 29 per cent of learners scored a C or above, up 2.1 points from 2016.

In total, 149,537 students sat the old-style of GCSE maths exams this year; from next year pupils taking resits will sit the new, reformed style of GCSEs which are graded from 9-1 rather than A*-G, in both English and maths.

Just 59,558 people resat GCSE English this year, a fall of more than 50 per cent on last year.

According to Mark Dawe, the boss of the AELP, these results show that “2017 should be the last year for compulsory English & Maths GCSE resits”, and he urged ministers to get behind Functional Skills as a suitable alternative to system that he believes leads to “mass failure”.

“English and maths are important for the whole population but the resits policy is leading to mass failure,” he said. “The government should abandon it now and instead focus on Functional Skills being a good alternative.

English and Maths GCSE results tables

“Ministers should fund Functional Skills properly if they are genuine about the apprenticeship programme being a quality option for young people and adults.”

Kirsti Lord, the deputy chief executive the AoC said English and maths are “a challenge for colleges”, describing resits as “an obstacle to the ambition that we all share”, but welcomed the increase in the English pass rate.

“It is disappointing that this trend didn’t continue with maths,” she said. “Colleges will continue to face the English and maths challenge while the government insists on 16- to 18-year-old students who haven’t achieved a grade C/4 at GCSE resitting the exam. After four years of putting students through GCSE resits, colleges can confirm that the policy does not work and is an obstacle to the ambition that we all share.

“The government and educators must work together to deliver the right form of study which benefits students and sets them up with the right skills and knowledge to help in their chosen career.”

Any pupils that failed to achieve at least a C in their resits will be obliged to take the exams once again due to the condition-of-funding rule for colleges. From now on, however, they will sit the reformed GCSEs, in which they will be expected to achieve a grade 4 or above – which is roughly equivalent to an old-style C grade.

This new style, said Ms Lord, “will take some time for everyone to get used to”.

EXCLUSIVE: DfE’s decision to defend small school sixth form cost £76,000 in fees

A legal challenge brought against the government by the Association of Colleges over the opening of a small-school sixth form last year has cost the tax payer over £75,000, FE Week can reveal. 

According to a Freedom of Information we submitted to the Department for Education in July, it paid out a huge £60,000 for the AoC’s legal costs when the case was dropped before it made it to court, on top of almost £16,500 in its own legal fees.

The AoC joined Havering Sixth Form College to launch a challenge in the High Court in September last year against a decision to fund a new sixth form at Abbs Cross Academy and Arts College in Hornchurch, Essex, its first judicial review against the government in more than a decade.

It claimed that Tim Coulson, the regional schools commissioner for the east of England and north-east London, failed to follow the government’s own rules on new sixth forms when he approved the request from the Loxford School Trust, which took over Abbs Cross in February 2016.

These rules state, for example, that sixth forms should only be created in schools which expect to enrol 200 students or more.

They should also have been graded ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, offer a full programme of at least 15 A-levels, and not impose a financial burden on the rest of the school.

The AoC agreed to a settlement with the DfE on November 1, 2016, the very day the hearing had been due to take place at the Royal Courts for Justice, after the government conceded at the last minute.

Loxford School Trust then withdrew its application for the new school sixth form, while the government withdrew its former approval.    

FE Week understands that AoC chief executive David Hughes subsequently met with Sir David Carter, the national schools commissioner, to discuss the policy on opening small-school sixth forms.

He told FE Week that the review had been taken “on the basis of principle”, because the DfE was agreeing too many “non-viable” school sixth forms, which were either too costly or which compromised too much on quality. 

“We’ve always believed that the guidance was not being applied rigorously enough and that case proved it to us,” he said. 

“Since then we have been working with officials. It has been frustrating because it’s taken a long time … but it does now look as though ministers are considering how to strengthen the guidance and the procedures.”

“The lengths that the DfE and education ministers will go to to use taxpayers’ money to defend the indefensible is quite startling and extremely worrying,” said Mary Bousted, the gal secretary of teaching union ATL.

“It was obvious from the outset that the DfE would lose this case. It was just pure brinkmanship to allow the case to run right up until the day before and if ministers and the DfE had at any point had any confidence that they had a case then that case would have been heard in court.

“That is £76,000 of taxpayers money which will not be spent on the purpose for which it should be spent, which is educating children and young people.”

The sector has witnessed a number of legal challenges this year, though the recent scandal enveloping Learndirect, the country’s largest FE provider, stands out.

On August 14, FE Week reported that Learndirect had lost a High Court bid of its own to quash an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating, putting more than 1,600 of its staff at risk of losing their jobs.

Learndirect failed to overturn the report on August 4, and Ofsted’s findings were finally published on August 17 – a mere five months after the inspection took place. 

The provider has also lost its application to appeal, with the judge awarding costs to Ofsted. The watchdog is currently assessing its situation and will reclaim costs in full from Learndirect in due course. 

Despite repeated efforts to obtain a response from the DfE, it had still not responded at the time of publication.

GCSE results week: How FE can leverage digital channels to win learners

Colleges and providers need to get smarter in attracting new learners who’ve just had their GCSE results – here’s how to do it, says Lucy Perkins 

Students’ decisions on their future are being made increasingly last-minute: last year, a record one in eight university students found their place through clearing.

In today’s rapidly evolving post-16 learning sector, it is not just universities that can capture these thousands of young minds. With tuition fees on one side, and increased investment in apprenticeships and technical and professional education on the other, FE has a golden opportunity to tell its story at this time of year.

Colleges and centres need to compete not only with universities but also to position vocational courses as an attractive alternative to sixth forms and A-levels. As this competition intensifies within the FE landscape, the digital space is where recruitment campaigns will be won and lost.

The business case for implementing a relevant, engaging digital recruitment campaign is clear: in many instances, learners clearly prefer to wait until receiving their results before making a decision so as to minimise uncertainty or administration.

Recent research undertaken with GCSE students about how they make decisions on their next steps delivered conclusive results on the influence of media outlets. Here are the main findings:

  • Traditional media such as local newspapers and TV fail to engage learners, and in most cases do not succeed in actually reaching them at all, although they remain vital channels for engaging with other stakeholders such as parents and employers.
  • YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram were revealed as the prime sources of information. This finding is not particularly surprising, yet many FE colleges do not appear to be keeping pace with this uptake of new channels.

FE colleges must ensure their approach to digital is underpinned with an intelligent strategy if they are to be successful. Here are some steps colleges and providers can take:

Use the right channels

Interestingly, while many colleges have succeeded in the past decade in engaging young people via digital, not one of the GCSE cohort interviewed in the 2017 research even had a Twitter profile. It is essential to connect with them via the channels they operate on.

Design bespoke campaigns – don’t repackage

Visual media are currently dominating, and content has to be something learners will want to share or mention to their friends. Repackaging a social media advert by simply applying an Instagram filter will not suffice; young learners will not be convinced. The way services are offered must be transformed and made to feel authentic to each social media channel. This year, for example, one university is offering clearing places through Snapchat.

Make it hassle-free

The key to any form of digital recruitment is making it frictionless. Today’s learners have grown up in a world where transactions are made very quickly online, and they want the same experience in education. It is quite right to think of students as customers – and just like in any transaction, learners will take their custom elsewhere if frustrated by a time-consuming, non-user-friendly process. Once the decision has been made, they expect enrolment to be fast.

Personalise the marketing

In contrast to this quick end-goal, FE colleges should ensure their websites are “sticky” (the industry term used to describe how long the average user stays on the site), and ensure they attract the right audience. Ultra-personalisation technology now makes it easier to target people in one geographical location, enabling colleges to more successfully send a message directly to learners within their catchment area, and subsequently generate traffic to their site.

Personalise the online experience

In terms of retaining this attention, colleges should incorporate features that are much more engaging. For example, allowing learners to input their personal interests and strengths to produce course matches, rather than simply searching by course name. Likewise, a site that can create a user journey by showcasing not just course details, but where it can lead them, can instil a sense of aspiration.

Put simply, FE colleges should be taking digital extremely seriously as a means of recruitment if they are to continue to compete for new learners. Results season presents the biggest opportunity to interact with and engage prospective students who will be making quick decisions on their future. This opportunity can only be capitalised on if done rapidly and effectively.

Lucy Perkins is CEO of Lda, a digital agency in MediaCityUK that specialises in strategy, content, creative and tech for clients across the FE sector.

Institute for Apprenticeships remains the favourite option for EQA

The Institute for Apprenticeships continues to be the dominant external quality assurance (EQA) provider of choice for most Trailblazer groups – even though it describes itself as the “option of last resort”.

As a result, concerns are deepening across the sector that the government’s own EQA regulator is regulating itself, a situation that Graham Hasting-Evans, managing director of NOCN, described as “bizarre”, calling on the minister “to step back and rethink before we dig a pit we cannot then get out of”.

In the most recent publication of standards that have been approved for delivery, five of the six standards published in August all chose the IfA to provide their external quality assurance, while the remaining standard selected its own professional body.

These latest standards take the Institute’s tally to 35, nearly double that of the next most popular option, Ofqual, which has 19.

Surprisingly, since FE Week reported in March that the Institute was by far the most popular choice, its share of the EQA market has actually increased from 16 per cent to 19 per cent, during which time an additional 21 standards were approved.

In total, 35 organisations or boards are represented in the choices for external quality assurance provision, although the majority of those organisations have been selected by four or fewer standards so far.

The Digital Industries Apprenticeship External Quality Assurance Board holds 13 standards, while the Food and Drink Industry Skills Partnership Apprenticeship Board and the Hospitality Apprenticeship Board hold five each.

One third of all standards that are approved for delivery are still awaiting confirmation for their particular external quality assurance provider.

Earlier this month, the Institute announced that Open Awards had won the tender to provide external quality assurance services on behalf of the Institute.  Although it is unlikely that learners on these newly approved standards would fall under the existing term of that contract, which is due to run from August 1, 2017, until March 31, 2018.

Mr Hasting-Evans told FE Week that the current approach to QA and regulation is “cumbersome, expensive and in danger of creating inconsistency in quality”.

“As concerning is that many standards are at present opting for the IfA, when in fact it still does not have a permanent CEO and it not yet equipped to undertake this role. 

“However the reality from the DfE’s own figures is that next year there will be very few apprenticeship end-point assessments to be quality-assured.

“Accordingly we believe the government should halt any further implementation instead over the next year establish a single set of QA rules and regulations, and carry out an independent review to define a common efficient EQA delivery model.”