GCSE results expose a broken system, but adults prove what’s possible

This year’s GCSE results have once again laid bare a persistent contradiction: remarkable individual successes for adult learners on one hand, and stubborn system-level failures on the other.

At WM College, we’re celebrating the extraordinary achievements of our adult learners. In just 30 weeks, individuals – many of whom carried long-standing anxieties, challenging past experiences, and heavy responsibilities – embraced and conquered assessments that school-age students spend years preparing for. Some secured their target grades; others made giant strides in progress. Today, a young learner I spoke to said that he came into class not knowing how to add fractions, but he opened his envelope to a Grade 7. It’s a testament to their grit and motivation, and the tailored support we provide.

Yet despite WM College celebrating results that are double the national average, the national figures tell a sobering story. Nearly 40 per cent of all GCSE candidates failed to achieve a grade 4 in English today, and over 41 per cent failed to meet the same mark in maths – a rise on last year’s failure rates. For those aged 17 and up, the picture is starker: only 19.7 per cent passed English, and just 15.3 per cent maths. In effect, many adult resit learners remain trapped in a cycle of repeat attempts.

This “resit crisis” isn’t new. FE Week and others have raised the alarm, stating that repeatedly forcing learners into the same assessments with diminishing returns is demotivating – particularly when no robust alternatives or additional supports are in place.

Socioeconomic gaps remain entrenched too. Disadvantaged students, deprived of supportive learning environments during COVID lockdowns and beyond, are still significantly less likely to reach grade 5 in core subjects compared to their wealthier peers. While our colleges strive to fill these gaps with personalised teaching and pastoral care, the scale of the problem demands national-level action.

What’s more, rising numbers of resit entries – nearly 30 per cent for 16-year-olds and over 80 per cent for 17–19 year-olds in some subjects- are unsustainable and signal structural issues in how GCSEs are deployed and weighted.

Four policy shifts are urgently needed:

1. Introduce alternative pathways for adult learners: Rather than repeatedly resitting GCSEs, offer modular or vocationally oriented qualifications that recognise progress and competence, not just exam performance.
2. Rethink assessment models: For adult learners, we need flexible, less punitive assessment systems that focus on functional skills and confidence-building, not only high-stakes exams. Currently a lot of maths assessments test for language proficiency rather than an ability to solve a sum.
3. Target funding to tackle inequality: Areas most affected by historic deprivation need sustained investment and tutoring support. Policy discussions must extend beyond the pandemic-era rhetoric.
4. Make Functional Skills an employment standard: Functional skills qualifications, which focus on practical, day-to-day maths and English skills, should be recognised as the baseline employment standard. We already expect this of apprentices, so why not all employees? Employers need to be encouraged, or even required, to value functional skills not merely as an alternative to GCSEs, but as the essential qualification for workplace readiness.

At WM College, our learners have outperformed national averages despite their starting points because we commit resources, adapt creatively and refuse to let past failure define future success. Every learner who showed up and sat an exam this year rewrote a narrative of their own capabilities and they all deserve the right level of support to succeed.

If the government is serious about meeting its national skills and productivity targets, it cannot rely solely on young learners in schools. Adult learners – many retraining, reskilling, and filling critical workforce gaps – are essential to bridging this divide. Yet funding cuts, shrinking support programmes and an exam system that doesn’t account for their unique challenges risk undermining this potential. Without properly investing in adults who are returning to education, we will continue to see a disconnect between national ambitions and reality. Supporting these learners is not just a moral imperative; it is an economic necessity.