The number of entries to English and maths from pupils aged 17 or older fell this year. This is a reversal of the trend over the last few years.

The vast majority of pupils who take GCSEs in these subjects at age 17 or older are doing so because they did not achieve a standard pass (grade 4 or above) by age 16. Pupils who achieve a grade 3 must resit the subject, although those who achieve a grade 1 or 2 have a choice between resitting or working towards a pass in functional skills instead.

In this post we’ll look at how the numbers are changing, how it’s linked to the changes in grading over the last two years, and what we might expect to happen next year.

Trends in entries

To set the scene, let’s start by taking a closer look at the trends in entries over the last few years.

Among 16 year olds – who make up the vast majority of those taking GCSEs – entries to all three subjects have been increasing since 2018.

So we might expect the number of older pupils to follow a similar pattern. But as we’ve seen, they actually fell in 2021, by 18.6% in English and 8.6% in maths.

The effect of CAGs

The fall in entries is linked to the increase in grades last year. The proportion of 16 year olds achieving a standard pass (grade 4 or above) increased from 70.5% in 2019 to 80.2% in English.

To put that in perspective, if the rate in 2020 had been the same as in 2019, around 55,000 fewer pupils would have achieved a standard pass.

In maths, the increase was less dramatic, moving up from 71.5% in 2019 to 77.1% in 2020. Around 40,000 fewer pupils would have achieved a standard pass if the rate in 2020 had stayed at the 2019 level.

So it’s not surprising that fewer pupils are going on to re-take their exams aged 17 or older.

With the grade increases, you might expect that the pupils who did not achieve grade 4 or above in 2020 were lower attainers than those in previous years. If this is the case, we’d expect grades for those who re-took the exams in 2021, aged 17 or older, to fall.

But actually, while there was a small fall in the percentage achieving a grade 1 or above, the percentage achieving higher grades increased in both English and maths.

What can we expect in 2022?

This year, the percentage of pupils achieving a standard pass did increase in English and maths, but only slightly compared to the change from 2019 to 2020. In English, it went up by 0.7 percentage points to 80.9%. In maths, the increase was 0.8 percentage points, bringing the rate to 77.9%.

There were more GCSE entries this year than last year – the population of 16 year olds increased by around 2%.

So it looks likely that the increase in the size of the cohort and the small increase in the percentage achieving a standard pass will cancel each other out, and we’ll end up with a similar number of older pupils taking English and maths next year as we did this year.

Where things get interesting is grading.

There’s already quite a lot of debate about what should happen to the grading system next year. But if we do revert to the pre-pandemic system, we should expect a fall in grades across the board.

It’ll be fascinating to see how that affects the older pupils taking these GCSEs. Their grades may well fall even more steeply.

What can we expect after 2022?

There are a lot of ‘ifs’ here. But if we return to using public examinations and the same grade moderation system as before the pandemic, we’d expect the number of pupils achieving a standard pass when they first take their exams to fall.

That means we’d expect the numbers taking maths and English aged 17 to increase, quite possibly to above the levels seen in 2020 as the effects of months of missed schooling make themselves felt.

This could put extra strain on schools and pupils who are already struggling.