One in Five GCSE Entries Earn Top Grades as English Pass Rate Drops

Students were celebrating as GCSE results showed top grades climbing for the second consecutive year, with one in five entries awarded the highest marks — although pass rates in English and maths slipped again to their weakest level in 10 years.

The long-standing GCSE attainment gap between girls and boys also narrowed further, with boys edging closer to a lead girls have held for decades and the difference now at its smallest since 2000.

As hundreds of thousands of teenagers across the country collected their GCSE results this morning, 22 per cent of entries received at least a grade 7 or an A, a slight rise from 21.9 per cent last year and 21.8 per cent in 2024.

The latest GCSE grades remain above pre-Covid levels, with top-grade entries still higher than in 2019, when the figure stood at 20.8 per cent.

GCSEs are taken in every UK nation except Scotland. England now uses the numerical 9-to-1 grading system, while Wales and Northern Ireland continue to award grades from A* to G.

Under the current system, a grade 7 is broadly comparable to an A, while a grade 4 is generally seen as equivalent to a C.

In England, 5 per cent of entries achieved a grade 9 — widely regarded as a high A* — down marginally from 5.1 per cent last year and matching the level recorded in 2024.

The figures were published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), which represents GCSE exam boards.

Most of the pupils receiving GCSE results this morning were in Year 5 when schools closed because of Covid-19, meaning their secondary education was not disrupted by the height of the pandemic. 

Across all nations, 67.3 per cent of entries achieved grade 4/C or above, down from 67.4 per cent in 2025.

Grade 4/C is considered a ‘standard pass’ and is a basic requirement for many employers and universities.

By subject, 60 per cent passed in English language, down from 60.2 per cent last year – and 57.3 passed maths, down from 58.3 per cent last year. These pass rates are the lowest in a decade.

This is the second year pass rates have dropped in these subjects – likely caused by older pupils resitting them having previously failed to pass.

This year saw a rise in the number of 17-year-olds taking both subjects. 

In England, pupils who do not secure at least a grade 4 in English and/or maths GCSE are required to retake the subjects during post-16 education.

However, the Government is introducing a ‘basic skills’ alternative qualification, which in future can be taken by pupils who score very low.

This morning, the Education Secretary Lucy Powell pledged to crack down on the ‘pernicious’ system of GCSE resits which sees youngsters fail repeatedly.

She told The Times she wanted to end the resit ‘treadmill of failure’ which sees about 200,000 teenagers in England fail in both subjects repeatedly and never achieve the pass mark.

And she said in future, more of those who receive a 2 or below are expected to be steered towards new stepping-stone qualifications called ‘Level 1s’.

She later added on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I’m going to be bringing in a new stepping stone qualification, as we’re calling it, a Level 1… in maths and in English, so that there is an additional qualification that young people can work towards. And I want to work with employers to make sure that that qualification is credible, is respected, and that employers see that as sufficient or more than sufficient for young people to go on to do things like an apprenticeship in construction or health and social care.’ 

Meanwhile, this morning’s wide-ranging data also showed boys are doing better than last year – while girls are doing worse, with their grades tumbling for the fifth consecutive year.

It means that while girls are still in the lead, the achievement gap between the sexes has shrunk to its narrowest point since records began in 2000.

Some 19.6 per cent of boys got 7/A, compared with 24.4 per cent of girls – a gap of 4.8 percentage points.

Last year, 19.4 per cent of boys got 7/A, compared with 24.5 per cent of girls – a 5.1 percentage point gap.

Lower down the grading table, the gap has also shrunk. Some 64.4 per cent of boys’s entries were graded 4/C, compared with 70 per cent of girls’ entries, bringing the difference to 5.8 percentage point, a decrease from 6.2 last year.

At both 7/A and 4/C grades, the gap is the narrowest in 26 years. 

Jon Andrews, head of analysis at the Education Policy Institute (EPI), said there was a clear need to better understand what is driving girls’ attainment at GCSE.

‘We know that girls are more likely to have had a diagnosable mental health issue than boys, are more likely than boys to report problematic social media use, and are also likely to say that they do not get enough sleep,’ he said.

‘We have also seen a decline in how safe teenagers feel in school, and that decline has been more pronounced in girls than it has in boys.’

Mr Andrews said it was ‘not unreasonable’ to believe that there is a connection between these differences and less engagement in school, increases in absenteeism, and lower outcomes.

Disillusion with school could also be playing a part, as female pupils are now more likely than males to be classed as severely absent – missing 50 per cent or more of classes. 

It comes after boys widened their lead over girls in top A-level grades last week. Some 28.9 per cent of boys’ A-level entries gained A or A* compared with 28 per cent for girls.

Regional divides were also stark in this morning’s GCSE results data, raising concerns that some areas of the country are being left behind.

In England, the gap in top grades between London – the best performing region – and the north-east – the worst performing – has widened to a record high of 10.9 percentage points up from 10.6 last year.

Some 28.6 per cent of entries in the capital received grade 7 or above this year, up from 28.4 per cent in 2025.

In north-east England, 17.7 per cent of entries were awarded at least a 7, down from 17.8 per cent last year.

The regional patterns are more varied for GCSE entries awarded grade 4 or above.

London again had the highest rate at 71.7 per cent, up from 71.6 per cent in 2025, but here it was the west midlands that had the lowest figure, at 62.4 per cent, down from 62.9 per cent.

This year, JCQ published results for each local authority for the first time.

Those figures show that although London has the highest regional rate for GCSEs awarded grade 7 or above, the local rates across the capital vary from a low of 19.0 per cent in Havering to a high of 43.4 per cent in Richmond upon Thames – a difference of 24.4 percentage points.

Of all the regions, eastern England had the greatest range of all, from a low of 10.2 per cent in Castle Point to a high of 53.5 per cent in Cambridge: a difference of 43.4 percentage points.

Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: ‘It is a damning indictment of 21st-century Britain that where you happen to grow up has such a profound impact on your educational and life chances.

‘Something is fundamentally amiss when children with the same talents and potential face such different prospects simply because of where they happen to live.

‘England’s educational divide is a story of London increasingly pulling away from much of the rest of the country.

‘But these broad regional divides conceal an even more troubling geography of opportunity: sometimes a few streets, or a different postcode, can make the difference between a life of opportunity and a life of overlooked talent.’

Chris Zarraga, director of Schools North East, added: ‘There is not a North-South divide in the quality of schools, nor in the talent, potential or aspirations of young people.

‘There is a structural divide in the circumstances and opportunities surrounding them. The regional results table is a map of that divide, not a map of school quality.

‘Schools in the north east are working incredibly hard to overcome those circumstances. But schools cannot independently fix poverty, stretched public services, shortages in Send (special educational needs and disabilities) support, transport barriers, unequal access to enrichment or very different local economic opportunities.’

At a national level, 31.7 per cent of entries in Northern Ireland received grade 7/A or higher, above the equivalent figure for England (21.8 per cent) and Wales (19.6 per cent).

For entries awarded 4/C or higher, Northern Ireland was ahead at 83.6 per cent, some way above England (67.0 per cent) and Wales (62.3 per cent).

Northern Ireland’s lead is part of a long-running trend which experts have previously linked to the nation retaining the grammar school system. 

The rise in top grades overall across the UK may once again spark concerns about artificial grade inflation – although Ofqual, the regulator, insisted this has not played a part.

Grade inflation was rife during the New Labour years, when officials repeatedly insisted that pupils genuinely were getting cleverer every year.

The proportion of top grades rose every single year between 2002 and 2011.

However, after the Tories won the election in 2010 they instructed Ofqual to make sure the proportion getting these top grades remained roughly the same each year.

This is adjusted slightly for the ability of each cohort, which is measured by sample tests earlier in the year.

Roughly one in five have got A/7 grades over the last 15 years, but the pandemic frustrated the regulator’s efforts because exam cancellations meant teachers decided grades – leading to massive inflation.

In 2020, the year Covid struck, 26.2 per cent of entries were A/7 – rising again to 28.9 per cent in 2021.

In 2022, exams were laid on again, with the regulator bringing grading halfway back to normal in a stepped return.

While grades have now been brought back down, they still remain slightly higher than before the pandemic.

Meanwhile, analysis of GCSE subject choices this morning prompted speculation that the rise of artificial intelligence may have led to a slump in entries for computing.

The subject is still relatively popular, with 85,096 entries this summer. But this is down from 91,619 in 2025 – a fall of 7.1 per cent.

One exam board leader suggested AI means computing skills are still important for students to learn.

Myles McGinley, managing director of Cambridge OCR exam board, said: ‘I think despite a decline from a historic high, computer science remains a very popular GCSE. I think there could be a number of different reasons.

‘This is speculation, but I think the emergence of AI could be leading to students thinking they don’t need to learn how to code.

‘But I would say maybe that’s something that would be up for debate.

‘I think potentially computer science is more important than ever in the age of AI, and while vibe coding might be all the rage, I think AI won’t be able to replace a solid understanding of how software works, how technology can solve real-world problems, and how it can create a good user experience for example.’

Julia Adamson, executive director of education at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, said: ‘We need to bust the myth that generative AI can now do everything safely and without oversight. In fact because of trends like vibe-coding, people with computing qualifications are more important than ever.

‘Computing education has never been just about learning a programming language; it’s about developing computational thinking, problem-solving skills, and understanding how digital systems work.

‘AI is powerful but requires skilled people who can design and secure the systems behind it. If anything, the growth of AI increases the need for people with a strong grounding in computing and digital technology.’

Sir Ian Bauckham, the head of England’s exams regulator Ofqual, said many students receiving their results on Thursday made their choices in 2024 when AI tool ChatGPT was ‘a relatively new phenomenon’.

He added: ‘I think young people were just beginning to realise what it was and what it could do.

‘GCSE computing, as it is at the moment, is quite coding-heavy. It might have been the case that young people thought I won’t need to do this coding in quite the same way in the future, so maybe I don’t need to do computing GCSE.

‘But of course, computing GCSE is broader than just coding, and the qualification in any case is being reformed.

‘I think in a hi-tech world such as the one we live in now, it’s difficult to think of subjects that could be more important to young people’s future than GCSE computing.’

The data also shows entries rose for GCSE business studies.

There were almost 150,000 entries for the qualification (148,747) this summer, up 7.8 per cent on last year.

The subject has seen a 40 per cent increase in entries over the last five years, exam boards said.

Mr McGinley said an interest among students in running their own businesses may be driving the rise.

He said: ‘This looks like an increasingly entrepreneurial generation, fascinated by how business works. The founders of some of the next great unicorn businesses may well be among those achieving GCSEs in business studies today.’

Among other subjects, statistics has seen a leap in popularity, with entries up 11.2 per cent on last year to 38,770.

And entries for PE have seen another year-on-year bump – with 92,191 entries compared with 89,584, in 2025 – a 2.9 per cent increase. Last year entries were up 2.0 per cent on 2024.

Meanwhile, it was good news for languages students, who saw top grades rise this year following changes to the exams in England.

Spanish, German and French all saw a rise in the numbers of entries achieving at least a 7/A.

New courses in each of these three languages were first taught in England in 2024, with the first grades awarded this year.

German had the highest proportion of top grades, with more than a third (35.1 per cent) of entries gaining at least a 7/A, up 0.8 percentage points from 34.3 per cent in 2025.

German also saw a bump in entries this year after previous falls, with 33,473 entries – up 0.2 per cent from 33,391 last year.

Nearly three in 10 Spanish entries (29.3 per cent) scored at least 7/A, up from 27.8 per cent in 2025.

The GCSE – which overtook French to become the most popular foreign language for GCSE students last year – continues to prove popular with students.

Entries are up 0.3 per cent to 137,236 from 136,871 in 2025.

In French – which saw a 5.4 per cent fall in entries this summer – some 30.7 per cent of entries scored at least a 7/A, up from 30.1 per cent last year.

GCSEs in the modern foreign languages were reformed in England following a proposal by the then Conservative government to make them ‘more accessible’ to students.

Ms Powell donned a hard hat and helped to lay some bricks this morning during a meeting with students studying construction at Harper Green School in Farnworth, Bolton.

In her message to the nation’s GCSE pupils, she said: ‘Good luck to everyone receiving your results today, and huge thanks to the teachers and families who have helped to get you here.

‘Whatever that piece of paper says, you should be proud of the hard work and commitment you’ve put in, and excited about what comes next.

‘We will ensure every child has access to high-quality options whether that’s academic, vocational, technical, creative or a mix.

‘Everyone should have the chance to follow the path that’s right for them and build a successful career.’