For the majority of young people, two Thursdays in August mark a threshold moment: everything they have worked for culminates here, and their immediate next steps become clearer – or not – as they contemplate their results.
Teachers, leaders and support staff have done all they can to prepare their students. Now they step back to watch the celebrations, and step in to support those who need additional help with their next steps.
Exam results are obviously important. For individual students, they quantify achievements and open opportunities for the future. As one of many school measures, they are a prompt of things to celebrate and to learn. And they are an important marker for the system as a whole.
As a profession it’s important to reflect on what the numbers do and don’t tell us.
So, what questions should we be asking?
1.
The qualifications system is enormous, and costly. 1.13 million students took GCSEs across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with 6.19 million entries. 445,349 VTQ results were awarded across 308 qualifications at Level 2. T level retention rates have risen to 77%, but are still lower than the rates for those taking 3 or more A levels (90% retention rate). While it’s great to see more data on VTQ results reported, we still don’t have the level of information here to understand how the system is working for those students. Does the system give us what we need, for pupil learning, school accountability and the future prospects of young people?
2.
Fewer than half of young people in England take A levels (about 40%). A further 10% take a vocational route (Applied General Qualifications or T levels for example). Others will be taking qualifications at Level 2 or below. GCSE entries from students age 17+ rose 3.7% to 500,277. But for 17 year olds, who took their first resit following their GCSE results last year, only 21% passed English language (down from 22%) and 16.4% passed maths (down from 18.1%). Is the current exam system fit for purpose; how does it need to change to meet the needs of all learners?
3.
GCSE students in Northern Ireland had higher pass rates than those in England or Wales. In England, we know that regional gaps have widened again at both GCSE and A level. Educational opportunity is not equal, with poverty and disadvantage playing a huge role in pupils’ lives and life chances. We’ve been measuring these gaps for a number of years, so what do we need to do differently – in education, but also in health and economic policy for example – to begin to close them?
4.
A level grades are higher than they were pre-pandemic across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. We know that A level and T level students were disrupted in the first years of secondary school – years of celebration, transition and new challenges which were overshadowed by anxiety and uncertainty. And for those taking their GCSEs this year, schools were closed for part of their final year of primary school. Teachers and students have worked hard to build back what was lost. But the world has changed since then, with rises in the numbers of pupils with SEND, increasing pupil absence, growing numbers not in education, employment and training. What do teachers and schools need in order to meet these new challenges?
5.
In Wales, a number of Year 10 learners have received results in some units of new ‘made in Wales’ GCSEs. These are unit results which will count towards final grades next year, and they have more assessed work towards final grades. It is of course too early to tell how these will work, what impact they have on pupils’ learning and teacher workload, but what does this tell us about the possibilities of change?
Of course, the system-level data can’t tell us about your school and your pupils, those who worked hard to achieve better than predicted, and those whose results were a huge achievement, even if they were still below C or 5 at GCSE. Nor do they reflect your frustration for those pupils who didn’t achieve what they were predicted, or what they needed, those who felt that particular exams were too difficult or that they didn’t do as well as they knew they could have, for whatever reasons.
While the news cycle will move on, your role in supporting your pupils will continue. When September comes, we will need to work together to shine a spotlight on the problems and possible solutions in education and more widely for our most disadvantaged pupils. For now, we hope that you will also take the time to celebrate the stories of your own schools, pupils and colleagues.
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[For more of the detail, do look at analyses by FFT Education DataLab, Education Policy Institute, and government blogs. We drew figures from Schools Week, TES, FE News, Wales Online and the Belfast Telegraph.]
FFT Education Datalab
A-Level, T-Level and other Level 3 results: The main trends in grades and entries
GCSE and Level 1/2 results 2026: The main trends in grades and entries