GCSE Prospects 2026: Case for Reform? (click here to read)

GCSE results have flattened out since the upheaval of Covid, with top grades just above those in 2019, and pass grades about the same. In contrast to A-levels, the most frequently taken GCSEs have tended to remain the same, as the core subjects are mandated by the curriculum or accountability measures.

The entries and grades awarded raise a number of important questions including: have GCSEs had their day; why are girls so far ahead; are compulsory resits doing any good; what’s behind Northern Ireland’s success; and will languages apart from Spanish tend to disappear from upper secondary schooling now that EBacc has been ditched?

The Government is urged to address these questions in its deliberations on the future of Key Stage 4.

A-Level Prospects 2026: Swing to the Quantitative (click here to read)

Top grades at A-level have not settled back to where they were in 2019, but in the aftermath of the chaos of Covid they have edged upwards. This is despite Ofqual’s statistical controls.

A likely reason is the swing to quantitative subjects which are the highest awarders of A* grades. This trend may also explain the widening of the gap between the sexes at this level, since boys are more likely to take and do better in these subjects.

Provisional entries for 2026 show further increases in the quantitative subjects, so we are likely to see top grades rise again and boys move further ahead of girls at A*.  That would be the logical outcome, but we are forecasting not on scientific laws but human decisions which can surprise.

GCSE Prospects 2025: Back to Normal? (click here to read)

Grades looked to be settling down last year after the chaos of Covid. But there were an extra 61,900 top grades, including ‘straight nines’. The 2025 outcome may well be similar. Spanish is set to overtake French as the most frequently taken foreign language.

There was a huge range in top grades from over 70% to zero. Health & Social Care was lowest along with the other former GNVQs. T-levels may be so slow to take off because there is no adequate platform at KS4. English and Maths were low scorers, in part due to compulsory re-sits, where only a fifth obtained even a bare pass. Northern Ireland does far better than England and Wales, perhaps due to its grammar school system.

Girls obtained better results in 42 of the 47 subject areas. Boys were ahead in just five, all quantitative, pointing perhaps to an inherent sex difference. In 2025 there were 10% fewer children in KS4 than to be expected from the number of 16-year-olds. Even allowing for alternative provision of various kind, it looks as if many are just not turning up.

A-Level Prospects 2025: Stable Once More? (click here to read)

The signs are that the A-level grades will be higher than pre-pandemic. Last years results were not returned to 2019 levels which was the policy. They actually rose, but only by a percentage point or two. It amounted, however, to an extra 14,200 and 21,300 A*s and A*/As respectively.

Many of the factors pushing up the 2024 results look set to continue. They include deliberately raising language grades to boost take-up, the swing to the higher scoring maths and physical sciences, and improved grades in subjective subjects as a legacy of teacher assessment.

Ultimately, it is for the regulators to decide and they could take the grades either way. On balance, it seems likely that 2024 could well be the beginning of a new norm.

The Conservative Effect 2010-2024: 14 Wasted Years?

In education, the years were far from wasted. The ministers were well-prepared and they rounded off the reforms of successive governments since the mid-1980s. Firm foundations were established for English and maths, the curriculum was made more knowledge-rich and flexible, greater rigour was brought to the national tests and exams, schools were given greater autonomy and a pupil premium was introduced to support the disadvantaged. In higher education, realistic tuition fees were brought in.

Not everything was successful. Ofsted was overloaded and underfunded, teacher recruitment proved intractable and there were structural problems with the buildings. But the core aim was to make England’s schools world class and they did rise up the international league tables. After the original ministers left, however, there was considerable churn in personnel and momentum was lost.

Poor Children Hit Harder by Covid School Closure (click here to read)

In their first collaboration since Alastair McCall joined CEER last month, he and Alan Smithers have analysed the impact of Covid on pupil performance. The stand-out finding is that poor children fared worse, falling even further behind at every level – the Sats, GCSEs and A-levels. Paradoxically, their grades had gone up in GCSEs and A-levels, but this can be attributed to the decision to bake in higher grades in 2022 than in 2019.

The Disadvantage Gap Index, which enables relative performance in different tests and exams to be compared, shows that the gap widened more in primary schools. Since the gap before the pandemic was greater in secondary schools, this had the effect of reducing it somewhat. All children, not just those taking national tests and examinations, will have been affected. Some will still be in schools into the 2030s. Is there a cure for education’s Long Covid?

Sunday Times’ Alastair McCall joins CEER

CEER welcomes Alastair McCall, one of the country’s leading data journalists and formerly assistant editor of The Sunday Times, as its Deputy Director and Professor of Quantitative Studies. He is famous as the man behind such annual publications as The Sunday Times Good University Guide, Parent Power, Rich List and Giving List. He also created the country’s first social inclusion ranking for universities.

It is a great appointment for CEER which was founded to conduct and communicate independent research that is directly useful to those creating education and those benefiting from it, rather than just producing papers for academics. Alastair’s skills and experience are a perfect fit for CEER’s mission and will add strength to its reach and range. Prof Alan Smithers, Director of CEER, and Alastair have an excellent working relationship having collaborated for over two decades on The Sunday Times’ schools guide, Parent Power.

Are Schools Failing Boys? (click here to read)

Boys are seriously underperforming girls at all levels of education, which would indicate that they are not fully developing their potential. While this has been known for some time, it is little understood and so little has been done about it. This means that both they and society are missing out on what they could have been. There is complacency because men seem to come out on top anyway.

There is a plethora of possible explanations, which means we do not sufficiently understand what is going on. This leaves us without a sound basis for tackling it. We need a high-level inquiry to sort it out. The seriousness of the issue is such that it calls for a Royal Commission.

Where Next for Apprenticeships

In a policy report of the Chartered Institute for Personnel Development edited by Tess Lanning (report here), Alan Smithers argues that the introduction of national apprenticeship qualifications would turn the government’s hopes for the new apprenticeships into reality. At present, apprenticeships act as containers for numerous individual qualifications, some of doubtful value and little relevance. There is little to drive the development of tailored training programmes. National apprenticeship qualifications, the highest on par with degrees, would enhance the status of apprenticeships and help win acceptance of them as a genuine practical alternative to established academic ladders. Trainees would have something to aim for and something they could be proud of when successful. Distinctive qualifications would also enable the Government to claim ownership of the apprenticeship brand, fully integrate the maths, English and other core learning with the practical skills, and make apprenticeships easier to regulate. The Government recognizes the problems an apprenticeship qualification would solve, but prefers other piecemeal solutions. It would be so much simpler to have national apprenticeship qualifications.