After two years of pandemic-related disruption, GCSEs were this year assessed in the same way as before Covid – i.e. by an outside examination board, rather than by teachers. London far outstripped the north of England when it came to pupils getting the highest grades, with 33 per cent of pupils in the capital being awarded a 7 (formerly an A) or above compared with just 22 per cent in the north-east. This widened the attainment gap from 2019 – then, there was a ten percentage point gap between the regions, compared with 11 percentage points this year.
That London has far outstripped the north of the country – again – speaks to the failure of the government’s commitment to ‘levelling up’: it was the same story last week with A level results. Labour this morning said the Conservative government had ‘failed’ children. The Lib Dems went further, saying the government ‘deserves an F for letting down these pupils’.
The geographical divide in educational attainment doesn’t show only at GCSE, either. Recent research from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank found that all local authorities in London perform above the national average in the share of 11-year-olds meeting expectations in reading, writing and maths. It also found that there has been basically no change in the attainment gap between wealthy and disadvantaged pupils in the past two decades – a damning statistic for a government that has been in power for more than ten years.
Education minister Will Quince this morning admitted that schools would not have been shut down during Covid if the government had the information that it does now. He added: ‘It was a once in 100-year event. [If] such a pandemic happens again, certainly in our lifetime, we will be more prepared. We have more knowledge, we will have more information, we’ll know not to make the same mistakes that were made throughout the pandemic.’ This comes after comments made by former chancellor Rishi Sunak in our cover piece (which you can read here), where he highlighted the lack of attention paid – by the government – to the damage done by closing schools for such long periods of time.
Grade inflation was rife during the pandemic, when teacher-assessed grades were used in place of external exams. Following the trend set last week with A level results, the proportion of pupils gaining at least a pass was 73 per cent, down from more than 77 per cent last year, during teacher-assessed grading. But it’s still a huge rise on the 67 per cent pass rate from 2019.
Exam boards had hoped to tackle grade inflation in GCSE grades, aiming for this year’s marks to be halfway back to ‘normal’ attainment levels. Grades haven’t quite hit that margin – only down four percentage points compared with last year – but they’re deflating after two years of grade inflation.
Gender also played a role in attainment. Girls continued to enjoy a lead over boys at getting the higher grades: 30 per cent took home grades at a 7 (A) or above compared with just under 22.6 per cent of boys – a 7.4 percentage point gap. This narrows slightly when it comes to pass rates (4, or C, and above), with 69.8 per cent of boys passing their GCSEs compared with around 76.7 per cent of girls – a 6.9 percentage point gap.
Kath Thomas, interim chief executive officer of JCQ said: ‘As planned – and as with last week’s A level results – these results are higher than the last set of summer exams in 2019, but lower than last year’s teacher-assessed grades.’ This deflation is a start – but there is still a long way to go to ensure pupils are being awarded the grades they deserve.
What is worrying, though, is the growing gulf between the richest and poorest parts of the country and the children who are falling through the gaps. The government needs to strengthen its supposed commitment to levelling up with action: the further the attainment gap grows, the more pronounced the split between north and south becomes in other areas.
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