The hard slog is done and students are celebrating - or commiserating - their GCSE results. It’s a unique year again with qualification bosses returning sat exams to “normal”.
The last four years saw huge disruption with Covid exam cancellations in 2020 and 2021 and mitigations to support students sitting exams in 2022 and 2023. That extra help was all gone this year as those in charge aimed to steer the system back to more steady pre-pandemic results.
From what subjects get the most A*s to which subjects are most popular, the grades tables give up their secrets. Here we look at some of the things the latest results show – and one important thing they don’t tell us. For the full details of GCSE results across Wales see here.
Read more: Top GCSE grades in Wales dip in 2024
Don’t miss: GCSE grade boundaries 2024 for WJEC, Edexcel, AQA, OCR and CCEA boards
After the exceptional results of the Covid years, exam bosses have been pushing back on what was seen as grade inflation. Record results were posted when exams were cancelled and grades awarded on teacher-assessed grades in 2020 and 2021. For the last two years students were given extra support, such as being told what topics to revise, in a move aimed at getting results to a midway point to pre-Covid results before reaching all the way this year. Regulator Qualifications Wales said its aim was for summer, 2024, results to be near to results for the last set of sat exams in 2019. Comparisons are tricky owing to Covid and changes in education, but if they are to be made, 2019 is the year to compare 2024 results with, say exam bosses.
Nearly one in five results at GCSE are at the very top A*-A grades.
How the last few years in Wales compare at A*-A grades:
A*-A
2024 - (first “normal” exam year since 2019) 19.2%
2023 - (exams sat for second time since Covid but with support) 21.7%
2022 - (exams sat for the first time since Covid but with support) 11.4%
2021 (teacher assessed grades) 28.7%
2020 (teacher assessed grades but after a normal school year to March) 25.9%
2019 (pre-Covid - the last normal exams year) 18.4%
The gold standard A* to C grades at GCSE are slightly down on the year before the pandemic. This year 62.2% were grades A* to C, compared to 64.9% last year and 62.8% in 2019.
The overall GCSE pass rate at grades A*-G is 96.6% compared to 96.9% in 2023 and 97.2% in 2019, results released this morning by the Joint Council for Qualifications show. Grades have fallen for maths and English
Entries for GCSE international languages in Wales saw an increase in German and French after a dip in 2023. French is still the most popular language with an increase of 8% this year to 2,071 entries, followed by Spanish and German. German sees a big jump of 29% to 429 entries in Wales compared to 2023, but still not quite back up to pre-pandemic levels.
There has been a small dip in Spanish entries of 4% after a big jump in 2023, falling from 1,342 entries in 2023 to 1,290 entries this year. Vicky Gough, senior schools advisor for British Council, said she hoped this could mean the start of an upward trend in Wales back to pre-pandemic levels.
Literacy and numeracy is the holy grail for attaining across the curriculum as well as for jobs, further and higher education. Results for both are down at GCSE this year in Wales.
Maths
A*-G:
2024 92.3%
2023 94.3%
2019 94.3%
For the A* grade this has stayed around the 13% mark for all three years - 2024, 2023 and 2019. In Wales, students take either GCSE mathematics or GCSE mathematics - numeracy, with most taking both subjects. This year’s figures show that 13.1% of candidates achieved A*/9 – A/7 grades for GCSE mathematics, whilst 48.8% of candidates have been awarded a grade C/4 or above.
At maths numeracy 13% of candidates achieved A*/9 – A/7 grades and 52.3% of candidates have been awarded a grade C/4 or above.
Maths numeracy results at A*-G overall have remained consistent:
2024 93.9%
2023 93.8%
2019 93.9%
English language
A*-G
2024 98.4%
2023 97.5&
2019 97.9%
A*-C
2024 54.7%
2023 60.7%
2019 53.9%
A*-A
2024 10.7%
2023 15.8%
2019 11.5%
Welsh first language GCSE results overall
A*-G
2024 99.3%
2023 98.4%
2019 98.2%
A*-C
2024 70.4%
2023 71.9%
2019 73.1%
A*-A
2024 15.8%
2023 17.3%
2019 14.6%
Double science had the highest single number of entries at 43,218. followed by English at 38,714. There were 5,694 entries for Welsh first language and 21,890 for Welsh second language.
Biology replaces chemistry in the top 10 most popular subject choices – with 9,510 entries this year. Physics had 8,949 entries. Food preparation & nutrition continues to rise in popularity, with entries up 12.4% to 2,588 compared with 2023. Entries in the subject have increased by 21.6% since 2019.
Overall, there were 295,690 GCSE entries this year , more than 16,000 up on 2023 and compared to 295,690 in 2019.
Results aren’t comparable so we don’t really know how well Wales does at GCSE standard compared to the rest of the UK. While all 15-year-olds sit the same international Pisa tests every three years, GCSEs, like A levels, are now very different around the UK.
Comparisons with results across the border are harder to make now that Wales’ education system has diverged so much. An added problem is that England returned to pre-pandemic exam conditions a year before Wales in 2023. This prompted warnings that Wales-wide results would fall, as England’s did last year, while England’s would rise this year compared to 2023.
Comparable data showing local authority GCSE pass rates across Wales is also not possible today as most local authorities did not publish that information. Those that did tended to be areas that exceeded the Wales average for results.
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