Thanks for reading the GCSE liveblog this morning. We’re now closing this live blog. Our full report on this year’s results can be found here:
Updated
Tauheedul Islam girls’ high school in Blackburn is celebrating another stellar set of results in this year’s GCSEs. Three students received a full set of grade 9s across 13 subjects - out of only 16 pupils in England who gained all 9s in 12 or more courses.
Mayra is one of them. She is now going to conquer the world, thank you very much.
Mayra @Tauheedulgirls enrolling to study Chemistry, Biology, Psychology and Sociology at Tauheedul Sixth Form .. with thirteen Grade 9s #WeAreStar #Results #SixthForm pic.twitter.com/tOjrkIYEYM
— TIGHS (@TauheedulGirls) August 12, 2021
Our Helen Pidd went to Tauheedul, back in 2018.
Today’s result show that pupils on free school meals less than half as likely to get top grades, with Labour saying that widening attainment gaps are “testament to the Conservatives’ failed approach to education”.
There was a ‘slight widening’ in the results gap between English GCSE students in receipt of free school meals and those who are not, according to analysis by Ofqual, the Government’s exams regulator . Students with free school meals scored on average 0.1 of a grade lower, compared to 2019.
But children on free school meals were less than half as likely to get a Grade 7 (A) or above than their peers.
Just under 14% of grades for students on free school meals were Level 7 or above compared with over 31% among their peers.
Gypsy or Roma students’ outcomes were also down on 2019 by 0.2 of a grade. Ofqual said it “seemed likely that many of these changes reflect the uneven impact of the pandemic”.
A full 62% of private school grades were Level 7 or above, compared to 26% for secondary moderns, a gap which has increased by nearly a fifth over the last four years, say Labour.
Students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have also seen a widening attainment gap, with students with SEND seeing fewer than 10% of their grades at top Level 7 and 51% of grades at Level 4 or above compared to 83% among their peers.
Kate Green MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, said:
Congratulations to every student receiving their GCSE or BTEC results today, these are incredible achievements in truly unprecedented circumstances.
However, todays results also present a stark warning that the Conservatives are letting down our country. Children on free school meals have been abandoned by this government and students in state schools are again being outstripped by their more advantaged private school peers. These widening attainment gaps are testament to the Conservatives’ failed approach to education.
The Government has been warned that without action the Covid legacy will be one of widening inequalities, yet their recovery plan is woefully insufficient. Labour has set out a bold recovery plan that would support every child to bounce back from the pandemic. It’s time the Conservatives get behind Labour’s plan and match our ambition for children’s futures.
Updated
I know you’re all missing the standard pictures of blondes leaping into the air holding their results aloft in delight...
So here is a picture of two very clever young women not quite managing to hold a load of cut out 9s, which represent their considerable achievements.
Well done Alzbeta and Lexi!
Well done Alzbeta and Lexi, achieving the highest grades in every subject. Your hard work and commitment paid off. Too many 9s to hold! #outstandinglearning #highestexpectations #firstratequalifications #GCSEs2021 pic.twitter.com/NtDltqt4K7
— Kingswood Academy (@Kingswood_Acad) August 12, 2021
Elin Chan, 16, a pupil at the Welsh medium school Ysgol Glan Clwyd in north Wales was celebrating 12 A*s. She said:
Wow - I wasn’t expecting it at all. I thought I was going to do well but not this well.
Elin is the oldest of six children. All six spent weeks packed into the house doing their best to learn from home when their schools were locked down.
I had to try to shut my door and block it all out. We didn’t have enough IT equipment to start with but the school helped us out.
Elin now plans to study biology, physics, chemistry and maths in the school’s sixth form.
Another pupil, Carwyn Pierce, 16, who achieved seven A*s, two As and two Bs, said:
The learning from home has been difficult - sitting in front of a computer all day, listening to the teacher. There wasn’t much interaction going on.
We live out in the country - it’s pretty remote. The internet acted up a few times. Having no classmates to talk to has been difficult.
We had a five week assessment period rather than exams. That was constant stress rather than a short burst. It would have been nice to get it over and done with. I think we’ve been tested properly. It’s been challenging considering what we have gone through.
Carwyn plans to study biology, chemistry, maths and one “random one” English literature in sixth form.
Farmer’s son Gethin Evans, 16, came away with Bs and Cs. He does not plan to return to sixth form:
I did quite well but I’m finished with school. School’s not for me. I’ve had enough.
He also lives in a remote location - a mile and half from the nearest road.
It hasn’t been ideal. Living on a farm the temptation was always to leave the computer and go outside. But I stuck at it, kept going. I’m proud of that.
Number of girls taking science increases, but computing among girls falls
The number of girls taking science courses at GCSE has increased this year in physics, biology and chemistry. Girls now comprise over half of the total number of students taking the three science exams in year 11.
But the number of girls taking computing GCSEs has fallen for the second year in a row, with the gender gap widening - the proportion of girls taking computing has fallen to 20.7% in 2021 from 21.5% in 2020. A silver lining is that girls outperformed boys in grades 7 and above, as well as 4 and above, awarded in the subject.
GCSE performance in Wales remains stable
Overall GCSE performance in Wales remains stable with 73.6% of candidates achieving a C grade or above, compared with 73.8% in 2020.However, the proportion of students in Wales being awarded the top grades A* and A has increased; from 25.5% to 28.7% this year.
The Welsh education minister Jeremy Miles told students:
Well done. You’ve had everything thrown at you over the last 18 months – periods in lockdown, time away from your friends and families, and times where you’ve missed out on many of the social activities you should be enjoying. You’ve shown tremendous resilience to overcome all of these challenges.
Dr Patrick Roach, General Secretary of the NASUWT-The Teachers’ Union has congratulated GCSE students and the teachers who have guided them through a very difficult 18 months.
He said:
Congratulations to all the young people receiving their GCSE results. This cohort of students has been through nearly 18 months of huge disruption and uncertainty and they deserve to be able to celebrate today.
Teachers too have faced huge challenges in drawing up centre assessed grades, not least due to the delays and failure of ministers to put in place timely contingency plans, despite the chaos which ensued over grading last summer.
It is therefore of real concern that the Government has not yet confirmed any mitigations to ensure that next year’s exam cohort will be assessed fairly and not disadvantaged.
It is already clear that, regardless of the trajectory of the pandemic in the coming months, mitigations for the class of 2022 will be needed to address the disruption pupils have experienced.
Young people and their teachers urgently need the detail of what measures are to be adopted for next year, along with what contingency plans will be in place in the event that exams cannot go ahead as planned, so that they have the best possible opportunity to plan, prepare and achieve their best.
In developing all their proposals, ministers will need to ensure that the unacceptable and avoidable workload pressures teachers and school and college leaders have experienced in the last academic year are not repeated.
Jon Andrews, Head of Analysis at the Education Policy Institute (EPI) has said that education leaders now have to focus on addressing the learning that students have lost, rather than their grades.
Higher GCSE grades were to be expected given the approach to assessment and the lack of a rigorous plan from the government to address inconsistencies in awarding grades between schools.
It’s important that we don’t let today’s grade changes distract us from the huge learning losses that students have faced. There is a risk that higher grades awarded to young people conceal the underlying losses that they have experienced from the pandemic.
We know that some pupils had suffered significant learning losses by the spring lockdown, with disadvantaged students most affected. These losses must not be allowed to hold students back as they make the important transition to the next stage of education.
Our research has shown that a three-year education recovery package totalling £13.5bn will be required to reverse the damage done to pupils’ learning from the pandemic, but the government’s package amounts to less than a quarter of this. We must see far more ambitious plans so that we can give young people the best chance of progressing after such a prolonged period of disruption.
Gravity-defying twins Jessica and Jennifer Gadirova have their GCSE results today, probably still slightly jet-lagged from their trip back from the Tokyo Olympics, where they won the team bronze.
The 16-year-olds said they were pleased with their results and plan to stay on at Aylesbury Vale Academy where they will both do the Sport and Management course at sixth form.
Jessica Gadirova said:
We are very happy and pleased, we both got the pass and are very thrilled.
It was very difficult and it would not have been possible without the support from our teachers and coaches.
If there were days that we had to miss school because of training, they would give us the resources and help to catch up.
Two weeks ago they were part of the team, alongside Alice Kinsella and Amelie Morgan, which won Great Britain’s first women’s team gymnastics medal since 1928.
So, not a terrible summer for the Gadirovas.
Share your experiences with us
We want to hear from parents and teachers about pupils’ experiences of this year’s GCSE assessments amid Covid outbreaks and school closures. Has your child achieved better results than they expected, or lower? Do you think the lack of summer exams has penalised them in any way? Or have they been unaffected?
You can share your experiences in the form here. Parental permission is required for those under the age of 18.
Please ensure you include important details, like the name of your school, in the description box. Photos would be great too. We will include some of your responses in our ongoing coverage.
Students sit GCSEs in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has an entirely different system). Northern Irish students tend to do better than their English and Welsh counterparts on results day. But this year they have outdone themselves with two-in-every-five students achieving one of the two top marks.
A massive 39.9% of results among Northern Irish students were of an A grade or above compared with 28.7% in Wales and 28.5% in England.
In Northern Ireland close to nine-in-10 grades (89.6%) were an A grade or above compared to around two thirds in England and Wales (76.9% and 73.6% respectively).
Updated
Analysis of grades by school type showed the proportion of top grades at independent and selective schools was more than double the rate at non-selective state schools.
Selective schools had the highest proportion of top grades, with 68% of students receiving a 7 or above, followed by independent schools, where the rate was 61%.
In academies and comprehensives, 28% and 26% of results respectively scored at least a 7. Independent schools saw the largest absolute increase in top grades, up 4 percentage points on last year, compared to 2 points at academies and comprehensives.
However, looking at the relative change - which accounts for the fact that private schools generally report higher grades - independent schools reported a lower increase than those in the state sector.
Updated
Students get record-breaking GCSE results
Thirty percent of entrants got a 7 or above - the equivalent to A and A* - compared to 27.5% in 2020 and 22% in 2019, the last year that formal exams were held.
State grammar schools in England were by far the most successful with more than 68% of entries awarded grades 7 and above, a rise of nearly three percentage points compared with last year. In contrast, at secondary modern schools 20% received top grades.
Independent schools, where 70% of A-level entries gained A or above, gave top marks to 61% of GCSE entries, up four percentage points on 2020 and by 14 points since 2019.
In England girls outperformed boys in maths for the first time since GCSEs were reformed by Michael Gove aseducation secretary, with 26.4% of girlsreceiving a 7 or higher compared to 25.5% of boys.In 2019, 20.9% of maths entries by boys gained 7 or above, one percentage point higher than girls.
In English, the gender gap in results was much wider with almost a third of female entrants receiving a 7 or above, compared to just under a fifth of boys. The difference between them was 13.6 percentage points, the biggest gap since 2016.
Updated
Future exam results in England should be permanently pegged to those awarded in 2020 to avoid pupils being hit by a fall in grades awarded, argues a former senior government adviser, as 16-year-olds across the country await their GCSE results.
Sam Freedman, a policy expert and former adviser in the Department for Education, said using the results awarded in 2020 as the new baseline for A-levels and GCSEs would be the fairest way to rebalance grades after two years of systematic acceleration.
Labour leader Keir Starmer is getting in on the GCSE action this morning.
He calls the Conservatives’ catch-up plan “so inadequate that their own catch-up tsar resigned”
Children lost over 8 weeks of face-to-face teaching this year - and 14 weeks last year.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) August 12, 2021
The Tories' catch-up plan is so inadequate that their own catch-up tsar resigned.
They need to match Labour's ambition for our children by backing our £15 billion Children's Recovery Fund.
Exams to return in 2022
Bad news if you’re just about to enter your last year of school - the schools minister, Nick Gibb has this morning confirmed that exams will return for GCSE pupils in England next summer.
There will be adjustments to make them fairer, to compensate for the disruption to learning faced by pupils this year, and more detail of the grading standard for those exams would be announced in the autumn, he told the Today programme.
But he said in the longer term the government wanted to return to the situation in place before the pandemic, where grade inflation was not an issue and “where year on year you didn’t see great variation between the grades awarded”.
Gibb also ruled out keeping teacher assessment as an alternative to exams. He explained:
Exams are the fairest system of assessing young people. We had to cancel exams this year because they wouldn’t be fair .... But we will be getting back to exams in 2022 because they are simply the fairest way of judging a young person’s attainment.
Hundreds of thousands of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive their GCSE results today, as experts predict another increase in grades after exams were cancelled.
GCSE exams were scrapped because of schooling disruption caused by the pandemic, with teachers judgement being used to grade student performance.
It comes after a leap in top grades at A-level earlier this week - which were also awarded by teacher assessment after formal exams were cancelled in January
Higher grades were awarded across the board. At independent schools 70% of entries gained As and A*s, setting off calls for a new grading system to tackle perceptions of inflation.
There were also record grade rises for GCSEs last year.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to sack Education Secretary Gavin Williamson after the results, which prompted warnings over the gap between state and private school pupils.
Starmer told the Guardian he thought Williamson should have been dismissed “a long time ago. And I don’t think I’m alone”.
