Reformed GCSEs were awarded for the first time in 25 more subjects this summer bringing the total number of reformed subjects to 48. 99% of all students in England received only numerical grades. But how is reform impacting on results trends?

Number of entries

In 2019, entries and outcomes were largely stable. The 16 year-old population increased by 1.5% and overall GCSE entries were up 1.4%.4.6 million GCSE entries were received from 580,850 16-year-old students in England.

Top grades

From amongst all the 16-year-old students in England taking seven or more reformed GCSEs, 837 students achieved a grade 9 (designed to recognise the very highest performing students) in all of them, with two thirds of those being female. This figure is up from 732 in 2018.

National Reference Test

Evidence from the National Reference Test (NRT) fed into the awarding of GCSE English Language and GCSE Maths for the first time this year as an additional source of evidence. Following analysis of the NRT results, Ofqual took the decision not to make any adjustments to English or Maths GCSE grading in 2019.

Popular subjects

The top ten most popular GCSE subjects remained the same and in the same order as 2018.

For the second year running, ahead of Maths and English, the Science double award had the greatest number of entries up 4.8% with 15.1% of the total GCSE entries.

Computing GCSE entries saw a significant increase of 7.2% to 80,027, with female entries increasing by 14%, although they remain only 21.4% of the total entry.

Other subjects which saw increases in entries this year include:

• Art and Design subjects up 9.5% to 195,928
• Spanish up 7.5% to 102,242 (over 100,000 entries for the first time)
• History up 7.1% to 278,759
• Geography up 3.4% to 265,169.

Of the larger-entry GCSEs (entries greater than 100,000), religious studies saw the greatest percentage decrease by 1.8% to 249,022.

English and Maths

Entries in both English and English Literature were above the increase in the age population increasing by 4.4% and 3.8% respectively. English Literature entries for 15-year-olds increased by 17.9% this year, an increase of 5,777. Overall entries in Maths increased by 4.2% with an increase of 4.9% for candidates aged 17 and over.

Re-sits

For post-16 students, entries were up for GCSE English Language and Maths and outcomes where down when compared with 2018. This year, only 21.5% of 17-year-olds achieved a grade 4 or higher in Maths (22.3% in 2018), with 30.5% achieving this pass grade in English Language (32% in 2018).

Statistics covering the whole of the UK by subject, grade and gender are available on the JCQ website.

For further exploration of results trends, Ofqual’s analytics tool includes an interactive map of England showing GCSE results in different subjects by grade and county.