Fall in England’s GCSE grades signals a return to pre-pandemic normality

Returning to previous grade distribution after two years of teacher assessment masks a slight improvement on 2019

This summer's GCSE results are the first from examinations in three years. Results are significantly lower than they were last year, but we really shouldn't read anything into that. After two years of grades increasing with the use of teacher-assessed grades, the government signalled its intentions early that we should begin the process of returning to pre-pandemic grade distributions. In September, the qualifications regulator, Ofqual, announced that results would be around the midpoint of those seen in 2019 and 2021.

This is exactly what we have seen in today's data. The proportion of entries from 16-year-olds awarded a grade 4 or above is down from 79% last year to 75% today, and the proportion getting the higher grades (grade 7 and above), which peaked at 30% in 2021, has fallen to 27% this year.