Top GCSE grades in Spanish, maths and religious studies have shot up this year, while both English literature and language saw a drop in grade 7 and above. Spanish saw the largest increase in top grades – with a 6.9 per cent rise in grade 7 and above awarded between 2025 and 2026. This was the first cohort to sit the new language specifications introduced in 2024. Ofqual said it was “committed to making sure that students would neither be advantaged nor disadvantaged by being the first to take these”. This was followed by maths, which saw a 3.7 per cent increase in top grades, as well as religious studies (2.3 per cent), chemistry (2.2 per cent) and physics (2 per cent). While biology and history saw no changes in top grades awarded, English language, art and design subjects and English literature all saw drops in top grades awarded – at 0.5 per cent, 1.7 per cent and 2 per cent respectively. Here’s what the distribution of top grades looks like among the most popular subjects, and how they differ from last year. Here’s the full breakdown of the most popular subject results published by the Joint Council for Qualifications this morning.