Laura McInerney | Schools Week

Grammar school green paper expected from May

A green paper setting out plans for the expansion of grammar schools – both new and existing ones – is due to be announced by Theresa May today. The proposals will end a week of speculation over the government’s education plans after a photograph revealed the Prime Minister’s intentions to open new grammars. The green […]

How well did 16 year-olds do in their GCSEs 2016?

There is a confusion this year between GCSE pass rates for schools, and those including re-sitters. We look at what happened for schools only. 16 vs Post-16 The number of pupils resitting maths and English GCSEs has increased dramatically. The charts below separate scores by those who are over 16 (resitters) and 16 year-olds […]

How worrying is the drop in Science results?

GCSE results out. Ofqual have released numbers showing the dips and rises in school numbers. It shows a quirk with science. Each year on results day Ofqual produce boring-sounding ‘variability charts’. Dull name, but important data. These charts show how many ‘centres’ (schools or colleges) dropped or increased their results compared to the previous year. […]

Science GCSE pass rate drops as pupils shift from other courses

GCSE results day 2016 has revealed a dramatic drop of 3.8 per cent in the A*-C rate for science, resulting from significant changes to student entry patterns. The A*-C grades for additional science also fell by 3.5 percentage points. At A*-A only, overall science results dipped by 0.7 percentage points, and additional science by 1.4 […]

Be careful! This year’s AS results are tricky…

Some AS levels this year were exactly like ones last year. Others are nothing like AS levels in the past. Because of this, the results are difficult to disentangle. We can find some meaning in the results. But we have to be very careful. Why are the new AS levels totally different? For the first […]

Southerners do Classics, Northerners do PE: Regional A-level figures

Putting zero stereotypes to bed, figures released today show that pupils educated in southern England are more likely to study classics and politics, while those in the north are more inclined to study ICT and PE. The numbers were produced by the Joint Council of Qualifications as part of the provisional AS and A-level results. […]

A-level results 2016: Trends and stats from the national data

A-level results are out! Here’s what we know… Overall Performance The proportion of A* and As grade has decreased a tiny amount. This year 25.8 per cent of grades were an A or A*, compared to 25.9 per cent last year. The overall performance figure is unchanged – with 98.1 per cent of entries […]

What we can, and cannot tell, from A-Level and GCSE results this year

A tricky part of reporting A-level and GCSE results this year is that school leaders will want different information than we, in the media, will have available. Editor Laura McInerney looks at what we will be able to say from the data. Previously, for GCSE, schools were focused on how many of their pupils passed […]

A-level results 2016: How Schools Week will report the day and why

Last year we canvassed opinion on what people dislike about coverage of results days – A-level and GCSE – and what they would like to see instead. Editor Laura McInerney explains how Schools Week will be covering the day. People really dislike: – Stories focused on kids getting billions of A*s – Kids sobbing […]