GCSE results are out this morning – here’s your handy Schools Week round up of the key trends. All findings are based on the figures for 16-year-olds in in England, unless stated otherwise. Here’s what we know… 1. Grade 9s stay exactly the same The proportion of results issued at grades 7 to 9 (equivalent to the old A*/A grades) stands at 23.1 per cent. This is only a slight rise from 2025, when the top grades figure stood at 23 per cent. In 2019, before the pandemic, the proportion of results at grade 7 and above stood at 21.8 per cent, which means there has been a 6 per cent rise since then. The proportion of results at grade 9 remained at 5.2 per cent, which is exactly the same figure as last year. 2. Grade 5+ pass up again A grade 5 and above is considered a “strong” pass while a grade 4 is considered a “standard” pass, under the 9 to 1 grading system. We have highlighted the grade 5 and above pass rate because it’s how schools are judged in league tables. The grade 5-pass rate has increased slightly from 55 per cent last year to 55.5 per cent. In pre-pandemic 2019 this figure stood at 53.5 per cent. The grade 4-pass rate has risen from 70.5 to 70.7 per cent, higher than the 69.9 per cent seen in 2019. 3. More top grades in maths and English In GCSE maths, the proportion of results at grade 7 and above, as well as grade 5 and above, has gone up. More than half (53.8 per cent) of entries were graded at 5 and above, while 22.3 per cent were grade at 7 or above. In 2025, these figures stood at 52.8 for grade 5 and above and 21.5 per cent at grade 7 and above. This year Ofqual told exam boards to adjust grade boundaries for maths, after the National Reference Test showed “a small rise in attainment in maths at grade 7 in recent years”. It added that the change was “a genuine improvement in what students know, understand and can do”. While the proportion of English Language entries at grade 5 or above increased, from 54.2 per cent this year to 55 per cent this year, the proportion of results at grade 7 fell slightly, from 19.5 per cent to 19.4 per cent. 4. Gender gap remains stable The gap between girls and boys has remained stable compared with last year, at just below 5 percentage points. This year, the proportion results at grade 7 or above issued to 16-year-old girls remained at 25.5 per cent – the same as in 2025 and 2024. Boys saw a 0.2 percentage point increase in grades 7 and above, marking another year-on-year rise. 5. Yorkshire and Humber sees biggest rise in top grades Taking all ages into account, the attainment gap between the highest and lowest performing regions has grown to 10.9 percentage this year, up from 10.6 percentage points last year. Before the pandemic this gap stood at 9.3 percentage points. The proportion of top grades fell in the north east, the West Midlands, the south west, the south east and the east of England. The south west saw the biggest fall, with the proportion of top grades 0.4 percentage points lower than last year. The largest increase was in Yorkshire and the Humber, where the number of top grades jumped to 19.0 per cent, up by 0.6 percentage points. But London remains the highest performing region, with 28.6 per cent of grades at 7 and above. The north east has the lowest proportion of top grades, at 17.7 per cent. 6. Engineering, computer science and French fall The total number of GCSE entries increased by 1.1 per cent this year, with a total of 5,840,185 in summer 2026. GCSE statistics had 26,071 entries this year, marking an 11 per cent rise compared with 2025. Business studies entries rose by 8 per cent (139,284), and sociology by 5.2 per cent (30,902). Engineering saw the largest decline in uptake, at 9.3 per cent (2,051), while computing and French also saw drops, at 7.2 per cent (80,266) and 5.5 per cent (117,259) respectively. Myles McGinley, managing director of OCR, said that AI “could be leading to students thinking they don’t need to learn how to code”, but that computer science “is more important than ever”. “I think AI won’t be able to replace a solid understanding of how software works, how technology can solve real world problems and how it can create a good user experience, for example,” McGinley said. However, other languages fared better. German saw a slight rise in entries of 0.3 per cent (31,302) while Spanish continued to be the most popular language GCSE, with a 0.5 per cent rise in entries (127,236). 7. Private schools see top grades fall Ofqual data shows that grammar schools recorded the highest proportion of top grades, at 63.2 per cent this year, the same figure as last year. But the figure for private schools has fallen since last year, from 49 per cent to 48.4 per cent. This is the first time their grades have fallen since pandemic grading ended in 2023. The proportion of top grades in academies, council maintained comprehensives and free schools stands at 19.7 per cent, 20 per cent and 21 per cent respectively. They all saw increases from last year. For all state schools, the percentage of top grades rose by 0.1 percentage points, to 20.6 per cent. The figures on centre type reflect grades from entries of all ages.