Official Statistics

Background information for entries and late entries for GCSE, AS and A level: 2020 to 2021 academic year

Published 16 December 2021

Applies to England

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/entries-and-late-entries-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-2020-to-2021-academic-year/background-information-for-entries-and-late-entries-for-gcse-as-and-a-level-2020-to-2021-academic-year

1. Purpose

This statistical release presents data on entries, late entries and certifications for GCSE, AS and A levels for the exceptional autumn 2020 series, November 2020 series and June 2021 series, and historical data going back to 2017.

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), a membership organisation comprising eight providers of qualifications in the UK, including those awarding GCSEs, AS and A levels, publishes on behalf of the exam boards deadlines by which entries should be made. If an entry is made after the deadline it is classed as late and may be subject to an additional charge.

2. Geographical coverage

This report presents data on entries, late entries and certifications for GCSEs, AS and A levels in England.

3. Description

Five exam boards offer (or have offered) GCSE, AS and A level qualifications in England:

  • AQA Education (AQA)
  • Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA), until 2015
  • Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations (OCR)
  • Pearson Education Ltd. (Pearson)
  • WJEC-CBAC Ltd. (WJEC/Eduqas)

Schools and colleges are responsible for submitting entries to exam boards for GCSEs, AS and A levels on behalf of their students. Entries are counted separately for each component that makes up a qualification. An entry, therefore, is counted as a student being entered for an individual assessment, whereas certifications refer to the overall qualification. In summer 2020 and summer 2021, although entries continued to be made at the component level, students received teacher assessed grades at qualification level.

In this report figures for the November 2020 series relate only to GCSE English language and maths, as only GCSEs in those subjects could be taken in that series. The autumn 2020 series covers other GCSE subjects as well as AS and A levels.

Exams were cancelled in summer 2020 and in summer 2021 following the closure of schools and colleges to most students, as part of the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In summer 2020, as part of the exceptional arrangements for exam grading and assessment in 2020, students ultimately received the higher of a centre assessment grade or calculated grade for GCSE, AS and A level.

In summer 2021, students were awarded grades based on an assessment by their teachers, based upon what they had been taught and supported by a range of evidence. The autumn series was put in place to give candidates who had been unable to receive a grade in the summer the opportunity to do so and to allow students who were disappointed with their grade in the summer the opportunity to improve their grade. The November exam series usually occurs every year for post-16 GCSE English and Maths. Students took exams in both the autumn and November series.

4. External influences

There are various factors which might have influenced the entries for GCSE, AS and A levels in recent years:

4.1 Coronavirus (Covid-19)

In 2020 and 2021 the summer exam series was cancelled in order to help limit the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19) and this may have affected patterns of entry.

4.2 AS and A level

Reformed A levels in England are linear qualifications and therefore entries are counted at component level. Modular qualifications, such as many of the legacy qualifications, are counted at unit level. These differences may affect patterns of entry due to potentially differing numbers of units and components for each qualification across legacy and reformed A levels. From 2020 reformed A levels were available in all subjects were available.

In addition to this, reformed A levels differ from legacy qualifications in that the results of the AS qualification do not count towards a student’s A level grade. As such, there is no requirement for students to enter the AS components or certificate at AS in a given subject, as they do not count towards the A level.

These structural changes are likely to have been the key factor in a substantial decline in AS entries (and therefore total AS and A level entries) since the introduction of reformed AS and A levels from 2016 onwards.

4.3 GCSE

Reformed GCSEs started to be phased in from 2015 with the first results issued for English language, English literature and mathematics in 2017. From 2020 all 53 reformed GCSEs were available.

Reformed GCSEs are linear qualifications, therefore entries to reformed GCSEs are counted at component level. Legacy GCSEs differ in that they tended to be modular and therefore entries were counted at unit level. This may have had an impact on patterns of entry due to differing numbers of units and components across legacy and reformed GCSE qualifications.

As GCSEs have been reformed, Level 1 and Level 2 certificates in equivalent subjects no longer count in school performance tables. The biggest impact of this is in English language, English literature and mathematics where, since 2017, there has been a fall in the entries to Level 1 and Level 2 certificates and a shift in the cohort back to GCSEs.

Since August 2015, full time students who have not achieved a grade 4 (prior to 2017 a grade C) or above in mathematics and English language or English literature GCSEs have to continue studying mathematics and/or English language in order to be funded post-16.

5. Data source

Exam boards send data on entries and late entries as well as on the certificates they award in GCSEs, AS and A levels to Ofqual for each exam series.

Data was collected for AS and A level separately for the first time in 2016. Therefore, in this publication, pre-2016 data are reported combined for AS and A level and from 2016 onwards AS and A level numbers are reported separately within tables.

6. Limitations

There is potential for error in the information provided by exam boards, therefore Ofqual cannot guarantee that the information received is correct. Ofqual compares the data over time and checks for systematic issues. Summary data are sent back to exam boards for checking and confirmation.

7. Quality assurance

Quality assurance procedures are carried out as explained in the Quality Assurance Framework for Statistical Publications published by Ofqual to ensure the accuracy of the data and to challenge or question it, where necessary. Publication may be deferred if the statistics are not considered fit for purpose.

8. Revisions

Once published, data are not usually subject to revision, although subsequent releases may be revised to insert late data or to correct an error.

9. Confidentiality and rounding

To ensure confidentiality of the published accompanying data, figures have been rounded to the nearest 5. If the value is less than 5, it is represented as 0~ and 0 represents zero entries.

As a result of rounded figures, the percentages (calculated on actual figures) shown in any tables may not necessarily add up to 100.

10. Status

These statistics are classified as Official Statistics.

A number of other statistical releases relate to this one, including:

For any related publications for qualifications offered in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland please contact the respective regulators - Qualifications Wales, CCEA and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)

13. Feedback

We welcome your feedback on our publications. Should you have any comments on this statistical release and how to improve it to meet your needs please contact us at data.analytics@ofqual.gov.uk.

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