Ministers urged to act over numbers failing English and maths GCSEs

The government has been urged to reassess what a social mobility expert has called the “national scandal” of teenagers leaving school without GCSE passes in English and maths despite multiple retakes.

Ahead of this summer’s GCSE results being published on Thursday, Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said his research suggested too many young people lacking the qualifications had lower chances of future success and increased reports of poor mental and physical health.

“It’s a national scandal that every year a fifth of teenagers fail to master the basic GCSE grades in both English and maths needed to function and flourish in life. Our research reveals the dire individual consequences of this academic failure,” Elliot Major said.

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“Without basic grades in both English and maths, the odds of success are stacked against you: it doesn’t just impact on your academic prospects but has wider life consequences for health and criminality.”

Students in England who fail to gain at least a passing grade 4 in maths or English GCSEs are required to be reexamined in the subjects while they remain in education, but pass rates remain stubbornly low among those resitting.

Last year just 16% of students resitting GCSE maths in England passed with at least a grade 4, while 26% did the same in GCSE English.

Elliot Major said: “We also need to review our national resits policy to identify best practice so more students are able to secure their grades second time round.”

In a new working paper, academics from Exeter and University College London tracked 11,500 pupils in England who first sat GCSEs in 2016-17. It found that those who failed were more likely to have longstanding illnesses, behaviour problems or to have attempted suicide, compared with others their own age.

Elliot Major said that by the ages of 17 and 18, those who did not pass English and maths were also twice as likely to be cautioned by the police, by 12% to 6%.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, told PA Media earlier this month that she was considering the future of the resits policy.

“I do want to make sure that all young people have got a really firm foundation in English and maths because that is the springboard for the rest of their lives,” Phillipson said.

Elliot Major said: “We need an urgent review of why so many pupils end up without basic grades after a decade of schooling, assessing how we can better diagnose and help four- and five-year-old children falling behind.”

The stress of studying for exams was reinforced by a new survey published by the Association of School and College Leaders, which found that more than three-quarters of teachers saw pupils with mental health issues relating to GCSE anxiety in the past academic year.

Pepe Di’Iasio, ASCL’s general secretary, said that reforms to the content and structure of GCSEs since 2015 had made the exams more challenging.

“It is clear that the current high-stakes, end-of-course exam model is causing significant stress and anxiety among students, which is unacceptable,” Di’Iasio said.

The survey also found that 58% of teachers said that parents had contacted their school because of worries about how their child was coping with exam pressure, while 65% said they knew of students not attending school due to exam anxiety.

While only 9% of teachers backed scrapping GCSEs, 31% said they wanted fewer papers sat for each course. Analysis by ASCL found that a student taking a typical set of GCSEs would spend a total of 33 hours sitting exams.

• In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org . You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk