England’s GCSE results show ingrained social and regional inequality post-Covid

As the tide of exam results affected by Covid recedes, it reveals stark social and regional inequalities in GCSE performances across England that are barely changed or worse than before the pandemic struck.

Those receiving their GCSE results this week were in their first year of secondary school when the pandemic began in early 2020, with that year and the next hugely disrupted as a result.

Ofqual and the Department for Education have reset their clocks to pre-pandemic grades, but the echoes remain among the results achieved by those from disadvantaged families, and especially those pupils who were unable to gain the grade 4 minimum in English and maths and must now resit those subjects while they remain in education for the next two years.

Related: Ministers urged to act over numbers failing English and maths GCSEs

Regionally, London continues to outperform the rest of the country, and the north-east still has the lowest level of top grades, though there was a minimal closing of the gap between the two. More worrying, all regions recorded a fall in the rates getting grade 4 or above. The West Midlands, which had the lowest rate in 2023, has fallen the most.

The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has rightly condemned the “unacceptable, entrenched regional disparities we have seen time and time again”. Those regional variations also conceal the enormous discrepancies within each region.

Recent research has found wider variations in grades within individual towns or cities than between the north and south of country. Not all schools in London and the south-east are high performers, and not all in the north-east or West Midlands are low performers.

Louis Hodge, an associate director at the Education Policy Institute, said it was important to remember the difficulties today’s students had faced after the pandemic and austerity. “Amongst them are the high levels of pupil absence, geographical inequalities and a growing attainment gap between pupils from low-income backgrounds and their peers – equivalent to 19 months of learning by the time they sit their GCSEs,” he said.

Detailed analysis is not yet available, but this year’s figures show that 60% of entries from grammar schools – which educate few disadvantaged children – received the top grades of 7 and above, while the figure for secondary moderns – non-selective schools in grammar school areas – fell this year, with just 12.6% getting top grades.

Private schools, which possibly educate even fewer disadvantaged children than grammars, had 48% of entries at 7 and above, up by nearly a percentage point on 2023. At academies the rate was 21%, and comprehensives 19%.

Sir Peter Lampl, the founder of the Sutton Trust, which campaigns to reduce educational inequality, said: “It is concerning that the gap in attainment between private and state schools has widened this year. This reflects a broader pattern of widening gaps between the most and least well-off young people since the pandemic and cost of living crisis.”

Away from the top grades, the proportion of 16-year-old pupils getting a grade 4 or above in English fell 0.6 percentage points to 71.2%, and in maths the proportion fell from 72.3% to 72%.

As a result, more pupils aged 17 and over will have resits next year. But their chances of success are likely to be worse than before the pandemic, based on this year’s results, with just 20.9% of English grades for 17-year-olds at 4 or above. That’s below the 25.9% recorded for resits in 2023 and well below the pre-pandemic figure of 30.3% in 2019.

GCSE grade 4s in English and maths open the doors to many future qualifications and careers.

Cath Sezen, the director of education policy at the Association of Colleges, said: “We do need to question whether there is a better approach for the 100,000 students who sat English and maths and weren’t successful in achieving a grade 4 or above.

“Up and down the country there will be teachers and heads of English and maths at a loss about what more they can do to shift the dial, while under pressure to provide English and maths teaching in the 2024-25 academic year to increasing cohorts of young people.”