Official data for GCSEs and A-levels reveals big improvements

December 13, 2021

GCSE and A-level students are being praised by Southend-on-Sea Borough Council after official data from the Department of Education reveals big improvements across the borough.

GCSEs

Official data reveals that 79.3% of students in Southend achieved grade 4 or above in English and Maths GCSEs combined, a further 3.8% improvement on 2020 results. Grade 4 is the threshold considered to be a ‘standard pass’ by the Department for Education and the bottom of this grade aligns with the bottom of the previous C grade.

Official data from Southend schools suggests 64.4% of Southend students achieved a grade 5 in English and maths, which is considered a ‘strong pass’ by the Department for Education. This is 4.4% above the 2020 figure of 60%.

A-levels

Figures from the borough’s ten schools indicate the number of students achieving three A* to A A-level grades has risen to 32.4%, which is well above the national average of 25.0%.

The percentage of students achieving AAB A-level grades or better in Southend has also significantly increased by 10.8% compared to 35.7% from 2020 and above the national average of 37.3%.

Cllr Laurie Burton, cabinet member for children and learning, said: “I’d like to congratulate all GCSE and A-level pupils in Southend for this excellent set of results which sees Southend achieve above national results across several areas including average attainment scores for GCSEs and a significant increase in A-level students achieving AAB or better.

“These achievements are all the more impressive when we account for the disruption caused by Covid-19. I’d also like to praise teachers and parents for how they adapted and supported our pupils throughout this challenging academic year to ensure our children continued to receive high standards of teaching and support in safe environments despite all of the challenges brought on by the pandemic.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer GCSE exam series for the 2020/21 academic year was cancelled. Instead, for 2020/21, pupils were only assessed on the content they had been taught for each course. The same applies for A-level grades and alternative processes were set up to award grades.

More details are available on the Government website.