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CaSE responds to GCSE results day 2017

24 Aug 2017

CaSE responds to the 2017 GCSE results, highlighting the importance of science and engineering skills for future prosperity

Commenting on today’s GCSE results, Director of the Campaign for Science and Engineering (CaSE), Dr Sarah Main said:

​“Congratulations to all students, their teachers and parents, who have worked so hard to achieve their GCSE results today.

​The UK needs talented young people with science and tech skills to grow our wellbeing and prosperity. I encourage young people to take the next step to further study or work in the sciences and maths to help them benefit from the opportunities they provide to help shape, create and understand the world we live in. 

Students are equipped and inspired by great teachers with specialist knowledge of their subject. Government must do more to address chronic teacher shortages in physics, maths and computing to ensure that every student can benefit from having a teacher with expertise in the science subject they are teaching.”

Contact Dr Sarah Main at the Campaign for Science and Engineering for further details; 020 7679 4994

NOTES

1. This year 37.9% of total GCSE entries were in STEM subjects, down from 41.6% last year.  51.4% of STEM entries were boys, whilst 48.6% were girls.

2. With regards to the Science GCSE, a decline of 27.6% in entries can be attributed to 15 year old’s being discouraged from sitting Science this year, instead taking Double Science next year. All other science subjects remained stable, and we expect this trend to normalize in 2018.

3. GCSEs in England are being reformed and will be graded on a new scale from 9 to 1, with 9 being the highest grade. In 2017, English language, English literature and maths will be graded 9 to 1. New GCSE qualifications will be more challenging, and fewer Grade 9’s will be awarded than A*.

4. In the first year each new GCSE subject is introduced, broadly the same proportion of students will get grades 1, 4 and 7 and above as would have got grades G, C and A and above respectively in the old system. Regulators in Wales and Northern Ireland are not introducing the new 9 to 1 grading scale as part of the changes to GCSEs in their jurisdictions.


To read more detailed analysis about this year’s GCSE results, please click here.