This Statistics Report is the first in a new series produced by the Research Division at Cambridge University Press and Assessment, using publicly available school performance data from the Department for Education (DfE). This report is focused on the uptake of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) (and IGCSE/International GCSE)…

This Statistics Report is the second in a new series produced by the Research Division at Cambridge University Press and Assessment, using publicly available school performance data from the Department for Education (DfE). This report is focused on the uptake of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) subjects in England in 2019. The…

This Statistics Report is the third in a new series produced by the Research Division at Cambridge University Press and Assessment, using publicly available school performance data from the Department for Education (DfE). The aim of the new series is to provide a continuation of the Statistics Reports that were previously produced using National…

This Statistics Report is the fourth in a new series produced by the Research Division at Cambridge University Press and Assessment, using publicly available school performance data from the Department for Education (DfE). The aim of the new series is to provide a continuation of the Statistics Reports that were previously produced using National…

For the past few years there have been decreases in the average real per-pupil funding for secondary schools (Belfield, Farquharson and Sibieta, 2018). One possible impact of these cuts is a reduction in the number of different subjects or qualifications offered by schools. The main aim of this research was to investigate whether there was…

This report looks at the provision of A level subjects in England in 2019. Provision in a subject is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. It could be argued that this may not cover all of the 'provision' since schools might offer to provide a subject, but none of their students wants to study…

The aim of this research was to determine the standard that was effectively applied to General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSE) and A levels in June 2020 by the decision to accept the maximum of the centre-assessed grade and the calculated grade. The data for this analysis came from the results tables for GCSEs and A levels in 2019 and…

This report is an updated version of analyses undertaken in previous years (Gill and Crawford, 2016; Gill, 2017; Gill, 2018) looking at the impact of the introduction of new accountability measures (Progress 8) on the qualifications and subjects taken by students at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4). The focus of this report is on changes to the uptake…

This report looks at the provision of A level subjects in England in 2018. Provision in a subject is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. It could be argued that this may not cover all of the 'provision' since schools might offer to provide a subject, but none of their students wants to study…

This report investigates the progression of students from General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) to A level; that is, the proportion of students who go on to take an A level in the same (or related) subject. Progression rates are presented by GCSE grade, and student gender. In addition, the report looks at the relationship between GCSE…

This report looks at the uptake of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) (and IGCSE/International GCSE) subjects in England in 2017. The data for these analyses was taken from the National Pupil Database (NPD). This is a database held by the Department for Education, consisting of results for all students in all subjects in schools and…

This report looks at the uptake of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) (and International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE)) subjects in England in 2016. The data for these analyses was taken from the National Pupil Database (NPD). This is a database held by the Department for Education, consisting of results for all…

This report looks at the provision of General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) subjects in England in 2017. The data for these analyses were taken from the National Pupil Database (NPD). This is a database of results for all students in all subjects in schools and…

The Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) is available for students in Key Stage 5 (KS5), to be taken alongside other qualifications, such as A levels. It differs from most other academic qualifications at KS5 because it is not examined, but instead involves students undertaking an in-depth project in an area of their choosing. Students are…

This report is an updated version of an analysis undertaken last year (Gill, 2017) which looked at the impact of the introduction of new accountability measures (Attainment 8 and Progress 8) on the qualifications and subjects taken by students at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4). It adds in data from the 2016/17 academic year, which was the second…