Maths and English GCSEs are required for A-levels, college and university – so what happens to teenagers who don’t pass?

Each year, around 200,000 pupils in state-funded schools in England do not achieve a grade four or above in both English and Maths GCSE at age 16: about one-third of all students.

The Department for Education considers grade four a “standard pass” and grade five a “strong pass”. Grades below this are not considered a fail, but young people who do not achieve these grades often feel like failures.

Most sixth forms and sixth form colleges require grade four or above in maths and English to study A-levels or new vocational qualifications such as T-levels. These GCSE grades are also required for entry into most UK universities.

These 200,000 young people include those who achieve a pass in maths but not in English and vice versa, so it can include those who, for instance, have a four in English but two in maths. The key thing is that, getting below a four in one of these subjects, even if they pass the other, reduces students’ options after their GCSEs.

Among these students are those who achieve below grade four in both English and maths: between 50,000 and 80,000 teenagers in England each year. My research, together with colleagues at research non-profit FFT Education Datalab for the Nuffield Foundation, focuses particularly on these lowest-attaining students.

These young people are much more likely to be from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Many have been identified as having some form of special educational need at a point during their school career, and their attainment in maths and English tends to reflect performance in other GCSEs.

Our research shows that most of these young people get to age 16 having had a poor educational experience and their options for post-16 learning are highly constrained.

Typically, fewer than 10% of these students can access and sustain study in their school sixth form. At 16 they are unlikely to be prepared for transition to a very different educational setting.

As a result, they have fractured post-16 learning pathways, with a high number dropping out of learning. Over 30% of these young people from socially disadvantaged backgrounds were inactive or unemployed three years after starting post-16 learning.

Disruptions to education and employment during the pandemic mean that most studies, including ours, make use of data from the pre-pandemic period. However, the impact of the pandemic makes it likely that outcomes for these young people have further worsened.

Trying to help

Many policies introduced by the previous Conservative government focus on young people who do not attain grade four or above in maths, English or both at GCSE. For instance, since 2014, these students are required to continue studying these subjects between the ages of 16 and 18. This has had a positive effect, improving post-16 maths and English achievement among low-attaining young people, mostly studying functional skills qualifications.

Similarly, a raising of the participation age between 2012 and 2014 – making it compulsory for 17- and 18-year-olds to be in education or training – allows more time for young people to reach these grades and improve their prospects.

But these policies tend to help those pupils who are close to reaching a GCSE grade four to go on and achieve this milestone. They are not appropriate for the lowest attainers, because they essentially mandate more of the same kind of study for longer: for students to carry on with an approach that isn’t working for them.

There is little clear evidence on what the appropriate learning approach for disadvantaged and very low-attaining young people should be.

Meanwhile, achievement by this group of young people has worsened. We have analysed policy changes following the 2011 Wolf Review, commissioned by the then government to improve vocational education for 14- to 19-year-olds.

These policy changes removed many qualifications taken by the lowest-attaining students because of concerns over quality. But our research suggests that overall education and employment outcomes worsened. While we see some improvement in maths and English achievement by age 19 for some, for the lowest attaining affected by the post-Wolf reforms, overall achievement at level two (equivalent to GCSEs) was five percentage points lower even by age 21.

The end of these qualifications, ostensibly to improve the quality of learning, served to reduce options for the lowest attaining.

What’s more, the further education colleges these young people are likely to attend have suffered the most significant reduction in per-pupil funding of any sector of the education system. They receive less funding for disadvantaged learners because there is no post-16 equivalent of pupil premium funding that schools with disadvantaged pupils receive.

Our Nuffield-funded study suggests that providing the lowest attaining with some form of “employment orientation” while still at school could help mitigate their disillusionment with education. This would ideally be introduced as a partnership between schools and colleges to smooth the post-16 transitions for some of the most disadvantaged students.

But this would mean a narrowing of focus earlier in their school careers. As such, it would need to be accompanied by support for lifelong learning and engagement with employers in hospitality, retail, construction and social care that provide entry-level jobs to many of the lowest attaining. But a dedicated approach like this could improve prospects for those who have been forgotten.

Peter Urwin has received funding from the Nuffield Foundation and the ESRC.