The 2020 GCSE awards
This release summarises GCSE entries and grades of pupils at the end of key stage 4 (KS4). Figures are available at national, regional, local authority level and some lower level breakdowns such as local authority district and parliamentary constituency.
In March 2020, the Secretary of State announced that the summer 2020 exam series in England would be cancelled to help fight the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19). It is also stated that Government will not publish any school or college level educational performance data based on tests, assessments or exams for 2020.
For this summer’s GCSE awards, schools and colleges were asked to provide centre assessment grades for their pupils. The centre assessment grades are those that schools and colleges believed their pupils would have been most likely to achieve if they had sat their exams. These grades then went through a standardisation process developed by Ofqual to produce a calculated grade. In August 2020, the decision was made to award pupils the better of either the centre assessment grade or the calculated grade (known as the final grade).
The statistics in this release are based on the grades received by pupils as announced on 20th August 2020. They do not reflect any revised grades subsequently awarded as part of an appeals process.
In October and November 2020, there has been an exceptional exam series for GCSEs and A levels to provide another opportunity for pupils who wanted to improve on their final grade, and for pupils who were not able to receive a grade this summer. The results of the autumn GCSE series will be published in January and February 2021. Depending on the impact of these exams on 2020 results the Department will decide whether a further publication is required to update the breakdowns included in this release that are based on grades.
Changes to the traditional pattern of releasing provisional data followed by revised data
In previous years, the Department has published headline statistics in October and more detailed data in the following January. These releases are referred to as the provisional data followed by revised data. The revision process includes amendments made by schools during checking exercises in June and September. However, the schools checking exercise was cancelled in 2020 which means the output does not include any approved school amendments from the checking exercise and therefore, there is no requirement to publish ‘provisional’ and ‘revised’ data.
So, for 2020, this will be the one statistical release covering GCSE results from the summer. The wide range of pupil characteristics breakdowns of the headline statistics at national, regional and local authority level normally published in previous provisional and revised releases have been incorporated into this one release.
The statistics covered in this release include only qualifications that count towards the secondary school performance tables. Where schools offer unapproved qualifications, such as unregulated international GCSEs, the grades awarded to pupils for these qualifications are not reflected in this release. This approach is consistent with previous years. However, whilst the coverage of qualifications in these statistics is driven by the secondary school accountability measures included in the performance tables, the Department is not publishing school performance tables, nor any other school level data that uses the 2019/20 GCSE data. As mentioned above, given this year’s exams were cancelled, the Secretary of State announced that the performance tables would be suspended for this year.
The Progress 8 measure is not being published in 2020
The Department has decided not to include statistics on the Progress 8 measure in this release. The main value of the Progress 8 measure is to compare school performance and school level data is not being published this year.
The Department has decided it is not appropriate to publish Progress 8 measures because they are normally calculated by comparing a pupil’s actual results to a set of expected results produced by a model based on national averages. The difference between the estimated results and the actual results is described as pupils making more or less progress than expected. However, in 2020 the vast majority of grades awarded were those submitted by schools and colleges. The difference between a result submitted by the centre and a result estimated by a model would have very little meaning. It would not be appropriate to consider such a difference as a measure of the progress made by a pupil.
About this report
This report focuses on the achievements of pupils in state-funded schools. Where data is presented for more than one year, the revised results from 2019 are used and the final (revised data that has been updated with any late changes from schools) data for 2018 and earlier. As stated elsewhere, because the way exam grades were awarded to pupils is very different in 2020, comparisons of pupil attainment over time should not be made to measure changes in pupil performance.
This year, we have changed the way we display data, by reducing the formatted tables we publish in favour of a more accessible format fit for a wider range of users. This new format contains the same amount of information as was provided in previous publications. We welcome feedback on any aspect of this document at Attainment.STATISTICS@education.gov.uk
 A list of qualifications that count in the secondary school performance tables each year up to 2021 can be found here