Key Stage 4 Performance

This statistical release focuses on the GCSE results of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4) attending statefunded schools in England. In the 2021/22 academic year there were 4015 state-funded schools with 587,681 pupils at the end of KS4. Unlike previous years, this provisional release will include pupil characteristic breakdowns such as by disadvantage status, free school meal status, special educational needs status and ethnicity.

This academic year saw the return of the summer exam series, after they had been cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, where alternative processes were set up to award grades (centre assessment grades, known as CAGs, and teacher assessed grades, known as TAGs). As part of the transition back to the summer exam series adaptations were made to the exams (including advance information) and the approach to grading for 2022 exams broadly reflected a midpoint between results in 2019 and 2021.

Throughout this release, comparisons are made with both 2021, the most recent year, and 2019, because it is more meaningful to compare to the last year summer exams were sat. Given the unprecedented change in the way GCSE results were awarded in the summers of 2020 and 2021, as well as the changes to grade boundaries and methods of assessment for 2021/22, users need to exercise caution when considering comparisons over time, as they may not reflect changes in pupil performance alone.