More than 20,000 pupils left their school sixth-forms before completing their A-level courses, new data reveals.

Analysis by Education Datalab reveals that only 13 per cent of the 160,000 pupils taking at least three AS levels at state schools nationally did not go on to complete Year 13. This is equivalent to 20,800 pupils.

This proportion is even higher when selective schools are taken out of the equation: 14 per cent - or 19,040 - of pupils at non-selective schools did not finish their A-level courses. 

Dave Thomson, who conducted the analysis, said: “Everybody who’s worked in education has always known about this. But it’s only now that people seem to have realised that, actually, this is quite wrong.”

This analysis comes as controversy builds over schools refusing to allow low-achieving pupils to finish A-level courses. This week, it was revealed that judicial-review proceedings have been initiated against St Olave’s grammar school in South-East London, after two pupils were told that they could not continue into Year 13 after failing to achieve Bs in any of their subjects.

Since then, the lawyers acting for the families of the two pupils say that they have been contacted by parents whose children have faced similar situations at a number of other London schools.

‘Quite wrong’

The Education Datalab analysis looks at pupils who took their AS-levels in summer 2015, when the qualification still counted towards a full A-level.

It shows that 47 per cent of pupils at non-selective schools who achieved less than EEE in their AS levels did not finish Year 13. At selective schools, the figure was 62 per cent.

Eighteen per cent of pupils who achieved between CDD and EEE at non-selective schools did not complete their A-level courses. The same was true of six per cent of pupils who achieved between CCD and CCE.

Among higher achievers, the rates of departure were the same for selective and non-selective schools: three per cent of those achieving between BBC and CCC, and one per cent of those attaining at least BBB.

Education Datalab said that it was impossible to tell how many of these pupils left their sixth-forms voluntarily. However, it said that it would expect that the majority of pupils had been planning to go on to take A-levels.

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