Entries to the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) have increased by 1.6 percentage points since 2018 to 40 per cent, the highest entry rate since the introduction of the measure in 2010,  according to new provisional data.

However, the proportion of pupils studying the academic subjects that make up the performance measure is way below the 75 per cent target the Department for Education set itself to achieve by 2022.

The provisional statistics on GCSE results for the 2018-2019 academic year were published this morning.

Admission: DfE admits it will miss watered down EBacc target

Attainment: National GCSE stats show small improvements

Revealed: A-level results by school type 

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The EBacc is a set of academic subjects at GCSE, comprising English, mathematics, history or geography, the sciences and a language.

Increases in entries were seen in humanities, with 80.6 per cent of state school pupils entering these subjects, up 2.3 percentage points, while 46.6 per cent of pupils entered languages, up by 0.5 percentage points. And in science, 95.6 per cent of pupils entered, meaning an increase of 0.2 percentage points on the previous year.

Meanwhile, overall attainment remained stable, with the proportion of pupils achieving a grade 5 or above in English and maths remaining at 43 per cent.

And the average Attainment 8 figures - a measure of average achievement of pupils in up to eight qualifications - was 46.5 per pupil compared with 46.4 last year.