Schools face a step change in demand under a key GCSE accountability measure, with the proportion of pupils reaching the required standard expected to plunge below one in seven, TES can reveal.

From next year, pupils will be required to start scoring new GCSE grade 5s instead of the current, easier grade Cs if they are to achieve the English Baccalaureate, the Department for Education has said.

An Education Datalab analysis, shared with TES, forecasts that the change will result in the proportion of state school pupils achieving the EBacc dropping from nearly a quarter last year (24.3 per cent) to just 14 per cent by 2018.

That is likely to make a major difference to official judgements on schools’ performance that could jeopardise heads’ jobs. The DfE stated in November that “the increased importance of the EBacc” would be a feature of future school Ofsted inspections.

The DfE’s ruling on the need for grade 5s for the EBacc contrasts with its stance on post-16 resits for GCSEs in English and maths - a grade 4 will be sufficient for pupils to avoid mandatory retakes until at least 2019.

‘Schools in the middle ground will be hit’

Mike Treadaway, who compiled the Education Datalab figures, said that the drop in EBacc achievement would hit some schools harder than others, with limited impact on grammars and “schools with very low attaining intakes”.

But he added: “There are schools in the middle ground, with lots of kids clustered around the C grade boundary, [which] will be affected much more. 

“I’ve got some concern that it will impact differently on different schools and that it will be important for governors and for Ofsted to understand that.”

A Department for Education spokesman said: “Setting the level of a ‘good pass’ at grade 5 will mean that we can hold schools to account, through the performance tables, for how they support their pupils to achieve their best.

“We have already published information for schools detailing how the new system will work and we will continue to work with them to ensure they are well prepared.”

This is an edited version of an article in the 29 July edition of TES. Subscribers can view the full story here. To subscribe, click here. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here. You can also download the TES Reader app for Android or iOS. TES magazine is available at all good newsagents.

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