Tens of thousands of GCSE English and maths resit students did not achieve a grade 4 pass in the November sittings, new figures reveal.

This was the first opportunity for students who did not achieve a standard pass last summer - the first time the reformed qualifications were sat - to retake the exams. While no overall national results have been published, figures released by awarding bodies show that, in most cases, the proportion achieving a grade 4 dropped from summer 2017.

There were more than 60,000 entries across the two subjects between the AQA (31,613), Edexcel (25,610) and OCR (2,813) boards.

Pass rates down

The proportion achieving a grade 4 or higher in English language was 33.5 per cent with AQA, 33.2 per cent with Edexcel and 49.9 per cent with OCR - although there were only 672 entries in the latter, which may have skewed the overall pass rate.

In maths, the proportion achieving a grade 4 or higher was 32 per cent with AQA, 30.4 per cent with Edexcel and just 26.6 per cent with OCR.

Last summer, 88,406 17-plus learners sat the new English qualification, with a third (35.5 per cent) achieving a grade 4 - the “standard” pass that students need to avoid a resit - or better, while in maths 37 per cent of the 30,408 entries achieved at least a grade 4.

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