GCSE Results
The headlines
Overall, there is a smaller cohort of 16 yr olds this year (down 2.1% to 689,000 in 2014). There has also been a decline in the number of GCSE entries in general (down 4.2%), partly in favour of iGCSE.
This year has seen some major changes (in England at least) with all GCSEs now being taken in a linear fashion, and the ‘first result counts’ change to accountability measures. This has seen the number of 15yr olds taking GCSEs drop by 39.3% across subjects, although the number of 17yr olds taking GCSEs has risen by 15.5% (mostly retakes of English and Maths).
For languages specifically, the number of entries overall is down from 2013 (but still up from 2012). French and German have fallen by (-5.22%) and (-4.83%) respectively, whilst Spanish continues to perform strongly, rising slightly (+1.87%). Other modern languages entries have also risen slightly.
|
GCSE Language Entries |
2014 |
2013 |
2012 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
French |
168,042 |
177,288 |
153,436 |
|
German |
59,891 |
62,932 |
57,547 |
|
Spanish |
93,028 |
91,315 |
72,606 |
|
Total |
320,961 |
331,535 |
283,589 |
|
Other modern languages |
31,865 |
31,368 |
29,843 |
This could partly be accounted for by the smaller cohort overall, and partly by the big reduction in the number of 15yr olds taking the qualification early. (Generally, it seems that the 15yr olds who are now taking languages at GCSE tend to be the stronger candidates, as only the first result counts towards performance measures). Could it be some kind of ‘correction’ given the huge increase in numbers last year? A shift away from the EBacc towards 5 A*-C grades? Or could it be in anticipation of a perceived policy shift from the EBacc towards the progress 8 performance measure? Only time will tell.
|
15yr olds taking language GCSEs |
2014 |
2013 |
|---|---|---|
|
French |
9768 (-36.27%) |
15326 |
|
German |
2621 (-31.42%) |
3822 |
|
Spanish |
5292 (-27.18%) |
7267 |
|
Other modern languages |
12,469 (-1.29%) |
12,632 |
16yr olds taking language GCSEs 2014 2013
French 155,983 (-2.25%) 159,576
German 56,619 (-3.23%) 58,508
Spanish 85,564 (+4.86%) 81,596
Other modern languages 16,061 (-4.19%) 16,764
In terms of results, there has been a further decline in the number of students receiving an A* in languages. Part of the reason for this could be that following the large increase in numbers taking language GCSEs last year, there is now a much broader cohort with different levels of ability – although the trend is still downwards. This has partly been balanced out by a rise in the number of A*s for 15yr olds, however these are still very small numbers. Again, Spanish and other modern languages seem to be bucking this trend.
2014 2013 2014 2013 2014 2013
(Total UK) (Total UK) (Total 15yrs) (Total 15yrs) (Total 16yrs) (Total 16yrs)
French 9.6% 9.8% 15.4% 12.4% 9.2% 9.5%
German 8.4% 9.2% 20.8% 18.1% 7.6% 8.5%
Spanish 13.1% 12.5% 27.5% 19.0% 11.2% 12.1%
Other modern languages 35.8% 34.5% 40.5% 38.3% 30.0% 29.4%
Language (GCSE full course) 2011 2012 2013 2014
Arabic 2639 3236 3607 3641
Bengali 996 1092 1111 963
Chinese 2104 2541 3042 3132
Dutch 431 434 421 406
Gujurati 565 586 542 625
Italian 4343 5023 5136 4929
Japanese 1119 1139 1080 1019
Modern Greek 418 386 510 516
Modern Hebrew 445 458 443 500
Panjabi 885 967 951 886
Persian 394 464 435 535
Polish 3369 4128 3933 4498
Portuguese 1397 1721 1955 2197
Russian 1899 1982 2274 2400
Turkish 1293 1379 1409 1642
Urdu 3960 4307 4519 3976
Total 26257 29843 31368 31865
Further information and comment:
– Joint Council for Qualifications: Click here for the Joint Council for Qualifications – press release and full JCQ data tables.
– Speak to the Future: What is happening to languages at GCSE?
– BBC News: GCSE grades rise, but sharp fall in English
– Guardian: Proportion getting grade C in English falls, but maths passes are up and overall results show modest increase