The TSR Community Awards 2025 are now live >>

GCSE English and Maths

Most of the students in the UK get just standard grades like 4 in English and Maths. The exact stats are that 65.1% of pupils in England received a grade 4 or above in GCSE English and Maths. What factors contribute to these poor results, and how can we improve them?

Reply 1

kdot30

Original post

by khsardar

One is definitely a lack of diligence from young ppl nowadays. (I’m young as well btw so I’m not an old heckler) Personally, I do well in my exam results because I know when it’s time to stop mucking about and lock in.

Reply 2

Riley_GDG

Original post

by khsardar

In English and Maths, both my grades are steadily around 5s and 6s, and I feel that the struggle is the amount of content we have to revise for both subjects. English requires you to remember not only three books' plots and multiple quotes, but also details and analysis for around 16 poems. It's highly overwhelming when you're starting revision, and during it too.
In 2017, 25% more content was added to the maths curriculum, and this is overwhelming, too. Not only because the focus in maths exams now is the highly complex, multi-step questions, but (from my experience with people around me and from what I'm taught in lessons), also because people feel lots of the content is too complex or high level for most to understand (I'm unsure of other schools, but within mine, it tends to be the top two out of a total six maths sets that have grades ranging from 7-9).