Key stage 4 performance
GCSE results of pupils at the end of KS4 attending state-funded schools in England at national & LA level. This release includes pupil characteristic breakdowns
Quick links
Next release
All releases in this series- Published
Headline facts and figures
School and college level data
Compare school and college performance (CSCP) (opens in new tab) will close soon. From autumn 2026, you will be able to use a new service. Data on CSCP will not be updated past the 2024/25 academic year.
However, you can also view the latest data in this release via the table tool by following these steps:
- At the top of the release, select Explore and download data.
- Scroll down to “Data sets: download or create tables” and click “Create table” under “Key stage 4 institution level - Performance”.
- Use the search box to find a school or college by name or unique reference number (URN). Select the required schools and colleges using the tick boxes. You can select multiple schools or colleges. Click “Next step”.
- Select the required time period and click “Next step”.
- Under “Choose your filters”, select the measures you wish to view. The headline measures are “Average Attainment 8 score” and “Percentage of pupils achieving grades 5 or above in English and maths GCSEs”. You can also select pupil characteristics at this stage.
- Click “Create table” to view the data.
Two further school and college level files are available:
- “Key stage 4 institution level - Institution information” provides contextual information about schools and colleges.
- “Key stage 4 institution level - Subject entries and grades” provides entries and grades by qualification and subject.
You can also download the complete datasets via the link above.
Background information
This statistical release focuses on the GCSE and vocational and technical qualification (VTQ) results of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 (KS4) attending state-funded schools in England.
Figures are available at national, regional and local authority level with some lower-level breakdowns such as local authority district and parliamentary constituency. This release includes pupil characteristic breakdowns such as disadvantage status, free school meal status, special educational needs (SEN) status, ethnicity and young carer status. This includes new crosstabulations by ethnicity, disadvantage, sex and SEN.
The data in this release is provisional. It is based on the results data that awarding organisations supply to the department. This includes the vast majority of pupils’ results and includes any amendment requests made by schools during the Autumn checking exercise, and these amendments are also included in the revised secondary school performance tables.
For more information on how we calculate performance measures, and the factors affecting measures for 2025/2026, please visit our secondary accountability measures guide (opens in new tab).
Throughout this release, comparisons are made with 2024/25 and with 2018/19. We compare to 2025 due to it being last year’s data and to 2019 because it was the last year that summer exams were taken before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Progress measures will not be published for the 2024/25 and 2025/26 academic years as KS4 pupils in these years did not have KS2 assessments due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
All of the underlying data files associated with this publication are now available in our new Application Programming Interface (API), which allows users to connect to data directly from data manipulation and visualisation tools such as PowerBI, Python and R. View the available data products in the data catalogue or read our API documentation (opens in new tab).
About this release
The statistics in this release are based on the grades received by pupils as announced on 20 August 2026. The exam grades have been matched to pupils to enable pupil level analyses.
Breakdowns of the grades achieved in summer 2026 were also published on results day by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ ) (opens in new tab) and Ofqual (opens in new tab). Those statistics were at exam entry level for those age 16, whereas the statistics in this release are at pupil level for those at the end of Key Stage 4.
About this statistical release
This release summarises GCSE entries and grades awarded to pupils at the end of KS4 in summer 2026. Figures are published at national, regional, local authority and school level with some further lower-level breakdowns such as local authority district and parliamentary constituency.
The KS4 statistics reported in this release have may been affected by the ongoing uneven impacts of the pandemic on different schools/colleges and pupils.
The 2025/26 KS4 school and college checking exercises ran in June 2026 and Autumn 2026. This release is based on provisional data, meaning that any approved result amendments that schools may have requested have not been applied when aggregations have been calculated.
Where time series data is presented, final data is used for all historic years except 2019/20 and 2020/21 when only one release of data was published. Final data includes small amounts of pupils' exam results from the winter series of exams as well as any late changes from schools.
Feedback
We welcome feedback on any aspect of this document at Attainment.STATISTICS@education.gov.uk. We are particularly interested in user views on the data tables that accompany this release, as well as the Application Programming Interface (API).
Which KS4 headline measures are being reported on?
Description of the Key Stage 4 headline measures
This release reports on the following Key Stage 4 headline measures at a national and regional level:
- The percentage of pupils attaining grades 5 or above in both English and maths.
- The average Attainment 8 score per pupil.
The KS4 measures are designed by the Department to encourage schools to offer a broad and balanced curriculum with a focus on an academic core.
Progress 8
It is not possible to calculate Progress 8 for academic years 2024/25 and 2025/26. This is because there is no KS2 prior attainment data available to use to calculate Progress 8 when the relevant cohorts reach the end of KS4 as primary tests and assessments were cancelled in academic years 2019/20 and 2020/21 due to COVID-19 disruption.
In April 2024 the previous government announced that there will be no replacement for Progress 8 for 2024/25 and 2025/26.
Attainment in English and maths at grade 5 or above
This measure looks at the percentage of pupils achieving grade 5 or above in both English and maths GCSEs. To count for this measure a pupil would have to achieve a grade 5 or above in either English literature or English language. There is no requirement to sit both.
Attainment 8
Attainment 8 measures the average achievement of pupils in up to 8 qualifications. This includes: English language; English literature (double weighted providing both English language and English literature are taken); maths (double weighted); three further qualifications that count in the English Baccalaureate (EBacc); and three further qualifications that can be GCSE qualifications (including EBacc subjects) or any other non-GCSE qualifications on the DfE approved list (opens in new tab).
From 2018, Attainment 8 has had a maximum point score of 90, compared to a maximum of 87 in 2017 and 80 in 2016. This is a consequence of the phased introduction of reformed GCSEs graded on the 9-1 scale. These differences should be considered when comparing Attainment 8 scores between 2016-2019.
Comparing KS4 headline measures over time
The time series data for the main KS4 headline measures are shown in Table 1 at the start of this release. The attainment measures have been affected by changes in methodology following the cancellation of GCSE exams for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 academic years and by their replacement with centre assessed grades (CAGs) and teacher assessed grades (TAGs). They have also been impacted by the changes to the 2021/22 methodology relating to the approach to grading for 2021/22 exams broadly reflecting a midpoint between results in 2018/19 and 2020/21, then a return to pre-pandemic conditions from 2022/23 onwards.
Therefore, any changes seen in the headline attainment statistics for these years likely reflect the changes in grading approach and the methodology for calculating the measures rather than demonstrating changes in standards.
Whilst it is not possible to compare pupil attainment across years to detect changes in pupil performance, the data can show whether attainment gaps for pupils with particular characteristics have changed between years.
Attainment by disadvantage status
Pupils are defined as disadvantaged if they are known to have been eligible for free school meals at any point in the past six years (from year 6 to year 11), if they are recorded as having been looked after for at least one day or if they are recorded as having been adopted from care.
The proportion of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 in state-funded schools recorded as disadvantaged has been stable in recent years but has increased slightly from 28.2% in 2024/25 to 29.8% in 2025/26, likely to be the result of the transitional protections that have been in place during the roll out of Universal Credit. For more information on changes to the disadvantaged cohort please visit our methodology document.
The disadvantage gap index reduced between 2011 and 2014 from 4.07 to 3.74 (indicating that the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and other pupils was becoming smaller). It then widened slightly in 2015 and 2016 to around 3.8, before narrowing to its joint lowest level at 3.66 in 2017. Before the pandemic, the gap index widened again going from 3.66 to 3.70 between 2017 and 2019. It narrowed slightly in 2020 to 3.66 when CAGs were used to award grades, before widening again in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to 3.94. It decreased slightly in 2024 to 3.93 and 2025 to 3.92, and narrowed further to 3.82 in 2026.
The disadvantage gap index summarises the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and all other pupils
The disadvantage gap index has been created to be a more resilient measure (than the binary category of disadvantage) of changes over time in attainment that may have been affected by, for example, the GCSE reforms introduced in 2017 and associated changes to headline measures (e.g. moving away from 5 or more GCSEs to average Attainment 8 scores).
The disadvantage gap index summarises the relative attainment gap (based on the average grades achieved in English and maths GCSEs) between disadvantaged pupils and all other pupils. The index ranks all pupils in state-funded schools in England and assesses whether disadvantaged pupils typically rank lower than non-disadvantaged pupils. A disadvantage gap of zero would indicate that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds perform as well as pupils from non-disadvantaged backgrounds. We measure whether the disadvantage gap is getting larger or smaller over time.
Whilst the absolute differences (in English and maths GCSE grades) may differ between years, the gap index measures results in terms of how disadvantaged pupils are ranked in comparison to non-disadvantaged pupils, therefore it offers greater comparability between years.
More details regarding the methodology and the consultation were published in SFR 40/2014 (opens in new tab).
Attainment by disadvantage status
Attainment across each headline measure was lower for disadvantaged pupils compared to all other pupils in 2025/26.
Table 3 shows:
- For the percentage of pupils achieving grades 5 and above in English and maths, the gap has decreased from 27.3 percentage points in 2024/25 to 26.8 percentage points in 2025/26. However this is an increase compared to 2018/19 (25.2 percentage points).
- The average Attainment 8 gap widened from 13.6 points in 2018/19 to 15.5 points in 2024/25, but has narrowed to 15.1 in 2025/26. This narrowing is driven by the disadvantaged group having a larger increase (0.7 points) than the non-disadvantaged group (0.3 points).
Attainment by first language status
"First language" is the language to which a child was initially exposed to during early development and continues to be exposed to in the home or in the community. Being a pupil whose first language is other than English does not mean that the pupil is necessarily fluent in a language other than English or cannot speak English.
In 2025/26, 19.2% of pupils at the end of KS4 in state-funded schools had a first language other than English (excluding those pupils whose first language is unclassified) in comparison to 19.5% in 2024/25 and 16.7% in 2018/19.
In 2018/19, 2024/25 and 2025/26, pupils with English as an additional language (EAL) have had better attainment than pupils with English as their first language (non-EAL) across the headline measures.
The attainment gaps between EAL and non-EAL pupils have widened in 2025/26 - driven by bigger increases in EAL pupils' attainment:
- The gap in the percentage achieving grades 5 and above in English and maths has widened to 4.3 percentage points, up from 3.3 percentage points in 2024/25 and much wider than the 0.6 percentage points in 2018/19. Both EAL and non-EAL pupils had an increase compared to 2024/25 and 2018/19.
- The average Attainment 8 gap has widened to 3.1 points in 2025/26, up from 2.9 points in 2024/25. The gap is wider than the 1.0 point in 2018/19. EAL pupils saw an increase of 0.3 points compared to 2024/25 while non-EAL pupils saw a small increase of 0.1 points.
Attainment by Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision
The SEN category indicates whether a pupil has learning difficulties or disabilities that make it harder for them to learn than most children of the same age. Pupils with special educational needs include those with SEN support or an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP). More information on these is given in the methodology document.
In 2025/26, 19.7% of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 in state-funded schools had a special educational need compared with 18.7% in 2024/25, and 14.2% in 2018/19.
Pupils with an Education, Health, and Care Plan (EHCP) have substantially lower attainment than pupils with SEN Support across all the headline measures.
When comparing 2025/26 data with both 2018/19 and 2024/25, the gaps in attainment between pupils with an EHCP and pupils with SEN Support have shown the following changes:
- The gap for the percentage achieving grades 5 and above in English and maths is now 15.9 percentage points in 2025/26, up from 14.9 percentage points in 2024/25, and 11.3 percentage points in 2018/19.
- The gap for Attainment 8 is 19.6 in 2025/26, an increase from 19.0 points in 2024/25 and 18.9 in 2018/19.
Attainment by ethnicity
In 2025/26, pupils from the White major ethnic group made up 68.4% of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 in state-funded schools (of those where ethnicity data was provided). 12.9% of pupils were from the Asian / Asian British ethnic group, 7.2% were from the Black / African / Caribbean / Black British ethnic group, 6.8% were from the Mixed / multiple ethnic groups and 2.5% were from Other ethnic groups.
For the percentage of pupils achieving grades 5 and above in English and maths, all major ethnic groups have increased by 2.3 (Black / African / Caribbean / Black British), 2.1 (Asian / Asian British), 1.2 (Other ethnic group), 1.1 (Mixed /multiple ethnic group) and 0.4 (White) percentage points when comparing 2024/25 and 2025/26.
For the average Attainment 8 measure, pupils from the White, Mixed / multiple ethnic groups and Other ethnic group have seen increases of 0.1 points and the Asian / Asian British group and Black / African / Caribbean / Black British group have increased by 0.5 & 0.4 respectively between 2024/25 and 2025/26.
Asian / Asian British and Black / African / Caribbean / Black British ethnic groups have also seen increases of 1.6 and 1.7 points compared to 2018/19. Pupils from the Mixed, White and Other categories have all seen decreases of 0.4, 1.2 and 1.3 points respectively compared to 2018/19.
Attainment by sex
In 2025/26, 48.6% of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 in state-funded schools were girls and 51.4% were boys. These percentages have remained stable since last year.
The gap for the percentage achieving grades 5 and above in English and maths narrowed from 6.6 percentage points in 2018/19 to 3.1 percentage points in 2024/25, and remained the same in 2025/26.
Attainment 8 gap narrowed from 5.5 points in 2018/19 to 4.0 in 2024/25 and has decreased slightly to 3.9 points in 2025/26. The decrease was driven by boys improving slightly more than girls (0.2 points compared to 0.1 points).
Ready Reckoner and Transition Matrices Tools
Ready Reckoner tools are published to help users, particularly schools and colleges, understand how Progress 8 measures are calculated for their school and pupils.
Transition matrices are a useful tool to help visualise the progression of pupils from Key Stage 2 (KS2) to Key Stage 4 (KS4) based on KS2 prior attainment scores and KS4 achievements.
As no prior attainment data is available for the majority of pupils at the end of Key Stage 4 in 2025/26 (due to them having not sat key stage 2 tests during the COVID-19 pandemic), these tools have not been updated for 2025/26. Data relating to 2023/24 can be found at the following links:
Further information is available
| School and college level figures | See the School and college level data section for information on how to access this data. |
|---|---|
| Characteristic breakdowns | Characteristic breakdowns are included in this release. |
| Previously published figures | All previous similar statistical releases can be found via the Gov.UK collections page Statistics: GCSEs (key stage 4) - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) |
| Attainment for other Key stages | Data on other Key Stages can be found at the following links: Early years foundation stage profile |
| Destination measures | Figures for young people who went into education, employment or training destinations the year after they completed Key Stage 4 or 16 to 18 study can be found at the following link: |
| Attainment in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland | Information on educational attainment for secondary schools in Wales is available from the Welsh Government website. Information on educational attainment for secondary schools in Scotland is available from Scottish Government website. Information on educational attainment for secondary schools in Northern Ireland is available from the Department for Education Northern Ireland (DENI) website. |
| Information published by JCQ and Ofqual | Data and contextual information: Ofqual GCSEs summer 2026 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Summer 2026 exam results: Examination results - JCQ Joint Council for Qualifications |
Contact us
If you have a specific enquiry about Key stage 4 performance statistics and data:
Attainment statistics team
Email: Attainment.STATISTICS@education.gov.ukContact name: Liam Hamilton
Press office
If you have a media enquiry:
Telephone: 020 7783 8300
Public enquiries
If you have a general enquiry about the Department for Education (DfE) or education:
Phone: 0370 000 2288
Opening times
Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 5.30pm (closed on bank holidays)