Secondary schools in England continued to struggle to adjust to changes of timing and structure of GCSEs. The government's official league tables show schools made little headway in imporving their results last year. 

 

The figures released by the Department for Education showed a minor improvement in the headline GCSE pass rate, with 57.1% of students at state schools achivening five passes of grade C or higher, compared with 56.6% in 2014. 

 

The figures showed a widening gap in attainment by disadvantaged pupils and their peers. In 2015 there was a 28 percentage point gap in the pass rate between the two groups, compared with 27.4 in 2014.

 

Labour countered by pointing out that the attainment gap was now wider than when David Cameron took office in 2010.

 

“It is deeply concerning that a quarter of a million pupils are in failing secondary schools, and alarmingly the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has grown for the third year in a row,” said Lucy Powell, Labour shadow education secretary.

 

The figures also suggest a lack of enthusiasm for the government’s English baccalaureate, or EBacc, with the number of pupils taking the mix of GCSE subjects qualifying for the EBacc having gone backwards compared with 2014.

 

The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, has said she expected all students starting GCSEs from 2018 to be entered for EBacc subjects. Last year sheannounced punitive measures – including extra scrutiny by Ofsted inspectors and league table downgrades – as consequences for schools failing to enrol 90% of pupils in the EBacc.

 

Next year’s changes to the league tables will see the current headline measure replaced with more sophisticated measures of progress and attainment across eight subjects, with five of the eight to be the EBacc core of English, maths, sciences, languages, and history or geography.