Correspondence

Letter to governors and trustees (accessible)

Published 16 September 2025

Applies to England

Dear governor or trustee,

As Ofqual’s Chief Regulator and with over 2 decades of experience as a senior leader in schools, I appreciate the positive impact governors and trustees make each year. I am writing to provide information that will support you in considering the results at your school, college or trust alongside the national context.

2025 qualification results 

Grading continued as normal in 2025, and users of qualifications can be confident that students’ results reflect their performance in exams and assessments.

National outcomes in 2025 were stable for AS and A levels, GCSEs and Vocational and Technical Qualifications (VTQs). The small year-on year variations in results we saw this year are in line with those we see each year and reflect things such as small differences in the cohort of students and changes in course choices over time. 

If you would like more information on this year’s results, overviews are provided in blogs we have written on A level and level 3 vocational and technical results, and GCSE and level 1/2 vocational and technical results.  

You can find more information about how GCSE, AS and A level grading works in our understanding grading toolkit. This is a helpful resource to share with all those who wish to understand more about grading, including parents.

Considering your results in the national context

This year we have published high-level statistics for GCSEs, AS and A levels, and vocational and technical performance table qualifications (PTQs): Qualification results in England: summer 2025.

We have also updated our Ofqual analytics to allow you to explore results for A level and GCSE by county, subject combinations and centre type, and also includes information on outcomes for T Level Technical Qualifications (TQ) and performance table qualifications. 

For example, you may wish to use this interactive visualisation showing the level of variation in schools’ and colleges’ GCSE results compared with 2024. In any year, individual schools and colleges may see variation in the proportion of students achieving each grade compared with previous years. This tool could support your consideration of variation in your school or college or trust results this year in the context of national variability.

Looking ahead to 2026

Grading standards in 2026 will be maintained from summer 2025. This means we will regulate so that it is no easier or harder to get any grade next year than in previous years, or with any exam board.

You play an important role in supporting your senior leadership teams towards the safe delivery of exams and assessments and you may wish to consider the approach of your school, college or trust to the following:

• With the growth of artificial intelligence, schools and colleges have an increasing responsibility to ensure the authenticity of student work. JCQ’s guidance on AI provides information for teachers and assessors to manage the use of AI in assessments.
• Ofqual’s resilience guidance advises schools and colleges to retain evidence of student performance (most often, mock exam papers). It is important that appropriate evidence is available so that qualifications could be awarded even in the most unlikely of circumstances.
• Cyber security threats continue to present significant issues for schools and colleges. You can help by using the National Cyber Security Centre’s resource for governors, which gives a framework for discussing cyber security with school leaders.

I hope that this information helps you when considering results at your school or college and in the national context, and as your school or college prepares its students for exams and assessments next year. 

Yours sincerely,

Sir Ian Bauckham CBE,

Chief Regulator at Ofqual