Official Statistics

Entries and late entries for GCSE, AS and A level: 2020 to 2021 academic year

Statistics on the number of entries that were on time and late for GCSE, AS and A level.

Applies to England

Documents

Entries and late entries for GCSE and A level: 2020 to 2021 academic year

Details

The main trends for entries and late entries for GCSE, AS and A level for the 2020 to 2021 academic year in England were:

  • the total number of GCSE component level entries has increased by 2.4% with just under 13.9 million GCSE entries in 2019 to 2020 and just over 14.2 million in 2020 to 2021 (including the Autumn and November exam series)
  • the total number of AS and A level entries has increased by 4.5% from just under 2.3 million entries in 2019 to 2020 to just under 2.4 million entries in 2020 to 2021 (including the Autumn exam series)
  • the number of late GCSE entries has increased by 18.8% from 309,040 to 367,060, which represents an increase from 2.2% of total entries in 2019 to 2020 to 2.6% of total entries in 2020 to 2021
  • the number of late AS and A level entries has increased by 41.2% from 28,310 to 39,980, which represents an increase from 1.2% of total entries in 2019 to 2020 to 1.7% of total AS and A level entries in 2020 to 2021
  • the number of GCSE certificates awarded has increased slightly by 1.1%, with just over 5.4 million awarded in 2020 to 2021 and just under 5.35 million awarded in academic year 2019 to 2020
  • the number of AS and A level certificates awarded has increased by 4% from 810,395 in 2019 to 2020 to 843,115 in 2020 to 2021

In 2020 and 2021 the summer exam series was cancelled due to coronavirus (COVID-19) and this may have affected patterns of entry.

User feedback

We welcome your feedback on our publications. Should you have any comments on this statistical release and how to improve it to meet your needs please contact us at data.analytics@ofqual.gov.uk.

Head of profession: Nadir Zanini

Updates to this page

Published 16 December 2021

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