Official Statistics

Background information for provisional November 2025 exam entries: GCSE English language and mathematics

Published 27 November 2025

Applies to England

Provide your feedback

We welcome your feedback on our publications. If you have any comments on this statistical release, or how to improve it to meet your needs, please complete our short survey or data.analytics@ofqual.gov.uk.

Purpose

This release presents the number of entries submitted to exam boards for the November 2025 series. The November exam series for GCSE English language and mathematics is available to students who are aged 16 and over by the end of the previous August. Entries from students younger than 16 are allowed for disabled students as a reasonable adjustment under certain circumstances. These figures are provisional and represent the number of entries submitted to exam boards by schools and colleges by 23 October 2025.

Geographical coverage

This report presents data on the number of entries in England for the November 2025 exam series.

Four exam boards offer GCSE English language and mathematics qualifications in England:

• AQA Education (AQA)
• Cambridge OCR
• Pearson Education Ltd. (Pearson)
• WJEC-CBAC Ltd. (WJEC)

Description

This release shows the number of entries broken down by subject and age of students based on school year groups. For mathematics, it also shows a breakdown by tier of entry.

External influences

There are various factors which might have influenced the entries for the November GCSE series.

1. The number of entries for each exam series may be impacted by the size of the 16- and 17-year-old cohort. For example, the size of the 16- and 17-year-old cohort has increased by 12.1% from 2021 to 2025 - from 1,274,650 in 2021 to 1,429,122 in 2025. For more information on these population estimates, see the data sources section below.
2. There was a 2-stage return to pre-pandemic grading in summer 2022 and summer 2023. Assessment arrangements in summer 2022 were put in place such that grading reflected a midpoint between summer 2019 and summer 2021. In summer 2023, there was a return to pre-pandemic grading standards and this continued in subsequent exam series, where overall results were similar each year. The different assessment arrangements in recent years may have influenced the number of students sitting their exams in the November series from November 2022 onwards.
3. The rules for entry to the November series were changed in 2021 following the cancellation of summer exams. Arrangements for the November and autumn series in 2021 are set out on the Ofqual website. These new rules for 2021 autumn and November series and the assessment arrangements in summer 2021 (when exams were cancelled) may have impacted on entries during this time period.
4. To meet funding requirements post-16, full time students who have not achieved a grade 4 or above in English language and/or English literature or mathematics at GCSE (or a Level 1/2 certificate in these subjects), must continue studying at least one of English language and mathematics. Combined with alternative assessment and grading arrangements between 2021 and 2022 (as mentioned above), this might have led to a change of patterns in entries to November exams.

Ofqual rules (see GCSE subject-level conditions and requirements for English language and GCSE subject-level conditions and requirements for mathematics) require exam boards to take all reasonable steps to ensure that each student who takes exams in the November series has reached at least the age of 16 on or before 31 August in the same calendar year as that assessment. Entries from students younger than 16 are allowed for disabled students as a reasonable adjustment under certain circumstances. Ofqual requires exam boards to notify us where it accepts an early entry for a student younger than 16 for reasons other than a reasonable adjustment for a student with a disability.

Data sources

Exam boards submit data to Ofqual for GCSE, AS and A levels they award for the November examination series. Any provider that does not return a complete set of data within the collection period is contacted to make sure the data is as complete as possible.

Entries data is collected at a point when they should be reasonably complete, although final entry numbers may be slightly different from these. These figures are therefore provisional and represent entry information for GCSEs received by exam boards by 23 October 2025. The data is collected at around the same time each year to aid year-on-year comparisons.

In this release, the figures relating to the size of the 16- and 17-year-old cohort are also obtained from ONS population projections data. These projections are based on observed data up to a base year (e.g., mid-2022 for the 2022-based release) and incorporate assumptions about future trends in fertility, mortality, and migration.

The total population figures for each cohort were retrieved by downloading the appropriate dataset for each year. 2025 population projections can be found in the 2022 edition, “ppp” (principle projection) file. 2021 population projections can be found in the 2020 edition. In each case, the total population is taken as the sum of the male and female rows for 16- and 17-year-olds, in the relevant year within the ‘population’ tab.

This approach differs from our previously published releases, which used ONS mid-year estimates based on actual population counts as of each mid-year, carried forward. However, this approach did not take into account the effects of trends in fertility, mortality, and migration.

Limitations

Ofqual expects exam boards to send correct data, although it cannot guarantee that the data sent is correct. Summary data is sent to exam boards for checking and confirmation. The figures reported for the November 2025 series reflect the number of entries at the data cut-off date of 23 October 2025.

Quality assurance

Quality assurance procedures are carried out as explained in the Quality Framework for Statistical Publications published by Ofqual to ensure the accuracy of the data and to challenge or question it, where necessary. Publication may be deferred if the statistics are not considered fit for purpose.

Revisions

Once published, data is not usually subject to revision, although subsequent releases may be revised to insert late data or to correct an error.

Confidentiality and rounding

To ensure confidentiality of the published accompanying data, figures have been rounded to the nearest 5. If the value is less than 5, it is represented as “fewer than 5” and 0 represents zero entries.

Where individual rounded values have been presented in a table along with their sum total, this total may be slightly different to the sum of the individual rounded values. This is because the total has been calculated using the original unrounded values.

We also use unrounded values to derive percentages. Percentages are then rounded to one decimal place. Due to this rounding, percentages may not always add to up exactly 100%.

For more information, see our Rounding policy for statistical publications.

Status

These statistics are classified as official statistics.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.

You are welcome to contact us directly at data.analytics@ofqual.gov.uk with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

Related publications

Other statistical releases and publications that relate to this one include:

• other statistics on entries published by Ofqual

For other Ofqual statistical releases, see Statistics at Ofqual

For any related publications for qualifications offered in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland please contact the respective regulators - Qualifications Wales, CCEA and the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

Useful links

The following links may be useful for this release:

• report and data tables accompanying this release
• definitions of important terms used in this release
• policies and procedures that Ofqual follows for production of statistical releases

Head of profession: Ben Cuff