Wales GCSE results for students in Year 7 during Covid lockdown
Christina
Christina and other year 11 pupils getting GCSE results were starting secondary school when the pandemic hit
Pupils in Wales who had only been in school for six months before the first Covid lockdown are preparing to receive their GCSE results.
Sixteen-year-old Christina, who goes to Pencoed Comprehensive School near Bridgend, said it was a “key time to miss”.
Extra support measures for pupils and more generous grading have been dropped this year as the system returns to normal after the pandemic.
Fewer top grades are expected, following a similar pattern to A-level results which fell closer to pre-Covid levels.
Qualifications Wales said this year’s results were a “return to normal assessment and grading arrangements” after extra supports were put in place from 2020 to 2023.
It said in the run up to results a statistical “safety net” would be deployed to bolster any subjects where performance was well below pre-pandemic levels, but confirmed it had not been needed.
Pupils will also receive results for the Welsh Baccalaureate, BTec and other qualifications on Thursday.
Christina said the disruption due to Covid not only made making friends more difficult, but also affected her and her fellow pupils’ attitude to studying.
“We were supposed to be carrying on with education and revising but as far as I know no one in Year 7 and 8 did that,” she said.
GCSE results reel
“It’s only one or two years but it’s quite a key time to miss.
“I missed so much, I tried to work hard, too hard, to catch up with what I’d missed.”
Christina already has three GCSEs under her belt and will be collecting her results on Thursday knowing that she has a scholarship to study at the international school, Atlantic College in Vale of Glamorgan, from September.
Headteacher Chris Parry said this year’s GCSE students had worked hard to overcome challenges posed by the pandemic
Chris Parry, head of Lewis School Pengam, in Caerphilly county, and president of the National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) Cymru said results were a “key indicator of the health of the (education) system” even though year-on-year comparisons were difficult.
He said it was important for the system to get back to normal but schools and pupils still faced Covid-related challenges, including poor attendance.
“I think at some point we were always going to have to go back to where we were in 2019 and it’s right that we’ve done that this year”, he said.
“I think it’s important to stress that these pupils have still missed a lot of time and there are still challenges that exist within the system”.
Millie
Millie, 16, is going into results day with “an open mind”
Millie, 16, from Rhondda Cynon Taf, said she was “definitely nervous” but trying to stay as positive as she can ahead of her GCSE results.
She said she was expecting a mixed bag of grades on Thursday, after ups and downs during exams including having to leave the hall when she fell unwell while doing one English paper.
Sitting exams with ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) was difficult because of the change of routine, so she said “it’s not the work that I’m more concerned about, it’s how well I’ve handled my exams”.
She is planning to go to sixth form for A-levels and possibly some resits, but said she was proud whatever her results “because I’ve tried my best”.
There were almost 323,000 entries at GCSE this summer.
Grades in Wales are A* to G – in England they are numbered 9 to 1.
There will be major changes to GCSEs in Wales from September 2025 after reforms to align qualifications with the Curriculum for Wales, which started being taught in all schools from September 2023.
Scrapping separate qualifications in Chemistry, Physics and Biology in favour of a double science GCSE has proved controversial.
Qualifications Wales announced earlier this year the new The Sciences GCSE would be taught from September 2026, rather than September 2025 as originally planned.
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