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.

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Head of profession: Nadir Zanini

Updates to this page

Published 16 December 2021

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