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Grade boundaries don’t exactly make the most sense when you think about them. After all, if you do well on an exam, shouldn’t you be rewarded for that no matter how well somebody else does? As much as we would like this to be the case, it sadly isn’t.
The grade boundaries, and therefore the actual GCSE exam grades you receive, will fluctuate based on the difficulty of the exam, and by extension how well the rest of the cohort does.
While for some exams, such as university exams, the grading is very simple and the boundaries fixed, 70% for a first and so on, GCSEs use a fluctuating system that changes the grade boundaries year-on-year. Unlike fixed grade boundaries:
- Grade boundaries are set only after students have already sat the exams.
- Each grade boundary must comprise a certain percentage of students, regardless of the distribution of marks.
- Different exam boards set their own grade boundaries.
It might seem a confusing system, but it was designed and implemented to make sure that GCSEs were fair year-on-year, with no cohort getting easier or harder exams based on the year they took their exams or the exam board they took them with.
However, the system is not without its grievances! For one, it makes working out what percentage you need to aim for much more difficult, meaning it’s harder to get a feel for what your grade is likely to be until you actually get your results. More complex than it needs to be?
Maybe, maybe not, but understanding the system never hurts!
Explaining English grade boundaries
Until seven years ago, GCSE English was a relatively standardised course, with a comfortable split between coursework and the final exam as contributors towards a student’s final GCSE English grade.
However, this has changed in recent years, with the course now placing a much heavier focus on the exam than any coursework, to the point that exam performance is overwhelmingly the main factor in determining a student’s final grade.
This change was brought in alongside another major format change, namely that there are now no longer two separate tiers of English qualifications students can get. Gone are the days of foundation and higher English papers, with a single exam being sat by every student.
This change not only offers more fair opportunity to every student, but also reduces the risk of discrepancies between the difficulties of papers in unintended ways.
Most of the time, English courses no longer have coursework components at all. While courses like GCSE Computer Science and GCSE Design and Technology all have significant coursework elements, English qualifications have mostly done away with coursework entirely.
Good news, if you do your best work in exams!
GCSE grade boundaries explained
The idea behind grade boundaries as they currently exist was designed as a way to offset the desire for more challenging exams by exam boards. These more challenging exams naturally meant students would score lower marks on average, which meant if the old system stayed, it just wouldn’t be fair.
The exams were harder, which meant that students of equivalent levels would score a lower mark on these new exams than the old ones. So how did one adjust for this, especially not knowing exactly how much harder the exams were going to be?
This is where the idea of moving grade boundaries' comes in.
The idea is that the top percentage students remain the top percentage, and are awarded grades accordingly. While previously the exams were set so that only the top 7 or 8 percent of students would be able to reach the A* threshold, the new system does away with any such estimations.
It orders all students by grade and just says that the top percentage, whatever their mark, get a 9.
This way of doing grades has the significant advantage that no matter how hard the paper is, your performance relative to the rest of the cohort will stay the same, and your grade will be assigned accordingly.
This basically allows for the complete standardisation of grades. A 4 or above means you were good enough compared to every other student taking the exam to be given a pass, whereas previously it only meant that you had reached an arbitrarily assigned boundary. In essence, grading is simply fairer now.
Moving grade boundaries generally refers to adjusting the thresholds for achieving certain grades in exams based on the overall performance of students in a given year, ensuring fairness and standardisation regardless of the difficulty of the exam papers.
Old GCSE grade boundaries
One of the best ways to get an idea of what the grade boundaries are likely to be like for the 2024 GCSE exam season (which is set to occur between the 6th of May and the 21st of June) is to look at the boundaries for previous years.
There is often not quite a perfectly consistent trend, but you can get a vague idea of roughly where the grade boundaries might be likely to fall.
Trends in GCSE grade boundaries 2022
In the 2021 exam season, the exam boards charged with the GCSE examinations reported the highest ever increase in top marks with 44.3% of students scoring at least a 7, equivalent to an A or higher. This was largely seen as an outlier, and the grades were expected to be significantly lower on average.
Ultimately this ended up being true, with the grade boundaries falling such that only 26.0% of students being awarded a 7 or higher in 2022. This was largely credited to the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on education and as a result exams, leading to far more generous grade distribution.
Trends in GCSE grade boundaries 2023
This trend of a decrease in the top grades continued in 2023, with even fewer students attaining the top grades. The number of students scoring a 7 or higher was now down to only 21.6% of students.
Most notably, the number of students who failed to reach a passing grade of a 4 or higher was also dramatically higher. While in 2022 only 27.1% of students failed to reach the passing grade, in 2023 this was up to 32.2% of the national cohort.
However, this trend is expected to be beyond its most severe downward turns as the system recovers to its pre-pandemic numbers.
What to expect from 2024 grade boundaries
Ultimately, making any predictions as to what the grade boundaries will do is likely to be little more than just that, a blind prediction. There seem to be equally as many voices calling for the grade boundaries to be more generous as there are those calling for them to be more strict.
The pandemic coming at the time when this system was first being introduced has been disastrous for its ability to be fairly tested, but as we return much more to normalcy the accuracy seems to be significantly better.
The most likely prediction is that the grade boundaries will be quite similar to where they fell in 2023, with any changes likely to be making them ever so slightly more strict.
What this means in numerical terms is that the top 5% can expect a 9, the next 7% can expect an 8, and the next 10% can expect a 7.
Moving into lower grades, the next 14% can expect a 6, the next 16% can expect a 5, and the next 16% can expect a 4.
These grade boundaries don’t tell us anything about the actual marks that will be needed to reach these percentile brackets, however, as there is no way of knowing this without knowing what the exam will actually be!
What is the GCSE English exam structure?
Compared to older exam papers, there will be a greater focus on SPaG (Spelling, punctuation and Grammar). The new GCSE English 9-1 will have more marks than ever allocated for spelling, punctuation and grammar.
There are no longer modules, coursework or controlled assessments during the year. All exams will now be sat at the end of 2 years. More long essay-style questions and fewer short-answer questions are expected to be set in the paper.
The new GCSE English 9-1 exam places a significant emphasis on SPaG, with more marks allocated for spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and it now features end-of-year exams with long essay-style questions, foregoing coursework and controlled assessments.
Fortunately, since we now have a few years of this new format of GCSE English exam, there are a good number of past papers available to get comfortable with the exam format.
Learning for the GCSE English exam is much more likely to help you fall into one of the higher grade boundaries than knowing where they are, ultimately.
How to Prepare for the GCSE English Exam
The best way to ensure you achieve the English GCSE grades you want is to make sure you are properly prepared for anything the exam can throw at you!
There are many different ways of preparing for your GCSEs, some more effective than others, but there is one method that has become the undisputed king of producing results, that being private tutoring sessions.
A few sessions with a Superprof private tutor can dramatically increase your chances of performing well on your GCSE English exam, or any of your other core or mandatory subjects.
Check out our article for information on the latest GCSE maths grade boundaries for 2024.
With many tutors to choose from to fit your exact needs and learning styles with a variety of differing teaching styles, there is sure to be a tutor who is a good fit for you.
Additionally, with many of them offering their first lesson for free, finding a good GCSE English tutor has never been easier. So what are you waiting for? Get ready to ace those exams!
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