The Languages Company

Despite some reports to the contrary – including on the BBC – the GCSE results for languages show little real change from last year.

This – together with continued improvements in grades – gives ground for some cautious optimism. The overall figure for languages shows a decline in the number of awards from 377409 to 362338 (just over 15000 – mainly in French).  The figures for England are similar but show a slightly lower percentage decrease (see table).   However this must be put in a context of an overall decline in the size of the cohort taking GCSE this year.    The number of pupils taking GCSE decreased by 3.7% (3.5% in England) and the number of subject entries taken went down by nearly 200,000 (3.5%) .   This compares with a decrease in languages of 3.9% in the UK and 3.7% in England. So the “decline” in languages entries is almost entirely explained by the decline in the cohort, and is broadly in line with the decrease in a subject like Geography.

It even seems likely – given the increased entry for other language qualifications – that the proportion of 16 year olds taking a qualification in languages has actually increased this year. There were for example around 54000 Asset entries in secondary at preliminary stage or above, although we can not yet say for certain how many candidates this represents.

The percentages  of students achieving A*A and A*-C in languages has again increased.   73% of candidates achieved A*-C (compared to 71% last year) and 30.5% achieved A*-A (29%). The number achieving A* -A has actually increased in real numbers by 599.

Some interesting comparisons with some other subjects are contained in the table (England only – although UK results are broadly comparable). Apart from anything else this could remind us that outside the compulsory core, Languages has by far the largest entry, with only Design and Technology coming close.