Learned from this year’s GCSEs in Wales

those at the lower band of grades are losing out with lower grade passes falling overall.

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As in recent years, there has been a decline in entries for French (3,519) and Spanish (1,107), whilst entries for German (759) remains stable.

The number of students awarded A*-C has remained relatively stable; with 77.6% students achieving A*-C for French, 81.9% for German, and 69.2% for Spanish - broadly similar to those seen last year.

Education Secretary Kirsty Williams has said this is something she wants to address and she will look at ramping up initiatives already under way to encourage more pupils to take modern languages at GCSE.

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With 15 new Wales-only GCSEs examined for the first time, a fall in entries, change in entry patterns and changes in school performance measures impacting who schools entered for what exams, it is hard to say clearly how this year’s results compare to last.

Direct comparisons year on year or across the border are increasingly hard to make as Wales pressed ahead with GCSE reform. And it will be even harder next year. Wales is to abandon school GCSE performance measures like judging teachers on how many pupils give five A* to C GCSEs.

From September 2019, the traditional secondary school rating system will be scrapped.

The change is aimed at stopping teachers concentrating efforts on the all important C. Putting a grade C as the benchmark lowest grade has been controversial.

Critics say it is a false measure of success because it does not recognise the hard work in some schools - and means some potentially higher achieving pupils don’t get help they need to get Bs to A*s.