Just 200 pupils could be GCSE stars

JUST 200 teenagers could gain a clean sweep of the top grade 9 in this summer’s GCSE exams, a study predicts.

New grades are due to be awarded for the first time this year in many GCSE courses, including key academic subjects such as science, history, geography and languages.

The paper, published by Cambridge Assessment, predicts that of those taking at least eight GCSEs, between 200 and 900 will get grade 9s in all subjects.

GCSE data from 2016 was used to make predictions. The most conservative estimate, based on numbers scoring all A* grades, suggests about 200 candidates will get straight 9s. Two other predictions, based on the varying abilities of those who got A* grades, say up to 900 students could get straight 9s. In 2016, about 2,000 students gained A* in at least eight GCSEs.

More than half a million teenagers in England alone sit GCSEs – which are also taken in Wales and Northern Ireland – each year.

Study author Tom Benton said: ‘Students should not be despondent, you do not need a clean sweep of grade 9s, and almost nobody is going to do it. You’re talking about the top 0.1 per cent.’

Mr Benton said one estimate, made last year, that just two pupils would get all 9s could have left students discouraged, but numbers are highly unlikely to be this low.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: ‘This research confirms that achieving straight grade 9s is extremely difficult and will be a rare achievement. But we need to avoid becoming too obsessed with grade 9s as a barometer of excellence.’

Under major reforms, GCSEs have been toughened up, with less coursework and all exams taken at the end of the two-year course, rather than throughout. Grades 9-1 have replaced the old- style A*- G system, with the first results – in English and maths – awarded last summer.