My first thoughts on this year's GCSE results

By Andrew Taylor
Published 20 August 2022

Our Head of Maths, Andrew Taylor, reflects on this year's GCSE Maths results and papers.

For the first time in three years, we've had a 'proper' GCSE results day with all the anxiety, apprehension and excitement that goes with it… for students, teachers and exam board staff.

Grade boundaries

While students rightly celebrate their achievement, teachers will look at their results in detail, and will look to the national picture for comparison. One thing that some have already noticed is that the grade boundaries for AQA GCSE Maths are higher than expected, even though student outcomes are higher as well. Here are my thoughts on why that may be.

Here are the 2022 boundaries compared with 2019, the last time we had a full exam series:

Of course, boundaries fluctuate year on year but this year is different. The standard set by these boundaries is, by intention, more generous than 2019 so we’d expect grade boundaries to be lower, not higher, all else being equal. Clearly students are finding AQA's papers are more accessible this year, and there are a number of factors that have contributed.

Accessible questions, in the right place in the paper

The first is that, after three years of this GCSE, we understand a lot more about what it takes to write accessible questions and how to do this while meeting all the requirements set for this GCSE. Certainly, back in June, many teachers told us how they and their students felt all our papers were fair and of the right demand. In this year of all years, it was great to hear so much positive feedback.

We actively reviewed and improved our Foundation papers for this year, and our focus on always trying to do better has also benefited the Higher tier. It's no coincidence that this increased accessibility has happened during a period when our highly experienced Chief Examiner, Shaun Procter-Green, has joined AQA as a member of staff leading on mathematics assessment.

Advance information

Secondly, we published advance information about the content of GCSE and A-level this year. Whilst this has been a mixed blessing in many qualifications, the view was that it was particularly helpful in focusing revision for GCSE maths. I think it is reasonable to assume that higher attaining students are likely to benefit more from advance information, and this may have contributed to their strong performance in the exam.

Motivated students

Finally, and most importantly, it may be that many students emerged from lockdown more motivated to learn and to succeed, and with outstanding teachers determined to help them. We're pleased that we offered a set of papers that allowed this cohort of students to show what they could do, and we are absolutely delighted at how well they have risen to that challenge.

Huge congratulations to all students on their GCSE results and a massive thanks to all their teachers for doing a magnificent job.

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