Milly and Alyssa are teammates at their local football club
By Bethan Lewis
BBC Wales education and family correspondent
“I think the waiting process between the end of exams and actually getting the results is worse than doing the exams.”
Milly, 16, from Monmouthshire, is one of thousands of pupils in Wales getting their GCSE results on Thursday.
Like A-level results last week, grades are expected to be lower overall than last year but higher than before Covid.
School leaders said “a glide back” to 2019 levels post-pandemic was better than “a crash landing”.
Students will also receive Skills Challenge Certificate and level 1 and 2 vocational qualifications results on Thursday.
Milly and her teammate Alyssa – both 16 – play for Raglan Junior Football Club in Monmouthshire.
Training for the new season is already under way but the girls’ thoughts are still on the exams they did back in June.
Alyssa, who plays in centre midfield, said waiting for results had been a “long, stressful process” and had meant some “loss of sleep”.
Milly, a left back, has also found the wait until the end of August difficult: “It’s kind of the thought that I can’t do anything to change the results that I’m going to get and waiting helplessly – I find it really stressful.”
They were in Year 8 when the pandemic hit in 2020 and, while they did not have exams at the time, they said the disruption had a big impact.
“When you’re at home [with] no resources, you’re very unmotivated to do anything and obviously we didn’t have teacher support in the flesh”, said Alyssa.
Image source, Amie Dembicki
Teammates Milly and Alyssa say the wait for GCSE results has been a stressful one
But as with A-levels, there has been extra support for pupils in Wales this year, including advanced information of some topics coming up in the exams.
Meanwhile, grade boundaries are likely to be lower than in pre-pandemic years.
Alyssa said Covid measures relieved “a little bit of stress” – but were they sufficient?
“I think from an academic perspective, yes, but I think the indirect impact of home learning on mental health – I don’t think that was considered,” said Milly.
The approach taken in Wales was different to England where the aim was to ensure 2023 results were broadly in line with 2019 grades.
Qualifications Wales said extra support was due to be dropped for next year’s exams but Alyssa said she was not sure that was fair.
“My brother – he’s a year younger and he’s going to be taking the exams and he doesn’t get the same even though we all went through the Covid period together,” she said.
What were GCSE results like in 2022?
Results showed 68.6% were A* to C, down from 73.6% in the summer before when grades were decided by teachers.
A quarter got the very top A* and A grades, but this was a drop.
How many exams were sat this year?
There were 307,920 GCSE exam entries in summer 2023 – down by 3.3% compared to 2022, but up slightly on 2019.
Of those entries, 6.4% were at Year 10, so students taking exams a year early, down by a third on the previous year.
English literature had the highest proportion of pupils from Year 10 taking the exam – making up 45% of entries.
But it was even higher in 2022 when 57% of pupils sitting the exam were taking it a year early.
What are the most popular subjects?
Business studies continued to see a rise in entries (up 49% on 2019 and 30% since last year) along with economics.
But compared with before pandemic, German (-45%), French (-37%) and English literature (down 23%) saw declines in entries.
In Wales, GCSEs are graded A* to G, but in England the numbers nine to one are used.
After exams were cancelled in 2020 and 2021 and teachers determined grades, there were extra measures in place when exams went ahead in 2022.
Results were still higher than before the pandemic so the decision was made to grade generously again this year on a “journey” back to the process before Covid.
Eithne Hughes says there may still need to be a “safety net” for some subjects in 2024
Eithne Hughes, director of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) in Wales, said students had shown “exceptional” resilience after facing many challenges.
Attendance remained a problem and in the run up to exams it was “eye-wateringly low” for children from more disadvantaged backgrounds, she said.
On top of that, the cost-of-living crisis caused extra problems for some pupils.
She said it was right to keep extra support measures this year, calling it “a kinder approach”.
“A glide back rather than a crash landing is more welcome”, she added.
But she warned a “safety net” may be needed for some subjects again next year if pupils continued to struggle, despite plans to drop extra support.
“What we don’t want to see is complete and utter failure in subjects that the children are doing their best in and the failures are beyond their control”.
