Teenagers who “perform poorly” in their core GCSEs tend to face worse health outcomes and are more likely to be engaged in criminal behaviour than their higher-achieving peers, research has suggested.
Pupils who fail to achieve a standard pass in their English and maths GCSEs face “dire” life consequences as the odds of success are stacked against them, a social mobility expert has warned.
Lee Elliot Major, social mobility professor at Exeter University and report co-author, has called for the policy of compulsory GCSE resits for pupils without a standard pass in English and maths to be reviewed.
In England, many students who do not secure at least a grade 4 – which is considered a “standard pass” – in English language and/or maths GCSE are required to retake the subjects during post-16 education.
A working paper, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, suggests that teenagers who did not reach this standard in their English and maths GCSEs had a “significantly higher” incidence of being stopped and questioned and to have been formally cautioned by the police compared with their peers.
Even when controlling for individual and family characteristics, these differences remained, it found.
Researchers from Exeter University and University College London (UCL) used data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study to track the lives of 11,524 pupils born in England in 2000/2001, who then sat their GCSEs in 2016/2017.
This study examined the early life outcomes of pupils in England who did not achieve at least a grade 4 in both English and maths GCSEs at the end of Year 11 – which is around a fifth of teenagers – compared with their peers who did.
In England, traditional A*-G grades for GCSEs were replaced with a 9-1 system, where 9 is the highest.
A 4 is broadly equivalent to a C grade, and a 7 is broadly equivalent to an A.
By age 17-18, youngsters who did not achieve a grade 4 or above in English and maths GCSEs were “twice as likely” as otherwise similar teenagers to be smoking daily (13% versus 6%) and to be cautioned by the police (12% versus 6%), according to Prof Elliot Major.
Those who did not secure basic grades in English and maths GCSEs were also more likely to report having a longstanding illness, behaviour problems, to have experienced pregnancy and attempted suicide.
“These results suggest that the high proportion of teenagers failing to secure basic grades in their key GCSEs is damaging not just for their education and job prospects but also for their future wellbeing,” the paper said.
The researchers controlled for a range of individual and family socioeconomic factors to ensure they were comparing two teenagers who were otherwise similar apart from their GCSE outcomes.
The study concluded: “Teenagers who perform poorly in their core GCSEs at age 16 tend to face worse outcomes not just in education but in health and wellbeing and are more likely to be involved in criminal behaviour compared to their higher-achieving peers.”
The findings come as pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are due to receive their GCSE results on Thursday.
Prof Elliot Major told the PA news agency: “It’s a national scandal that every year a fifth of teenagers fail to master the basic GCSE grades in both English and maths needed to function and flourish in life: our research reveals the dire individual consequences of this academic failure.
“Without basic grades in both English and maths, the odds of success are stacked against you: it doesn’t just impact on your academic prospects but has wider life consequences for health and criminality.”
He added: “We need an urgent review of why so many pupils end up without basic grades after a decade of schooling, assessing how we can better diagnose and help four- and five-year-old children falling behind – as half will go on to not attain basic GCSE grades.
“We also need to review our national resits policy to identify best practice so more students are able to secure their grades second time round.”
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said the existing policy of compulsory GCSE maths and English resits needs “attention”.
Students in England are currently funded to retake maths and/or English until they achieve a GCSE grade 9 to 4.
For students with a grade 2 or below, they can either study towards a pass in functional skills level 2 or towards a GCSE grade 9 to 4.
Earlier this week, Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said the Government should rethink “demoralising” and “soul-destroying” compulsory GCSE resits for pupils who do not pass English or maths.
When asked by PA earlier this month whether the Government was looking to review or scrap the compulsory resits policy, Ms Phillipson said: “You’ll appreciate that a month into the job that I have a big list of areas that need attention and require consideration and this is very much one of them.
“I do want to make sure that all young people have got a really firm foundation in English and maths because that is the springboard for the rest of their lives.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Having a good standard of English and maths is key to a good education, future career options and to ensure rising standards.
“We are committed to supporting pupils to get the required grade to ensure they are set up for work and life.
“Spanning across Key Stage 1 through to Key Stage 5, the Curriculum and Assessment Review will bring together education experts, leaders and staff to address the barriers to opportunity including how we can best support 16-19 years olds who don’t achieve grade 4 in these key subjects by the age of 16.”
