Its’ 2026, and GCSE English resit results have never been worse. Source: JCQ National Results Data The way I like to interpret this graph is as conclusive proof that the strategies we’re using to improve resit learners’ English skills do not work. A kinder way to say this might be: ‘the strategies do not work on today’s AI-crutch generation of learners’, but frankly, they’ve really never worked – especially since Gove’s 2010 reforms and the making of resits compulsory in 2014. […]

Decades of data show GCSE English resit pass rates languishing at historic lows – hovering under 20 per cent overall, and barely 10 per cent for 18- and 19-year-olds. If Ofsted inspected the Department for Education on this dismal record, it would be a severe finger-wagging moment. Yet successive policy interventions have done nothing to alter the downward trajectory. Why? Because sector leaders and policymakers have consistently tried to address the symptoms of under-performance rather than root causes. As with […]