Subject progression from GCSE to AS Level and continuation to A Level

This report commissioned by the Department for Education aims to provide an analysis of the proportion of pupils taking GCSE and progressing to AS Level in the same subject (i.e. progression rates), focusing on English Baccalaureate subject areas, and then to follow the same cohort through from AS to full A Level achievement.

Some of the key findings for STEM subjects are:

GCSE-AS level progression
• For each subject, pupils achieving a higher grade at GCSE are more likely to go on to enter the same subject at AS level (i.e. have higher progression rates) than those at lower grades.
• Progression rates from GCSE to AS levels, for pupils achieving A*-C, are highest for biology, chemistry and history.
• The impact of grade on progression is highest in maths, with high progression from A* and A, but low from B and C grades.

AS-A level progression
• The highest proportions of pupils progressing from AS to A level are in history and English (78%), followed by geography (76%), while physics shows the lowest progression rate (67%).

GCSE to A Level progression
• For the sciences, a greater proportion of chemistry pupils with an A* at GCSE progress to chemistry A level (54% compared to 47% for biology and 38% for physics).
• Looking across the sciences at GCSE A* and A grade pupils, biology has the highest proportion of A*/A grade pupils at A level (73% from A* and 27% from A), closely followed by core/additional science pupils (70% and 23% respectively) compared to chemistry (67% and 19% respectively) and physics (66% and 17% respectively). The proportion of C grade pupils achieving a B grade or higher at A level is lowest for physics (3% compared to 8%, 7% and 6% in biology, core/additional science and chemistry respectively).
• It can be seen that over 50% of pupils with a grade A in GCSE physics that go on to A level physics achieve a grade C or lower and, as such, physics could be seen as being more difficult at A level than the other sciences.