CCEA Chief Executive praises local GCSE results

“Congratulations to all learners receiving their GCSE results this morning. 

This year is the first full cohort award of the new Northern Ireland GCSE A*-G grading, used in all CCEA GCSE qualifications. The A* grade has been realigned to the 9 grade in England and a new C* grade has been introduced. Today, over 96% of candidates in Northern Ireland will be awarded the new CCEA GCSE grades. 

All GCSEs, regardless of whether they are graded using letters or numbers, will continue to reflect learners’ achievements. Comparisons can be made across the key grades A/7, C/4 and G/1, as awarding organisations and regulators maintain standards. 

The percentage of candidates awarded A*-C Grades increased by 1.1 percentage points, from 81.1% in 2018 to 82.2% in 2019. 

A* grades have declined by 2.2 percentage points from 9.9% in 2018 to 7.7% in 2019. 

In GCSE English there was a slight increase of 0.5 percentage points across A*-C Grades, from 80.2% in 2018 to 80.7% in 2019. 

GCSE Mathematics saw a 3.2 percentage points increase at A*-C Grades, from 68.1% in 2018 to 71.3% in 2019. 

Females continue to perform better than their male counterparts. However, this year saw the gap between male and female performance at A/7 – C/4 grades narrow from 8.2 to 7.1 percentage points. 

Congratulations to all Northern Ireland’s learners who have once again demonstrated good outcomes across all grades, reflecting the hard work that takes place in our schools and colleges.”