England’s white working class falls further behind at exams
Blame rising absenteeism
For teenagers, August is make-or break time. On August 21st, 700,000 16-year-olds in England received their GCSE exam marks, joining the 300,000 18-year-olds who got their A-level grades a week earlier. The results show that the gap in attainment between pupils in London and the rest of the country continued to widen. In 2019 the average GCSE grade in the capital was 6% above the English average. It has now stretched to 10% (see chart). The same trend is true for A-levels.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Flunking it”
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