5 Years On: Investigating the Impact of Covid-19 on State School Education and GCSE Attainment
A comprehensive analysis of student performance since the pandemic and whether English state schools have made a recovery.
It has been five years since the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the world, impacting every infrastructure. Education was hit particularly hard, with schools being shut for several months at a time and children learning remotely online. These implementations had a significant impact on both the quality of education and GCSE attainment.
It was announced on March 18th 2020 by Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson, that GCSE and A-Level exams would not be taking place in England. It was instead decided that students would be given ‘Teacher Assessed’ grades by Ofqual, the non-ministerial exam regulation department. Teachers supplied the board with estimated grades for each student based on predictions, previous test results and completed coursework. This was then fed into an algorithm that integrated every individual school’s performance in each subject from the previous three years.
However, this algorithm, which was intended to moderate the results, faced massive backlash. This was due to students in disadvantaged areas and schools receiving unfairly low grades, forcing the board to make a U-turn, ultimately resulting in higher grades being awarded.
However, the damage Covid-19 caused on education went beyond the exam results, with many feeling as though they have suffered long-term academic setbacks.
Researchers from the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities and The Sutton Trust interviewed a cohort of individuals who were in Year 11 in 2020/2021. They found that “a staggering 80% of young people say their academic progress has suffered as a result of the pandemic and half report feeling less motivated to study and learn.”
Furthermore, it was also found that state school pupils are more than twice as likely to feel that they have fallen behind their classmates than independent school pupils and nearly 45% of pupils state that they weren’t able to catch up on lost learning.
During an interview, a parent of a student who was studying for their GCSES in 2020/2021, explained that “my child’s education was massively impacted. Online school was being run, however this of course was not as engaging or motivating for students. I feel like my child did massively miss out on the most important stage of her education.”
Whilst it’s clear that Covid-19 had an impact on education, how have England’s state schools recovered since then, 5 years on, and are the essential GCSE grades still being attained? Are we in an education crisis, or are we improving as a country in our delivery of schooling?
In order to answer these burning questions, a variety of data sets have been gathered directly from the Government’s Department For Education in order to establish some clear conclusions.
In particular, we will be looking at the percentage of state students achieving grades 5+ in English and Maths GCSE, before and after the pandemic.
When analysing the national average of state-educated pupils achieving this, the levels have remained somewhat steady over the last 7 years, and in fact there has been a 2% improvement. In 2018/2019, 43.2% of students attained grades 5+ in English and Maths GCSEs compared to 45.2% in 2024/2025.
There was a spike in 2020/2021 with 51.9% of students nationwide achieving these grades, a 2% increase compared to the year before. This can be attributed to the teacher-assessed grades system, as previously mentioned, as an adaption to the pandemic.
Comparing the National Average of Grade 5 English and Maths GCSE Attainment in State Schools, 2018/2019 to 2024/2025
It is common knowledge, however, that education and results are not equal nationwide, with clear disparity in terms of location and other contributing factors. In terms of region, the South of England produces higher results. London in particular has been the most consistently successful region over the past 7 years, with 52.6% of state school students in London achieving grades 5+ in their GCSE English and Maths in 2024/2025, a 3.6% increase since the results produced in 2018/2019 (49%).
The worst performing region in 2018/2019 was North East England with only 39.6% students achieving grade 5s, however, since then, they have achieved a 3.3% increase (42.9%), leaving the West Midlands as the lowest achieving region in 2024/2025 with 41.4% of students attaining grades 5 in English and Maths GCSE.
When zooming in even further and analysing the performance of upper-tier local authorities, the results become more shocking and the disparity between different areas is even more clear.
Kingston-Upon-Thames, located in Outer London, achieved great success in 2024/2025, with a whopping 69.1% of state students achieving at least grade 5s English and Maths GCSE, closely followed behind by Sutton (67.8%), also located in Outer London. In fact, four out of five of the top achieving local authorities are in the London region, with the only exception being Trafford (North West England) attaining 63.6%. Furthermore, Southwark, Richmond Upon Thames, and Wandsworth have all made incredible improvements of at least 8% in grade 5 achievements since before Covid.
London’s consistent excellence can be attributed to gentrification, high pay for teachers, a higher concentration of schools and ‘The London Challenge’, which was established in 2003 and radically transformed the schools of the city, improving leadership, teaching, higher budgets and extending academisation.
On the other end of the spectrum, Knowsley (North West England) shows the lowest levels of educational achievement and is significantly performing under the national average, with only 24.6% of students achieving grades 5+ in English and Maths GCSEs.
They are however showing some signs of improvement with a 7% increase since 2018/2019 (17.6%).
Knowsley’s concerning underperformance is inherently linked to the socioeconomic disadvantage of the area, with it being the third most deprived local authority in England and having an Index Multiple Deprivation score of 10 (with 10 being the highest and most deprived). Additionally, Ofsted data shows that 51.2% of secondary school students in Knowsley receive free school meals, compared to the national average of 27.5%, once again demonstrating the extreme deprivation in the area.
The consequences of deprivation on education outcomes is substantial. In 2024/2025, the national average of disadvantaged, state school students achieving grades 5+ in GCSE Maths and English was only 25.6%, whilst students who are ‘not known to be disadvantaged’ had a national average of 52.8%.
Comparing the National Averages of State School ‘Disadvantaged’ Children against ‘Not Known to be Disadvantaged ‘ Children Achieving Grades 5+ in GCSE Maths and English Pre- and Post- Covid
The pandemic didn’t significantly change these averages, establishing disadvantage as a consistent, contributing factor to poor educational outcomes, however, The Sutton Trust did find that 31% of those with the lowest incomes had not been able to spend anything on their child’s learning from home since September 2020, whilst 29% of those on the highest incomes have spend more than £100.
The picture regarding the extent to which Covid-19 affected GCSE outcomes is a complicated one and is clearly linked to external factors like deprivation and location. However, it is clear that the majority of English local authorities have improved their grade attainments, with 123 out of 157 having improved or maintained their GCSE outcomes since 2018/2019. This shows that as a country we are on the road to recovery since Covid-19 and we are no longer in an education crisis.