New figures from the North’s Department of Education show hundreds of young people are still being excluded from exams. This means they are invisible from government statistics designed to gauge performance.
Last year, about 1,600 students in year 12, the majority of them in non-grammar schools, did not take a single GCSE exam.
The ineligibility rate varies by school type – 10.9 per cent of year 12 pupils in non-grammar compared with only 1.5 per cent in grammar settings.
Only pupils who sit exams are included in Summary of Annual Examination Results returns and official GCSE pass rates. Ineligible pupils are not included in these statistics, which are used to compile league tables.
Pupils can be ineligible for reasons including serious illness, mental health issues and pregnancy.
They can also be excluded if they transfer schools, have a statement of SEN or “serious welfare issues”.
However, it has been claimed that some schools will remove poorer performing pupils from exams to prevent their pass rates from being affected.
In her last annual report, chief inspector Noelle Buick said the criteria for the permitted exclusion of pupils from exam data “needs to be the subject of further investigation and research”.
The Education and Training Inspectorate is now undertaking an Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Policies on Examination Entry Practice and the report will “publish in due course”.
Overall in 2015/16, 67.9 per cent of year 12 pupils achieved five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C including English and maths. This was an increase of 0.9 percentage points from 2014/15.
Almost half – 47 per cent – of free school meal-entitled pupils achieved this benchmark in their GCSEs. Non-grammar schools saw a slight increase in achievement at both year 12 and year 14.