Provision of GCE A level subjects in 2024 - Statistics Report Series No. 148 - Gill

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by James

Provision of GCE A level subjects in England in 2024 is analyzed using publicly available Department for Education data. Subject “provision” is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject, with limitations acknowledged where schools may offer subjects without student demand. The report aggregates provision across multiple school classifications, while noting that missing or suppressed values may affect counts and confidentiality protections are applied. Only A level provision in schools with A level students in 2024 is considered, and other qualifications are excluded.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Data

Results

School type

Attainment of schools

Provision of GCEA level subjects in 2024 Statistics Report Series No. 148 Tim Gill 22 September 2025 Author contact details: Tim Gill Assessment Research and Development Research Division Shaftesbury Road Cambridge CB2 8EA UK [tim.gill@cambridge.org](tim.gill@cambridge.org)[ ](tim.gill@cambridge.org)[https://www.cambridge.org](https://www.cambridge.org) As a department of the university, Cambridge University Press & Assessment is respected and trusted worldwide, managing three world-class examination boards, and maintaining the highest standards in educational assessment and learning. We are a not-for-profit organisation. Cambridge University Press & Assessment is committed to making our documents accessible in accordance with the WCAG 2 . 1 Standard. We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our documents. If you find any problems or you think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact our team: Research Division If you need this document in a different format contact us telling us your name, email address and requirements and we will respond within 15 working days. How to cite this publication Gill, T (2025) . Provision of GCE A level subjects in 2024 . Statistics Report Series No. 148. Cambridge University Press & Assessment. Introduction This report looks at the provision of A level subjects in England in 2024 . Provision in a subject is defined as the number or percentage of schools with at least one student taking the subject. It could be argued that this may not cover all ‘provision’, since schools might offer to provide a subject but none of their students wants to study it. However, as we have no means of capturing this information, we will only look at the provision based on the definition above. The tables presented in this report cannot explain why schools do not offer a particular subject. For example, it may be that there is not enough demand for it from students to make it worthwhile, or it may be that there is a lack of teachers with the required experience. Data This report was produced using publicly available data from the Department for Education’s (DfE)“Find and compare schools in England” service 1 . The dataset consisted of Key Stage 5 (KS5) results of all subjects provided by each school and college in England. Other school information, such as schools’ sex composition, admissions policy, and the number of disadvantaged pupils at the end of KS5, was also available. The report presents only the provision of A level subjects in schools with students taking A levels in 2024 . Provision of other qualifications (e.g. , International Baccalaureate, Cambridge Technicals, BTECs, etc. ) was not investigated. The level of provision is presented by the following school classifications: school type, school attainment, school deprivation level, school sex composition, and school size. However, it should be noted that the analysis is atthe simplest level and takes no account of interactions between these classifications. For instance, Table 10 shows that provision in “non-selective in highly selective area” schools was generally lower than in other school types. This can be partly attributed to the fact that these schools tend to be smaller than other school types (see Table 6) . Results Tables 1 to 5 present the distribution of schools within each of the different school classifications. The total number of schools is not identical in each table, due to small amounts of missing or suppressed data within each classification. In certain circumstances, DfE suppressed some school data values to protect confidentiality and minimise identification risks. This usually happens when the measure covers only five or fewer students2 . School type Students study A levels at several different types of schools and colleges. Schools and colleges were assigned a school type based on their admissions policy and institution type as recorded in the dataset. 1 This

FAQs

Are qualifications other than A levels included in the analysis?

No. The report focuses only on A level subject provision in schools with students taking A levels in 2024; other qualifications (e.g., IB, BTECs) were not investigated.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by James