English
In 2025, approximately 2.9% of 16-year-old students in England achieved a grade 9 in English language. For Maths it is 3.2 % and science is it 4.5%.
These figures are lower than the percentage of grade 9s awarded across all GCSE subjects, which was around 5.1% of all entries in 2025. English can be hard, even for very bright students.
On the other side of things, in 2025 for English Literature 20.2% of entries achieved grades 7-9 and English Language was 19.5% of entries awarded grades 7-9.
There was an overall pass rate of 70.6% for English Language (Grade 4 and above) although this is not ideal as English Language is needed for college courses. A little bit of extra effort is really worthwhile for this key subject.
Understanding the UK grading system:
