By Claire Green
ASCL Post-16 and Skills Specialist

This is a story about a post-16 resit system that continues to fail the same group of young people. That isn’t through any lack of effort by learners or providers, but is the result of policy failure by successive governments
At 16, around a third of young people (33.7% in the most recent data) do not achieve Level 2 qualifications in English and maths, a figure that has remained stubbornly high for several years. By age 19, more than a quarter (26.8%), around 157,800 young people, have still have not met this benchmark. 

As ASCL highlighted in its 2019 inquiry, The Forgotten Third, these outcomes seriously restrict progression into further study, apprenticeships and many forms of employment, with lasting consequences for life chances. 

Increased compliance, little improvement
Most concerning is what the data shows about progression after 16. Four in five students who miss out on Level 2 English and maths at the end of Key Stage 4 still have not achieved it by age 19. This is despite compulsory post 16 resits, tighter accountability, and sustained policy focus. In effect, governments have demanded increased compliance which has delivered little improvement. 

For more than a decade, policy has relied on the assumption that compulsion would drive improvement. If students were required to keep resitting GCSE English and maths, and providers were held to account, outcomes would eventually improve. The data clearly shows that this assumption is flawed. 

Although there has been marginal improvement since the introduction of the ‘condition of funding’ in 2014-15, post 16 progression has largely flatlined. 

When 80% of young people who do not succeed at 16 are still unsuccessful three years later, it is clear that repeating the same approach does not work for a significant minority of learners. 

Many of these young people arrive in post 16 education with a history of low attainment and confidence, and disrupted schooling. Others are juggling education with work, caring responsibilities, or mental health challenges. Some fall out of education altogether at the post 16 transition point and become part of the NEET (not in education, employment, or training) population. A uniform approach to English and maths resits does not reflect this complexity. 

As with many systemic problems in education, the impact is uneven. Disadvantaged learners and those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) remain significantly less likely to achieve Level 2 English and maths and repeated compulsory resits can be deeply demoralising. Policies that ignore the realities they face risk embedding inequality further. 

Flawed proposals
Against this background, the proposals in the recent DfE post-16 white paper intended to address these problems, while well-intentioned, are fundamentally flawed. Rather than acknowledging the limits of the existing approach, they introduce further layers of compulsion. 

Central is a new two tier model requiring students with a grade 1 or 2 in GCSE maths and/ or English to complete a Level 1 ‘stepping stone’ qualification before progressing to another resit. While presented as a means to strengthen foundational knowledge, in practice it risks pushing learners backwards. 

Many of these students already hold Level 1 or equivalent qualifications (GCSE grades 1-3 are Level 1 passes). Requiring them to study for a qualification that is effectively equivalent to what they already have is unlikely to feel purposeful. For learners with low confidence or patchy attendance, the danger is disengagement rather than renewed motivation. That may actually push even more into the NEET population.

Delivering a more complex two tier English and maths offer will bring significant resourcing pressures, particularly for school sixth forms, who may respond pragmatically. 

The simplest way to avoid these pressures will be to raise sixth form general entry requirements to grade 4 in English and maths (something many sixth forms have already done under the current funding conditions). This will put even more pressure onto FE colleges to support learners with lower attainment in a sector which already faces serious funding and workforce challenges. 

The Curriculum and Assessment Review offered a chance to confront these issues directly. Instead, it largely sidestepped fundamental questions about what success in post 16 English and maths should look like, or indeed whether grade 4 at 16 remains the right gateway for progression. 

That leaves the sector in a quandary. We know that the resit system just isn’t working, but the chance to fundamentally reshape our approach to English and maths has been missed, and the ‘stepping stone’ proposal could actually make matters worse rather than better.

Alternative proposals: have your say
At ASCL we’re looking at what alternative proposals we could realistically make in response to the DfE consultation on these proposals to avoid the pitfalls outlined in this article and better support the needs of these learners. These must recognise that different learners need different routes and focus on building confidence rather than repeated assessment. 

Above all, they must reflect a simple truth: when a system delivers the same poor outcomes year after year for the same group of young people, more of the same is not the answer. We must be willing to do things differently. 

We’d be grateful for any ideas and suggestions that will help to shape that thinking. Please do let us know your thoughts by writing to tellus@ascl.org.uk.