After the many months of revision and preparation, the wait was finally over for students across the Cumberland Council area as they received their GCSE results.

The results in the Cumberland Council Area reflect the national picture, with a slight fall in passes at grade 4 and above as the results are brought back in line with pre-pandemic levels.

However, for disadvantaged pupils there are positive signs with early results showing an improvement in good passes in English year on year.

The proportion of children achieving passes in English at grade 4 and above has fallen for all pupils (down from 72 per cent to 70 per cent) but increased for disadvantaged pupils (up from 49 per cent to 52 per cent).

READ MORE: In Pictures: Students receive their GCSE results

For maths at grade 4+, there has also been a fall (down from 68 per cent in 2023 to 66 per cent this year for all pupils), although the figure for disadvantaged pupils was largely unchanged (45 per cent in 2023 and 44 per cent in 2024).

For English, the proportion achieving grades 5-9 increased by +0.5 percentage points for all pupils (to 54.0 per cent) and increased by +5.7 percentage points for disadvantaged pupils. 

For maths at 5+, the proportion of all pupils achieving the higher grades is down on last year (by -2.0 percentage points) and the proportion of disadvantaged pupils is up substantially, from 25.2 per cent to 32.9 per cent.