How accurate would predicted GCSE and A-Level grades be?

With this year’s GCSE and A-Level results set to be based on predicted grades, students and parents are asking how accurate will they be?

Exam boards are expected to give teachers guidance as to how to prepare the predicted grade including using mock exam results and other school work.

Previous research has shown that teacher’s predictions are fairly accurate, and in fact they tend to overestimate rather than underestimate grades.

In particular, UCAS has found that university applications with final grades found grades were accurately predicted 42% of the time, with 48% of predictions being optimistic.

By looking at students’ three best A-Level results, it was found that only one in six (16%) were accurate, with three-quarters (75%) being overestimated (75%), and only 9% being underestimated.