We held back from publishing a newsletter in August in order to share a ‘back to school’ one now! We’ll share our end of month newsletter as usual in late September but here’s a quick start of term update on qualifications results from this summer in advance of our full 2026 Report Card analysis, together with details about an open call from the European Commission for best practice examples of how schools can work with artists and cultural organisations to enhance pupils’ civic engagement; details of a new report on Creative Industries Apprenticeships; an update on the review of Arts Council England; and news from Paul Hamlyn Foundation about their Teacher Development Fund which is now open for applications.
This is set to be a busy autumn as we await the final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (which we are hoping will propose the revaluing of Arts subjects within accountability systems); the bidding process for the National Centre for Arts and Music Education gets underway; many policy and funding initiatives are developed for the youth sector (summarised in our new Latest Thinking article); White Papers are due to be delivered on Post-16 and Higher Education and on Special Educational Needs; the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill works its way through Committee stage; and the autumn budget is announced. Meanwhile, CLA is delighted to report that it will shortly be announcing the appointment of three wonderful new Trustees from the schools sector.
We look forward to keeping you updated on all the news as we have it, and of course providing our take on how it impacts Arts education. In the meantime, the CLA team wishes everyone an excellent start to the new school year.
Exam results headlines: August 2025
As you know we publish our detailed survey of Arts subject qualifications take-up within our annual Report Card each spring, when all the relevant government data sets have been made available, but we can share some results headlines based on really helpful analysis from FFT Datalab. So this is what we know about results …
GCSE and Level 2 VTQ results 2025
- GCSE grades in England are up very slightly this year: grades remain somewhat higher than pre-pandemic.
- The small increase in top grades is largely driven by male pupils. Although female pupils are still more likely to achieve a top grade, the gender gap at grade 7 has fallen every year since 2021, when it stood at a record high. The number of students taking Performing Arts and Music is up this year.
- Re-take entries for English and Maths are significantly up, but grades remain low. The number of GCSE entries from older students has increased again this year, mostly driven by a larger cohort size but also in part due to the fall in the proportion of last year’s English language re-take cohort achieving a 9-4. In our response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review call for evidence we stated that children and young people require a more humane system that does not consign a “forgotten third” of young people to a cycle of retakes in post-16 education where many again fall below the grade 4 benchmark, and that we require a more humane qualifications system with a new style of English and maths qualification which can be taken at the point of readiness, which builds confidence and does not represent a built-in cliff edge. This will help many learners, in particular those in need of additional support through SEND, disadvantage or EAL. This new re-take data reinforces that point. Jill Duffy, the head of the OCR exam board, described the situation as a “resit crisis”.
- There’s not much change in attainment by region. London, the top performing region, did not improve this year. As a result the gap between London and other regions has closed slightly.
- Attainment in vocational and technical qualifications improved but not for Arts subjects. Attainment in VTQs improved this year, following a fall last year (due to qualification reforms). As with GCSEs, numbers of entries in VTQs overall are down by about 1% compared to last year, but there is variation with respect to sector subject areas, and Arts, Media and Publishing has seen the greatest decline. This category includes performing arts, crafts, creative arts and design; media and communication; and publishing and information services. We will be able to see in greater detail whether there has been a shift from VTQ options in music (and other Arts subjects) back to GCSEs later in the year – and we will cover this in full in our Report Card in spring 2026.
A Level and Level 3 VTQ results 2025
- Grades in England are up (very) slightly this year. There has been a small increase in top grades at A-Level since last year. The percentage of entries achieving a grade A or A* is now three percentage points higher than in 2019.
- Results for most A-Level subjects remain stable. There was an increase of around 2 percentage points in the percentage of students awarded grade A*-A in Art and Design. There were increases in the A*-C rate of 2 percentage points or more in Drama and in Art and Design.
- T-Level entry numbers continue to climb, but retention is still a problem. Almost 12,000 young people received results in T-levels an increase of more than 60% on last year, although the total remains low. Results were achieved in 18 different occupational specialisms, two more than last year. Retention on T-level programmes remains a concern with 27% of those who started a T-level programme at the start of 2023/24 not “retained and assessed” at the end of 2024/25.
- Level 3 Vocational and Technical Qualifications: These qualifications were largely overlooked on A Level results day in the past but their results profile is increasing and we will have full available data in the 2026 edition of our Report Card, as we did this year. Maths continues to be the subject with most entries: entries are up in maths, physics and economics. A number of subjects, such as geography and history, have seen slight falls in entry rate this year and for drama this is part of a longer-term trend, as we know.
- There’s not much change in the gender gap in A-Level grading. Female students are more likely to enter A-Levels than male students – there were nearly 440,000 entries from female students this year, compared to less than 380,000 from male students.
- Regional differences in grading persist. Compared to 2019, the A*-A rate in London was 5 percentage points higher in 2025, the largest increase of all the regions in England.
- Grades in independent and selective schools remain above those in the state sector – which speaks to our social justice work, see our 2025 Report Card for more detail on the ‘Arts entitlement gap’. Grammar schools registered the highest proportion of top grades.
EU call for school/cultural collaborations for citizenship education
The European Commission has launched an Open Call for Good Practices on School/Culture Collaborations for Citizenship Education. The European Commission is inviting you to share your examples of how schools can work with artists and cultural organisations to “enhance pupils’ civic engagement, democratic attitudes and their readiness to engage in civic and democratic life through the power of participatory artistic and cultural experiences within and around schools”.
They are looking for inspirational examples implemented:
- within and around primary schools (up to age 10) and especially in secondary schools
- within and around formal, non-formal and/or information education settings.
You can share your good practice example through this form by 31 October 2025.
High-quality examples will be used to inform and inspire policy and practice in the EU and world-wide. A selection of good practice example will feature in the Compendium of Best Practices that the European Commission will publish and disseminate widely.
This request is the first step in an EU two-year project that began in June: Culture and Democracy Study and Peer Learning – School/Culture Collaborations for Civic Engagement and Critical Citizenship Education – How schools artists and cultural organisations can work together to enhance young people’s democratic attitudes and their readiness to engage in civic and democratic life.
CLA’s new Capabilities Framework sets out the seven benefits of an Arts-rich education and the ways in which they contribute to active citizenship (agency) and social bonding, civic engagement and social cohesion (communication and empathy) so it will be excellent to see high-quality examples of this in practice.
New report on creative industries apprenticeships
A new report into creative industries apprenticeships published in July has found that training pathways remain “very limited”, despite the ongoing skills gap hampering the creative industries: 65% of hard-to-fill vacancies in the creative industries are attributed to skills shortages compared to only 41% across all sectors.
Analysis by Birmingham City University (BCU) and the University of the Arts London (UAL) has found that take-up of the training opportunities available remains “stubbornly low” compared to other sectors, with only 5% of creative employers offering apprenticeships.
For hirers, navigating the demands of the apprenticeship system “remains difficult”, while many are strained further by the expectation to “top up” funding to enable a “viable training offer”. The report asks the government and executive agency Skills England to help employers adopt an “apprenticeships and skills first approach”, and for regional creative industry clusters across the country to work together to support such provision.
Among the report’s recommendations are the foundation of a Creative Skills Observatory, overseen by Skills England, tasked with monitoring national data to “identify and track in real-time the skills demands and trends for the sector at all occupational levels”. There is also a recommendation that creative industry clusters and corridors drive “coordinated approaches” to skills programmes, and that technical and professional apprenticeships are designed in response to subsector, regional and future skills demand.
There is a call for high-quality training which is appropriately funded, “responsive” and “flexible”, while the report also asks that the Department for Education’s Growth and Skills Levy goes further in funding short courses and skills training in addition to longer-term apprenticeships.
Finally, the report states that more must be done to enable businesses, and freelancers, to undergo a significant culture change that means they can adopt an “apprenticeship and skills first” approach. You can read more on this from the report’s authors in Arts Professional.
CLA take
CLA sees Arts education as important in resolving critical skills gaps. The Government’s Creative Industries Sector Plan makes specific reference to a skilled and diverse workforce, highlighting the need for a curriculum in England that readies young people for life and work, including in Arts subjects.
The UK’s creative industries are one of the eight core growth sectors. There are real gaps and shortages in the UK economy that will not be solved without expert Arts teaching and a curriculum rich in Arts knowledge, skills, opportunities, and experiences, which is why we eagerly await the final report of the Curriculum and Assessment Review this autumn and have continued to press for accountability measures which value Expressive Arts subjects following 15 years of their exclusion from the EBacc.
Cultural sector news: Margaret Hodge’s review of Arts Council England
The review of Arts Council England (ACE) led by former Culture Minister, Margaret Hodge, will be published this autumn, with a government response expected in 2026. We will be interested to see how ACE is set to engage with learning across its portfolio.
It will also explore how ACE engages with partners and stakeholders and consider its role in the wider cultural funding ecosystem. Currently 79% of ACE-funded national portfolio organisations have learning and participation departments so the funding body plays a significant role in resourcing learning teams in Arts organisations to work with schools.
DCMS says that the Hodge Review of Arts Council England will consider its funding portal, Grantium, which went offline due to technical problems on 23 July. The outage has caused problems for many Arts organisations and individuals.
Prospective applicants to ACE are being invited to test a new application process. ACE’s National Lottery Project Grants (NLPG) rolling programme remains paused until mid-September, when it will reopen for applications of up to £30,000.
Having previously said that ACE would use Grantium’s failure “as a launchpad for crucial changes” to make its services simpler and more secure, chief executive Darren Henley has said that once the new platform has launched ACE expects to reinstate the remaining NLPG strands “in quick succession” with grant applications between £30,000-£100,000 to open by the end of September, and Touring, Place Partnerships and Major Projects by mid-October.
What CLA wants to see from the Review
In CLA’s response to the Hodge review call for evidence, we addressed the following points:
- ACE’s arms-length role as an expert distributor of public and lottery funding, with funding needing to be informed by national insight, data and local need
- Strengthening accountability for learning and participation
- Supporting the cultural education workforce
- Positioning Arts education to build a future-ready workforce
- Supporting sustained partnerships with schools and responding to the crisis in Arts teaching
- The importance of cultural brokerage functions
- Place-based evidence and data for the education work of funded organisations
- Strengthening accreditation schemes as a driver of Arts-rich education
- Balancing supply and demand for Arts learning
We look forward to giving our response to review in relation to Arts education when it is published.
Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund opens for applications
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Teacher Development Fund supports teachers to create Arts-rich and equitable classrooms where all children can learn and thrive.
Through the Fund, Arts organisations help teachers to build the skills and confidence to use Arts-based approaches in the primary classroom. Partnerships of Arts organisations and groups of primary schools can apply for grants up to £165,000. Schools and Arts organisations will collaborate over two academic years. Together they’ll support children to engage in lessons and overcome barriers to learning.
Grants support Arts organisations and schools to work together to develop Arts-based approaches. The Fund has a special focus on creating more equitable classrooms where every child can thrive. Applications close on 12 November. You can learn more and apply here.
