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Starting in 2017 with English and maths, new GCSEs in England will be graded from 9 to 1, with 9 being the top grade.

Students taking GCSEs in England this summer will receive a mixture of number and letter grades. English language, English literature and maths are the first subjects to use the new system, with most other subjects adopting numbers by 2019. Eventually all GCSEs taken in England will receive numerical grades.

9 things to know about the new GCSE grades

1. GCSEs in England are being reformed and will be graded with a new scale from 9 to 1, with 9 being the highest grade.
2. New GCSE content will be more challenging.
3. Fewer grade 9s will be awarded than A*s.
4. English language, English literature and maths will be the first to be graded from 9 to 1 in 2017.
5. Another 20 subjects will have 9 to 1 grading in 2018, with most others following in 2019. During this transition, students will receive a mixture of letter and number grades.
6. The new grades are being brought in to signal that GCSEs have been reformed and to better differentiate between students of different abilities.
7. In the first year each new GCSE subject is introduced, broadly the same proportion of students will get a grade 4 or above as would have got a grade C or above in the old system.
8. These changes are only happening in England. Wales and Northern Ireland are not introducing the new 9 to 1 grading scale as part of their changes to GCSEs.
9. You can see how the 9 to 1 grades compare with the A* to G scale in our GCSE grading postcard.

Ways to keep up-to-date

We’ve got lots of information to help students, parents, teachers and businesses understand the changes. You can keep up-to-date in a number of ways:

• download our results day guides for parents and students
• look at our postcards summarising the changes
• subscribe to 9 to 1 News, the Ofqual newsletter about the changes
• follow the GCSE grades 9 to 1 page on Facebook
• follow GCSE grades 9 to 1 on LinkedIn
• read our blogs on specialist issues

And if you’ve got any questions, drop us an email at public.enquiries@ofqual.gov.uk or give us a call on 0300 303 3344.