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Post-16 Provision Explorer
Explained · Post-16 provision

Explained

Plain-English guides to what the Post-16 Subject Provision Explorer measures, how it measures it, and what its figures can and cannot tell you.

England · 2024/25 · DfE16 guides
Explained
What does subject provision mean in this Explorer?
Observed provision means recorded exam entries. What that can and cannot tell you about a school or college's post-16 curriculum.
Explained
Does an exam entry prove a school offers a subject?
An exam entry is strong evidence a subject was taught. The absence of one proves very little. Why the logic only runs one way.
Explained
Why might a school have no entries for a subject?
Six ordinary reasons a school or college records no exam entries in a subject it may well provide.
Explained
How is post-16 subject provision measured?
The exact method behind the Explorer: which rows are used, how totals are counted, and what the denominator is.
Explained
Why do subject cohort sizes matter?
Coverage alone hides the difference between a subject that is widely provided and one that is widely but thinly provided.
Explained
School sixth form vs sixth-form college vs FE college
The institution types in post-16 education in England, and why the distinction changes what you should expect from the numbers.
Explained
Why national subject entries don’t equal student preference
Entry statistics describe what students were entered for, which is shaped by what their institution provides. They are not a measure of demand.
Explained
What is a school URN?
The Unique Reference Number is the identifier that makes this Explorer possible. What it is and why names cannot be used instead.
Explained
Why do schools sometimes change URN?
A URN identifies a legal entity, not a building. Academy conversion, mergers and re-establishment all create new numbers.
Explained
A Levels explained
What an A level is, how it is structured and assessed, and how A-level provision appears in this Explorer.
Explained
Applied General qualifications explained
BTEC Nationals, Cambridge Technicals and Level 3 VRQs: what Applied General qualifications are and how they appear in this Explorer.
Explained
Tech Levels explained
Occupationally focused Level 3 qualifications in the DfE performance tables, and how Tech Level provision appears in this Explorer.
Explained
Tech Levels vs T Levels
Two different Level 3 technical qualifications with similar names. What separates them, how each is counted, and why they sit on different tabs of this Explorer.
Explained
Consistent, newly observed, previously observed
What the two-year provision labels mean, why they are deliberately neutral, and why 197 institutions are left out of the comparison.
Explained
What are A-level equivalents, and why weight entries?
One BTEC Extended Diploma entry is worth three A-levels. One Extended Project is worth 0.3. Comparing raw entry counts across qualifications is misleading.
Explained
Applied General, Tech Level and other academic — what’s the difference?
The four post-16 qualification families in the entry data, what sits in each, and why T Levels are counted separately.
Sources & methodology: All figures come from the DfE’s Schools and colleges — subject entries and grades and institution information data sets for academic year 2024/25 (final), joined on school URN. Only the Total exam entries category is used, so no entry is counted twice. Coverage is measured against the number of institutions with recorded entries in the relevant qualification family, not against all establishments. Sixth-form consortia and partnership centres are excluded from all totals, denominators and percentages, because DfE excludes them from its national figures; they remain listed and flagged in the Explorer. On that basis the England A-level total of 787,688 entries reconciles with the DfE national comparator to within 0.16%, and the four families together to within 0.15%. Institution coordinates come from Get Information About Schools. T Levels do not appear in this release; they are shown separately on the Explorer’s T Levels tab, from DfE provider-level T Level results, and are never added to any entry total here.

Last checked 17 August 2026. Observed provision is based on recorded exam entries. An institution with no recorded entries in a subject may still have offered it — see what subject provision means.