How many institutions provide a subject is only half the question. How many students each of them enters is the other half — and it changes the answer completely.
A subject in 500 institutions with a median cohort of seven tells a completely different provision story from one in 500 institutions with a median cohort of thirty-five.
Geography and Media Studies both have a median A-level entry cohort of around ten to twelve. On that measure they look similar. But Geography is present in 78.8% of A-level institutions and Media / Film / TV Studies in 33.3%. One is a near-universal subject taught in modest groups; the other is a specialism concentrated in a third of institutions.
Modern languages are the clearest example. French appears in 49.4% of A-level institutions — wide provision by any measure. But 90.9% of those institutions entered ten students or fewer, and 70.1% entered five or fewer. German is in 23.8% of institutions with a median cohort of 2.
A high prevalence of small entry cohorts may indicate that provision is being sustained at relatively small scale. The Explorer reports the distribution rather than reducing it to a score.
An entry cohort is not a teaching class size. A cohort of thirty may be taught in one group or three; a cohort of four may be taught alongside another year group, or in a shared arrangement with a neighbouring institution. The data record entries, not timetables.
Every subject profile shows the median cohort, the 25th to 75th percentile range, and the full distribution across five bands — 1–5, 6–10, 11–20, 21–40 and 41+ — alongside the share of providers with ten or fewer and five or fewer entries. No composite “fragility score” is calculated, because any weighting would be an editorial judgement dressed as a measurement.
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.