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Exam Results Analysis for Teachers

Ten practical guides for subject leaders and teachers analysing GCSE and A-Level results — from reading a grade distribution and benchmarking against national data to presenting to SLT and turning analysis into an action plan. Free from tutor2u.

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Enter your class or department’s grade distribution and compare it instantly with the national picture. No student names required, and nothing leaves your browser.

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📋 Exam Results Analysis Checklist
A one-page sequence for subject leaders — cohort, distribution, benchmark, previous years, evidence, strengths and priorities. Take it into your department or SLT meeting. Download the free PDF →
Open the checklist →
Analyse · Work through a department’s results with a clear head
How to analyse GCSE results
A practical sequence for reviewing your department's GCSE results without jumping too quickly to conclusions.
How to analyse A-Level results
Look beyond the A*–B headline and build a balanced picture of your A-Level cohort.
Analysing a small cohort
When cohorts are small, show the student numbers and resist treating every percentage movement as a trend.
Comparing results between years
Year-on-year changes matter — but cohort size, student mix and exceptional examination years matter too.
Benchmark · Compare with the national picture and read the shape
Comparing with national results
National data is an excellent benchmark — provided you compare the right measures and understand its limitations.
Reading a grade distribution
A grade distribution tells you much more than one headline pass or top-grade percentage.
Benchmarking your class or department
Enter your grade counts, compare the distribution with national results and identify the differences worth investigating.
Report · Present results credibly to senior leaders and governors
Presenting results to SLT & governors
Keep the presentation short: what happened, how it compares, what needs investigating and what happens next.
Act · Turn the analysis into a small number of real priorities
Turning analysis into an action plan
Move from “what happened?” to a small number of evidence-based priorities for teaching, curriculum and assessment.
Ten common analysis mistakes
From tiny cohorts to national benchmarks, these are the traps that can turn useful exam data into misleading conclusions.

Explore the national data

Every guide links through to the free tutor2u Exam Results Explorer — national grade distributions and boundaries for every subject, board and year, and the My results tool to benchmark your own cohort.

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About this guide. Produced independently by tutor2u using tutor2u’s own guidance for teachers and subject leaders on results analysis, alongside published exam-board and JCQ information, to explain the system clearly and put it in context. Reviewed by Jim Riley, tutor2u. How we check this guidance. Last reviewed 30 August 2026.

Last checked August 2026. This is a plain-English summary of official guidance; always check the linked Ofqual, JCQ and exam-board pages for the definitive rules, which can change.

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