69% of Brighton & Hove pupils reached grade 4 in both English and maths, up from 67%. The city was on 70.3% two years running before last year's fall.

Sixty-nine per cent of Brighton and Hove’s GCSE students reached grade 4 or above in both English and maths this summer. That is up from 67 per cent last year.

The council published the provisional figure on results day, 20 August. It described results as “broadly static nationally” but gave no national figure to compare against (Brighton & Hove City Council, 20 August 2026).

There is a comparable figure. Set against it, the two-year picture is less comfortable than a one-year rise looks.

What the 69% actually measures

It counts pupils, not exam entries. A pupil is only included if they reached grade 4 in English and grade 4 in maths. Miss one subject and they are out of it.

That is the Department for Education’s measure, often called the basics measure. It is not the same thing as the percentages Ofqual published on results day, which count individual results across all subjects.

So the city’s 69 per cent cannot be laid against Ofqual’s national headline at all. The two count different things.

Where the city stands on the same measure

The DfE publishes this measure for every local authority. Its most recent edition covers the 2024/25 school year and was published on 23 April 2026 (Key stage 4 performance, academic year 2024/25).

Brighton and Hove pupils reaching grade 4 or above in both English and maths:

  • 2022/23: 70.3% (1,689 pupils)
  • 2023/24: 70.3% (1,702 pupils)
  • 2024/25: 66.9% (1,604 pupils)

The council’s “67 per cent last year” matches that 66.9 per cent. The two are measuring the same thing, which makes the run of years readable.

What a rise from 67 to 69 does not show is the drop that came before it. The city held 70.3 per cent for two years running, then fell 3.4 points. This summer’s 69 per cent recovers most of that ground. It does not recover all of it.

Against the region and the country

The same figures for the South East and England, from the same DfE release:

Year Brighton & Hove South East England
2022/23 70.3% 67.5% 65.1%
2023/24 70.3% 67.4% 65.0%
2024/25 66.9% 66.9% 64.8%

Brighton and Hove sat 2.8 points above the South East in 2022/23, and 2.9 points above it in 2023/24. In 2024/25 that gap closed completely. Both landed on 66.9 per cent.

The city has stayed above the England figure throughout, and England itself has barely moved: 65.1, then 65.0, then 64.8.

Line chart showing the percentage of pupils achieving grade 4 or above in both English and maths from 2022/23 to 2024/25 for Brighton and Hove, the South East and England. Brighton and Hove is flat at 70.3% for two years then falls to 66.9%, meeting the South East line, while England stays near 65%.
Graphic by The Brighton Times

What Ofqual published, and why it is a different number

Ofqual issued 5,720,045 GCSE results on 20 August, to 1,047,750 students in 6,040 schools and colleges (Qualification results in England: summer 2026).

In the South East, 69.9 per cent of results were graded 4 or above, and 24.5 per cent reached grade 7 or above. Across England the figures were 67.0 and 21.8 per cent (Ofqual data tables, table 19a).

Those counts include everyone sitting a GCSE, not just Year 11. Strip them back to 16-year-olds and every figure lifts: the South East reaches 73.2 per cent at grade 4 and above, England 70.7 per cent (table 19b).

The gap between the two is resits. Ofqual’s breakdown by centre type shows further education establishments on 17.6 per cent at grade 4 and above, and sixth form colleges on 32.2 per cent (table 20). Those are largely places where students retake English and maths, not places that teach a Year 11 cohort. A school’s own results contain none of that.

The comparison you cannot make yet

Two things are worth being straight about.

The city’s 69 per cent is provisional and the council’s own. The matching regional and national figures are not published until October 2026, which is when the DfE’s next key stage 4 release is due.

And the DfE’s local figures cover state-funded schools. Ofqual publishes no local authority breakdown in its downloadable data tables at all, so there is no second official source for a Brighton-only number this week.

What it means for you

If a grade looks wrong, there are two routes, and both close on 24 September 2026 (JCQ post-results services):

  • a clerical re-check, completed within 10 calendar days
  • a review of marking, completed within 20 calendar days

Three things families get wrong every year:

  • the request goes through the school’s exams officer, not direct to the exam board, and needs the student’s written consent
  • there is no grade protection, so a grade can go down as well as up
  • the priority service that ran on 20 August covers A levels and Level 3 vocational qualifications only. There is no priority service for GCSE.

If English or maths needs retaking, the November series runs in the first full week of the month. On the Pearson Edexcel timetable, English Language papers sit on Tuesday 3 and Thursday 5 November, and maths papers on Wednesday 4, Friday 6 and Monday 9 November, all in the morning (Pearson Edexcel GCSE November 2026 final timetable). Entries go through the school or college.

If a student needs advice on what comes next, the council’s Youth Employability Service runs a hub at Montague House, Montague Place, Kemptown, and can be reached on 01273 294247.

Our report on this summer’s A-level and vocational results in the city is here: Brighton A-level results 2026.

Sources