Exams are important, most students need them to follow their chosen path in further education and most like to have their learning accredited in some way. But they are not the sole point of an education at Sands. It is just as important to have time and space to learn about yourself and about others, to find your place and contribute to this community and to be valued and learn to value yourself. Students leaving Sands have learned and achieved much more than can be represented on a few bits of paper.
Sands School 2025 leavers’ GCSEs
This years exams results are out and it has been an excellent year for our leavers with an overall pass rate of 88% and 20% at grade 9. These are the GCSE results of the 19 students who completed their studies at Sands in July 2025.
Their hard work and dedication has paid off with all of them achieving the results they needed to move on to the next stage of their education. This year is a little bittersweet, as the majority of our leavers have been with us since 2019! They made it through a worldwide pandemic, multiple lockdowns and all the ups and downs of being a Sands student. Throughout their time at Sands they have learned how to be both independent and collaborative learners, both coming to staff for help by themselves and helping each other in study sessions they organised.
Results Breakdown
While we have had overall pass rates up into the 90% range in the past, this year’s results reflect the difficult start this cohort had with the COVID-19 pandemic and their determination to exceed expectations despite of this..
- Biology, Chemistry and Physics: These subjects are some of the most difficult GCSEs available. A testament to their difficulty is that we have only had one year in the last decade with a 100% pass rate in the sciences. This year a combined pass rate of 83% is a huge achievement and our young scientists should be proud!
- Psychology: Psychology requires a great deal of writing and the use of technical language and scientific terminology. This is difficult to learn in a relatively short space of time, with the top grades being hard to achieve. However we are one of the very few schools in the country that offers a Psychology GCSE (less than 11,000 entries were made this year vs the 856,430 entries made for Maths) meaning resources available to students are less abundant than for other subjects.
- Geography: Geography is one of the few subjects to have three exam papers. Simply doing this many exams for a single subject can take it’s toll on even the most academic student, though an 83% pass rate is nothing to sneeze at!
English and Maths Results
With a combined pass rate of 84%, our pass rate for these two subjects drastically exceeds the national average!
➡ National Average pass rate for English 2025: 59.7%
➡ Sands Pass rate for English 2025: 95%
➡ National Average pass rate for Maths 2025: 58.2%
➡ Sands Pass rate for Maths 2025: 83%
A word about performance tables
The Department for Education publishes annual “performance” tables which compare the exam results of all English secondary schools, including Sands. The GCSE scores show the cumulative achievements of students up to the time they finish Key Stage Four. Over the years the measures by which school performance has been judged has lead many schools to orientate their exam entries polices towards maximising their Performance Table ranking, rather than best meeting the needs of their students. A cynical but rational response to a perverse incentive.
At Sands we continue enter students for exams solely on the basis of what is best for each individual student. They gain GCSE level qualifications that are fully recognised by colleges and employers but these often do not count for inclusion in the school’s performance data. We use the International GCSEs because they offer a mix of coursework and exams rather than just exams. We are also happy for our students to be entered for an exam when they feel ready to give it a try, rather than when they would be sure of a grade that would be a credit to the school.