Maximising Achievement with Y13 in the final 15 weeks before the 2026 examinations in Wales

Maximising Achievement with Y13 in the final 15 weeks before the 2026 examinations in Wales

A companion piece to our Alps Champions Webinar on Tuesday 20th January 2026. 

At Alps, we are with you all the way as you face the challenge of maximising Y13’s achievement in 2026. 

The Context

- Results in 2024 and 2025 were lower than those in 2022 or 2023, which Qualifications Wales regarded as transitional recovery years following the pandemic. 


- Since 2024, Qualifications Wales has returned grading back towards 2019 standards, as demonstrated in Table 1 using data from the JCQ. 

Table 1
- It seems likely that Qualifications Wales will set the awarding of A Level grades in a similar way for both 2026 and 2027. What are you doing / what will you do to maximise your share of the higher grades in 2026? 

- Although male students achieved a higher percentage of A* grades in 2025, female students at A-level once again outperformed male students at other thresholds. Do your A Level results tend to show similar gender gaps? What can you do to motivate your male students to compete with their female peers? They are competing for the same university places, degree apprenticeships & future careers. 


Current Year 13 

1. Y13 students took GCSE examinations in 2024 when GCSE results were returned to 2019 standards for the first time since the pandemic by Qualifications Wales. 

2. Table 2, based on data from the JCQ, illustrates the relative proportions of GCSE grades in 2019, 2023 and 2024. 
Table 2
3. As GCSE results were brought back close to 2019 standards in 2024 and 2025 and A Level results will be awarded close to 2019 standards in 2026 and 2027, value‑added calculations based on our 2019 benchmark are likely to provide the most realistic assessment of progress for both Year 12 and Year 13 towards results in 2026 and 2027. 

Our strong recommendation is to use the 2019 benchmark as the standard for MEGs and monitoring. 

While this approach may produce more ‘cautious’ value‑added figures mid‑year, it is likely to generate a welcome ‘bounce’ in thermometers once we create our 2026 Welsh Customer A Level benchmark following the examination results in August.

4. The AS results were brought down towards 2019 standard in 2024 and 2025. 

5. How many Y13 students performed poorly in individual AS modules in 2025 and therefore need to consider resits? What are you doing in terms of planning for some students re-sitting AS units in Y13 to maximise their chances of gaining higher A Level grades in 2026? 


Some possible priorities 

1. Maximising your share of high grades to improve student pathways and destinations, as well as aiming for outstanding attainment and progress. 
2. Narrowing any cohort gaps, for example: 

    1. Males v Females 

    2. eFSM v non-eFSM 

    3. White British v minority ethnic pupils 

3. Maximising the achievement of Seren Academy learners.  

4. Focusing on attendance to reduce the negative impact of persistent absence. 

5. Making effective use of targeted AS resits to maximise UMS. 



Our Ten Top Tips to support you: 

1. If you are in an 11-18 school, make sure ‘the Sixth Form matters.’ 

    1. Is the same priority given to robust data analysis / support / intervention as happens for Y11? 

    2. Is the Sixth Form a regular item on SLT agendas? 


2. Get everyone on board if you want to achieve your goals. Ensure all middle leaders and set teachers understand their role in achieving the school’s ‘goals’ and feel responsible for helping achieve them. 

3. Your goal might be the overall Alps’ Quality Indicator or the proportion of learners who, achieve three A levels (+ equivalents) at grades A*-A (Di*), A*-C (Di* -Di) or A*-E (Di*-P). 

    1. In either case, do all Heads of Department (HODs) and their set teachers know what they must do to help achieve your goals?  

    2. Do they know who their key ‘marginal’ students are and what they need to do to help them achieve the next higher grade? 


4. Use Connect to ensure you are on top of the subjects, sets and student groups that need to improve to gain outstanding value-added progress / outstanding achievement. Our webinar on 20th January will guide you through how to add custom columns and how then to be on top of analysing your data in Connect by attendance and how to identify gender, disadvantage (eFSM & EMA) and ethnicity gaps as well as how to have a sharp focus on your Seren Academy students. Register your place here.  
 

5. Use Connect to ensure you are on top of the students who need support to achieve their Post-18 goals. 


6. Focus on raising outcomes and progress by concentrating on improving the performance of targeted students in specific subjects.  
 

7. Many students may have a better chance of securing or improving their 2025 AS grade at A Level in 2026 if they re-sit an AS unit with support in 2026. 
 

8. Pay most attention to your largest cohort subjects that will have the biggest impact on this cohort’s outcomes and destinations, your Alps value-added and your Achievement Measures. 


9. Ask HODs to run department meetings based on: 

    1. Past papers and mark schemes (especially 2025) 

    2. Command words 

    3. 2025 Examiner reports & QLA – identifying those ‘silver bullets’ that will improve grades. 


Share this invaluable information with your students. 

10. Ensure Mock exams are marked to identify individual and collective learning gaps (skills / knowledge) so that these can be addressed, re-assessed, and closed before the summer. Based on what commonly lost students marks & grades in your Mocks and what the Examiner Report / QLA reveals lost students marks & grades in 2025, ask HODs to identify 5 main priorities to work on from January to May to aim to make sure students do not make these same errors in the summer. 


Five Top Tips for getting the most from Connect 

1. Discuss with HODs and teachers which students on their course have the greatest potential to improve their mock / predicted grades.  

2. Use the ‘What-if’ tool in Connect to demonstrate the impact on subject value-added of those students achieving a higher grade. Ensure that all teachers understand what needs to be done to enable each of these students to master the skills or knowledge the lack of which currently blocks them from achieving the next higher grade. 

3. Use our comparison and filter tools to understand how the student groups in each subject or set are predicted to perform by disadvantage, gender, ethnicity & PA.  

    1. Set up custom columns, so you can track the progress of additional groups such as your students on EMA and your Seren Academy students. 

    2. Set up attendance groups so that the impact of persistent absence is clear and visible, so all can act to improve attendance. 



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 4. Use our Monitoring Accuracy tools to identify: 

    • which subjects predicted most accurately in 2025? 

    • which subjects are predicting outcomes most different to previous monitoring grade-point or are predicting much higher outcomes / higher VA than in 2025? 


5. Identify students who are underachieving in two or more subjects for intervention. 


About the author: John Philip 

 

 

John started working with Alps in 2008, while he was working at Little Heath Comprehensive School. At Little Heath, John used Alps to achieve top 2% performance in value-added terms. He also worked with schools regionally and nationally through the Raising Achievement Partnership Programme. Since leaving Little Heath in 2010, John additionally works as an associate for 22 secondary schools through PiXL. 

 

This blog is a companion piece to our Alps Champions Webinar on Tuesday 20th January 2026. 

Register for our webinar  

 

Led by: Senior Education Consultants, John Philip and Dr John Roe 

20th January 2026 at 3:30 PM GMT 

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This webinar will give practical advice on how to use Connect effectively to ensure you are on top of the subjects, sets and students who need support if you are to maximise achievement for your Year 13 cohort as you approach the final 15 weeks of the academic year.