A resit levy should be applied to schools to cover the costs of some or all of their students who do not achieve A*-C in GCSE English or maths, concludes a report from think tank, Policy Exchange.

In Crossing the Line: improving success rates among students retaking English and maths GCSEs, Policy Exchange argues that FE Colleges have to deal with the greatest proportion of young people that have to re-sit these qualifications in comparison to their school counterparts, and these are students who are likely to require more intensive teaching.

The numbers bear out the challenge for FE Colleges. For students who completed their GCSEs in 2011 and retook them in 2013:

• FE Colleges took five times more students than schools (54% compared to 10%) who retook English
• FE Colleges took almost five times more students (60% compared to 13%) than schools who retook maths
• 49% of students retaking English GCSE at an FE College received below a D grade compared to 30% of those retaking the exams at school and 31% retaking at sixth form college
• 66% of students retaking maths GCSE at an FE College received below a D grade compared to 47% of those retaking the exams at school and 47% retaking at sixth form college.
  

• Where the student has both failed to get a C and achieved a negative score below a certain level on the new Progress 8 benchmark – to ensure schools are not penalised for making good progress with a pupil they took on at aged 11
• Where the pupil has been on the roll of the secondary school for a certain length of time – to ensure the school had sufficient time to teach the pupil
• Where the student has particular special educational needs and/or disabilities.