Liverpool's own 2024/25 GCSE Biology results, and how they differ from Combined Science - the qualification most Liverpool pupils actually sit.
Book a Free ConsultationLiverpool is a local authority in North West England where 1,111 pupils were entered for separate GCSE Biology in 2024/25, achieving 82% at grade 4 or above and 70% at grade 5 or above - both qualification-specific figures, not the 3,935 entries and different results recorded separately for GCSE Combined Science, the double-award qualification most Liverpool pupils actually take.
Whether your child is on the separate-sciences pathway or taking Combined Science, the right support looks different for each. Our expert GCSE Biology tutors help students across Liverpool with both separate Biology and Combined Science, across AQA, Edexcel and OCR.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppSeparate GCSE Biology is one of three individual science GCSEs a pupil can sit - the others are Chemistry and Physics - each entered, examined and graded on its own 9-to-1 scale. A pupil who sits all three is on what schools and the Department for Education itself call the "triple science" or separate-sciences pathway. GCSE Combined Science is a different qualification entirely: a single double-award course that a pupil sits once, receiving two grades side by side - such as 6-5 or 4-4 - on a seventeen-point scale running from 9-9 down to 1-1. The Department's own school-level results data lists exactly seventeen distinct grade-pair outcomes for Combined Science, confirming the scale directly rather than by description alone. A pupil who takes Combined Science has no separate GCSE Biology grade at all, and the Department for Education reports the two as entirely separate subject rows in its Key Stage 4 performance statistics - never combined into one "science" figure.
The two qualifications are not evenly split in Liverpool. Against the city's 1,111 separate-Biology entries in 2024/25, GCSE Combined Science drew 3,935 entries - roughly three and a half pupils sitting Combined Science for every one sitting separate Biology. Nationally, England's state-funded schools entered 150,259 pupils for separate Biology and 446,554 for Combined Science that year, a tilt of just under three to one - meaning Liverpool leans slightly further toward Combined Science, and slightly further away from separate Biology, than England does as a whole.
On separate GCSE Biology, Liverpool's 2024/25 results sit behind England's state-funded average on both headline thresholds: 82% of Liverpool's entries reached grade 4 or above against 91% nationally, and 70% reached grade 5 or above against 81% nationally - gaps of 9 and 11 percentage points. On GCSE Combined Science, Liverpool's gap to England is narrower on both measures: 50% against 57% at grade 4 or above, and 30% against 36% at grade 5 or above. The England gap is wider for separate Biology than for Combined Science on both grade thresholds, in a city where separate Biology is already the far smaller of the two entry pools.
| Qualification / area, 2024/25 | Entries | Grade 4+ | Grade 5+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liverpool - GCSE Biology | 1,111 | 82% | 70% |
| England (state-funded) - GCSE Biology | 150,259 | 91% | 81% |
| Liverpool - GCSE Combined Science | 3,935 | 50% | 30% |
| England (state-funded) - GCSE Combined Science | 446,554 | 57% | 36% |
Liverpool's separate GCSE Biology entries rose from 1,077 in 2022/23 to 1,154 in 2023/24, then fell to 1,111 in 2024/25 - a 3.7% drop in the most recent year, after a 7.1% rise the year before. Grade 4+ achievement followed the same rise-then-fall shape: 84% in 2022/23, up to 86% in 2023/24, then down to 82% in 2024/25. Grade 5+ achievement did not rise at all - it held flat at 75% across both 2022/23 and 2023/24 before falling to 70% in 2024/25. The fall was not unique to Liverpool - England's own separate-Biology entries also peaked in 2023/24 (160,464, itself up from 159,294 the year before) before falling to 150,259 in 2024/25, a 6.4% national drop, roughly 1.7 times the size of Liverpool's 3.7% fall.
GCSE Combined Science tells a different story. Liverpool's entries also rose then fell - 3,873 in 2022/23, up to 4,082 in 2023/24, then down to 3,935 in 2024/25 - but its grade 4+ and grade 5+ rates rose in all three years without exception: 44% and 26%, then 46% and 27%, then 50% and 30%. Entries and results moved in the same direction for Biology in 2024/25 and in opposite directions for Combined Science. England's Combined Science entries, unlike Liverpool's, rose in every one of the three years - 423,350, then 442,331, then 446,554 - so Liverpool's 2024/25 dip in Combined Science entries also runs against the national pattern, while its Biology dip does not.
| Liverpool, by year | Biology entries | Biology 4+/5+ | Comb. Sci. entries | Comb. Sci. 4+/5+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022/23 | 1,077 | 84% / 75% | 3,873 | 44% / 26% |
| 2023/24 | 1,154 | 86% / 75% | 4,082 | 46% / 27% |
| 2024/25 | 1,111 | 82% / 70% | 3,935 | 50% / 30% |
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Not all of them. Liverpool had 39 state-funded secondary schools with a Key Stage 4 cohort in 2024/25, a count published in the Department's own local-authority headline data. Cross-checking that population against the Department's subject-entry data, school by school, shows 30 of those 39 schools entered at least one pupil for separate GCSE Biology and 33 entered at least one pupil for GCSE Combined Science. Twenty-eight schools offered both qualifications side by side. Two schools offered separate Biology with no Combined Science entries recorded at all: The Blue Coat School, running an all-triple-science model for its 176-pupil cohort, and Abbot's Lea School, a community special school that entered 3 pupils for separate Biology. Five more schools entered Combined Science only, with no separate-Biology entries recorded. The remaining four schools - Woolton High School, Palmerston School, Redbridge High School and Sandfield Park School, all community special schools with capped Key Stage 4 cohorts - have no Biology or Combined Science entries in the Department's published subject tables; the Department suppresses some subject-level breakdowns for very small cohorts, so a handful of unpublished entries at some of the four cannot be ruled out. Between them, the four groups - 28 with both qualifications, the 2 Biology-only schools, the 5 Combined-Science-only schools, and the 4 with no published entries in either - account for all 39.
The Blue Coat School and North Liverpool Academy are both open Liverpool secondary academies, and their 2024/25 subject-entry data show opposite approaches to GCSE science. The Blue Coat School entered all 176 pupils in its cohort for separate Biology, Chemistry and Physics - effectively its entire year group on the triple-science pathway - achieving 98.9% at grade 4 or above and 96.6% at grade 5 or above in Biology specifically, with an overall Attainment 8 score of 79.5. North Liverpool Academy took the opposite route with most of its larger, 221-pupil cohort: only 33 pupils sat separate Biology, while 177 sat Combined Science, and its Attainment 8 score was 45.6.
| School, 2024/25 | Cohort | Biology entries | Comb. Sci. entries | Biology 4+/5+/7+ | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Blue Coat School | 176 | 176 | 0 | 98.9% / 96.6% / 85.8% | 79.5 |
| North Liverpool Academy | 221 | 33 | 177 | 90.9% / 90.9% / 63.6% | 45.6 |
The comparison is not simply "selective school beats comprehensive." North Liverpool Academy's own small triple-science group - the 33 pupils entered for separate Biology - achieved 90.9% at grade 4 or above and 90.9% at grade 5 or above, within a few points of The Blue Coat School's near-universal cohort. Its much larger Combined Science group, 177 pupils, achieved only 53.7% at grade 4 or above and 36.7% at grade 5 or above. The Blue Coat School put essentially its whole year group - 99.4% of it, in the Department's own EBacc-science figures - through the separate-sciences pathway; North Liverpool Academy put 13.6% of its year group through the same pathway, so The Blue Coat School's triple-science entry rate ran more than seven times higher. The gap in this comparison sits mostly between pathways, not simply between schools: a pupil's results depend heavily on which of the two qualifications their school enters them for. Knowing which pathway your own child's school runs is the first step - book a free consultation and we'll work from your child's actual specification.
No, and this is one of the more commonly misunderstood parts of the Key Stage 4 performance tables. Attainment 8 is built from four buckets, filling eight GCSE-equivalent slots between them: English counts twice (double-weighted), maths counts twice (double-weighted), then three slots go to a pupil's best results from a shared "EBacc" group of subjects, and a final three slots go to any other qualifications, the "open" group. English and maths each have their own dedicated double-weighted element. Science does not - it sits inside the three-slot EBacc bucket, competing for those same three slots alongside languages, history, geography and computer science, so there is no Attainment 8 "science element" comparable to the English or maths elements.
Liverpool's average score across that shared EBacc bucket was 12 in 2024/25, against 13.5 for England - a 1.5-point gap on a bucket most GCSE Biology pupils' grades feed into, but which also carries every pupil's language, humanity and computer science results. That is a different, and smaller, comparison than the 42.1-versus-46 gap on Attainment 8 as a whole. Separately, the EBacc qualification itself sets its own science requirement - two science GCSEs, met either through Combined Science, which supplies both in a single double award, or through two of the three separate sciences. In Liverpool, 90.4% of the 2024/25 cohort met that requirement: 72.3 percentage points through Combined Science and 18.1 through the separate-sciences route, against an England figure of 94.1%, split 70.8 and 23.3 the same way. Within that requirement, Liverpool's cohort achieved grade 4 or above in both required science GCSEs 58.8% of the time and grade 5 or above 40.7% of the time, against England's 65.8% and 47.9%.
Leading Tuition's GCSE Biology tutors work from a student's own school and exam board - AQA, Edexcel, OCR or WJEC/Eduqas - and from whichever science pathway that school has actually entered the student for, separate Biology or Combined Science, rather than a generic scheme of work built for neither. Sessions run one-to-one online with a shared whiteboard, so a tutor can work through past-paper questions on the correct specification, mark them against the real mark scheme, and share annotated resources with a student in real time. Our wider GCSE tuition service covers every subject alongside Biology for families who need more than one, our GCSE Biology guide covers topic-by-topic revision for both qualifications, and families thinking ahead to Sixth Form can see our A-level Biology page. Families in Liverpool wanting a different GCSE subject can also see our GCSE Maths tutors in Liverpool page, and families researching tutoring in other cities can browse every location we cover.
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Whether your child is one of the minority entered for separate Biology, Chemistry and Physics, or is taking the more common Combined Science route, our expert GCSE Biology tutors help students across Liverpool with both, across AQA, Edexcel and OCR. Leading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, read on 22 August 2026.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThe Liverpool and England figures above are drawn from the Department for Education's Key Stage 4 performance, 2024/25 release and its open subject-entry and school-level datasets, checked on 28 August 2026; The Blue Coat School and North Liverpool Academy's figures come from the same school-level dataset, cross-checked against both schools' Get Information about Schools records to confirm both remain open. For topic-by-topic revision guidance across both qualifications, see our GCSE Biology guide; parents wanting wider GCSE support across every subject can see our GCSE resources for parents guide.
82% of the 1,111 pupils entered for separate GCSE Biology in Liverpool achieved grade 4 or above in 2024/25, and 70% achieved grade 5 or above, according to the Department for Education's Key Stage 4 performance data. Both figures describe the separate Biology GCSE only. Most Liverpool pupils sit GCSE Combined Science instead, a different qualification with its own results: 50% at grade 4 or above and 30% at grade 5 or above, from 3,935 entries in the same year.
Separate GCSE Biology is one of three individual science GCSEs - alongside Chemistry and Physics - each graded on its own 9-to-1 scale; a pupil who sits all three is on what schools call the triple, or separate sciences, pathway. GCSE Combined Science is a single double-award qualification: a pupil sits it once and receives two grades side by side, such as 6-5 or 4-4, on a seventeen-point scale running from 9-9 down to 1-1, which the Department for Education's own school-level data confirms by listing exactly seventeen distinct grade-pair outcomes. The Department reports the two as separate subject rows, and a pupil taking Combined Science has no separate GCSE Biology grade at all.
Neither, in a straight line. Liverpool's separate GCSE Biology entries rose from 1,077 in 2022/23 to 1,154 in 2023/24, then fell to 1,111 in 2024/25 - a 3.7% drop in the most recent year. Grade 4+ achievement followed the same rise-then-fall shape, moving from 84% to 86% and then down to 82%; grade 5+ achievement stayed flat at 75% across those first two years before falling to 70% in 2024/25. GCSE Combined Science entries also rose then fell (3,873 to 4,082 to 3,935), but its grade 4+ and grade 5+ rates rose in all three years (44%/26%, 46%/27%, 50%/30%) even as entries fell in 2024/25 - entries and results moved in opposite directions for Combined Science, and in the same direction for Biology.
Not all of them. Of the 39 state-funded Liverpool secondary schools with a 2024/25 Key Stage 4 cohort, Department for Education subject-entry data show 30 entered at least one pupil for separate GCSE Biology and 33 entered at least one pupil for GCSE Combined Science; 28 schools offered both, and 2 - The Blue Coat School and Abbot's Lea School - offered separate Biology with no Combined Science entries at all. The remaining 9 schools split into 5 offering Combined Science only and 4 with no recorded entries for either qualification, all small special schools; that accounts for all 39 schools.
The Blue Coat School's results are stronger on every science measure. In 2024/25 it entered all 176 pupils in its cohort for separate Biology, Chemistry and Physics, achieving 98.9% at grade 4 or above and 96.6% at grade 5 or above in Biology, with an Attainment 8 score of 79.5. North Liverpool Academy entered only 33 of its 221 pupils for separate Biology - though that smaller group still achieved 90.9% at grade 4 or above and 90.9% at grade 5 or above - while its remaining 177 pupils sat Combined Science, achieving 53.7% at grade 4 or above and 36.7% at grade 5 or above; its Attainment 8 score was 45.6.
No. Attainment 8 is built from four buckets: English and maths, each double-weighted, plus three "EBacc" slots and three "open" slots. Science does not get its own slot - it competes for the three EBacc slots alongside languages, history, geography and computer science. Liverpool's average score across that shared EBacc bucket was 12 in 2024/25, against 13.5 for England, a gap distinct from the wider 42.1-versus-46 gap on Attainment 8 as a whole.
Two. The EBacc's science requirement is met either through GCSE Combined Science, which supplies both grades in one double award, or through two of the three separate sciences. In Liverpool, 90.4% of the 2024/25 cohort met this requirement - 72.3 percentage points through Combined Science and 18.1 through the separate-sciences route - against an England figure of 94.1%, split 70.8 and 23.3. Liverpool's cohort achieved grade 4 or above in both required science GCSEs 58.8% of the time, and grade 5 or above 40.7% of the time, against England's 65.8% and 47.9%.
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