GCSE Biology Tutors in London

GCSE Biology tutors in London work with students on two different qualifications, and DfE reports them separately. Separate Biology, sat on its own as one of the three sciences, produced 167,911 entries across England in summer 2026. Combined Science, a double-award GCSE that carries no Biology grade of its own, produced 942,776 entries in the same series. Our expert GCSE Biology tutors help students across London with both, across AQA, Edexcel and OCR.

Two GCSE science qualifications, not one, and why that matters before you book a tutor

"GCSE Biology" and "Combined Science" are different qualifications, and JCQ's own results-day tables report them in separate rows. Summer 2026, England, all schools: separate Biology recorded 167,911 entries, of which 89.63% reached grade 4 or above and 43.54% reached grade 7 or above. Science: Double Award (Combined Science) recorded 942,776 entries, of which 58.06% reached grade 4 or above and 9.19% reached grade 7 or above.

That 942,776 figure needs one correction before it is useful. JCQ's own methodology note for these tables states: "Science: Double Award counts as two GCSE entries. These entries, therefore, are counted twice both in the subject and in the overall figures." A Combined Science candidate sits one exam series and receives one double-award certificate carrying two grades (anything from 9-9 down to 1-1), and JCQ counts that as two entries so each grade is represented. Divide by two and the number of England pupils actually awarded Combined Science in summer 2026 comes to approximately 471,388 -- about 2.8 times the 167,911 pupils who sat separate Biology. Most GCSE science pupils in England, in other words, have no Biology grade to show a tutor at all; they have a Combined Science double award. For the full national grade breakdown, including a Foundation-tier ceiling and required-practicals detail, see our GCSE Biology subject guide -- this page's own job is what happens once you leave the national figures and ask about London.

Two more figures get miscited around GCSE Biology, and both matter to a family choosing a tutor. First, there is no "Attainment 8 science element." Attainment 8 has eight slots: English and maths, each double-weighted, three EBacc slots and three open slots. Science sits inside the EBacc bucket, and DfE's own guidance defines it precisely: "EBacc science includes double award GCSE for pupils on the combined science pathway or the average of a pupil's best two science grades for pupils on the single science pathway (i.e., where pupils enter three of biology, chemistry, computer science, and physics)." There is no separate weighted "science element" the way English and maths each get one.

Second, there is no Progress 8 score for this cohort, or the next one. DfE states it plainly in the same release: "Progress 8 is not being published in 2024/25 as KS4 pupils in this year do not have KS2 assessments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Progress 8 was also not published in 2020 or 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic." A school or tutor quoting a 2024/25 or 2025/26 Progress 8 figure is quoting a number DfE has not published.

London has no single GCSE Biology figure -- only boroughs, Inner/Outer London, or England

London is not a local authority, so it has no results row of its own in DfE's tables. There are 32 borough local authorities plus the City of London, which has no state-funded secondary school and is excluded from KS4 tables entirely. DfE groups the 32 boroughs into two sub-regions -- 13 boroughs form "Inner London" and 19 form "Outer London" -- which then roll up into the "London" government region. Any figure that says simply "London" is one of these four units: a named borough, Inner London, Outer London, or the London region itself, and every figure below states which.

GCSE Biology and Combined Science, state-funded pupils, 2024/25

Two patterns sit inside that table. Grade 4-or-above rates barely move by geography -- Biology sits at 91% in England and 94-95% everywhere in London; Combined Science sits at 57% in England and 62% everywhere in London. What does move is the split between the two qualifications. In Inner London, 6,259 of the 28,613 pupils entered for either subject sat separate Biology -- 21.9%. In Outer London, 16,475 of 59,299 did -- 27.8%. A pupil in Outer London is meaningfully more likely to be on the separate-sciences pathway than a pupil in Inner London, even though their chances of passing either qualification are almost identical.

The Combined-Science-to-Biology ratio across seven London boroughs we cover

London cannot be checked school by school in one page -- there is no single register of "every London school's GCSE Biology result" short of pulling all 32 boroughs' worth of DfE data. What follows instead covers seven named boroughs: Barnet, Bromley, Croydon, Harrow, Islington, Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames. These are the seven boroughs where Leading Tuition already publishes a location page, not a ranking of London's highest- or lowest-performing boroughs, and not a claim to have checked all 32 boroughs plus the City. Six of the seven are Outer London; Islington is the one Inner London borough in the set.

Kingston upon Thames and Croydon sit at opposite ends. In Kingston, the ratio of Combined Science to separate Biology entries is 1.4 to 1, and 41.6% of its science cohort sat separate Biology -- the highest share of any borough here. In Croydon the ratio is 3.7 to 1, and only 21.2% sat separate Biology, lower even than the Inner London average of 21.9%. Both are Outer London boroughs, which is the point: the gap between two Outer London boroughs (1.4x to 3.7x) is wider than the gap between the Inner and Outer London regional averages themselves (3.6x to 2.6x). A regional Inner/Outer figure would not have shown you this.

Croydon's Biology cohort also has the weakest results of the seven: 73% grade 4 or above, against 95-97% in Barnet, Bromley, Harrow, Kingston upon Thames and Richmond upon Thames, and 81% in Islington. One school explains a large part of that gap, and the Croydon gap is covered in full further down this page.

Families across these boroughs on Trustpilot:

What happens at academically selective schools: two Barnet examples

The borough-wide pattern in Barnet -- 1,467 Biology entries against 3,053 Combined Science, a 2.1-to-1 ratio -- comes from averaging across every state secondary in the borough, comprehensive and selective alike. At Barnet's two academically selective girls' and boys' grammar schools, the picture is close to the opposite of the borough average.

Queen Elizabeth's School, Barnet, a selective boys' grammar, recorded 171 GCSE Biology entries in 2024/25, of which 154 -- 90.1% -- were graded 9. It recorded only 21 Combined Science entries the same year, roughly one Combined Science entry for every eight Biology entries. The Henrietta Barnett School, a selective girls' grammar in the same borough, went further still: 104 Biology entries, 85 of them -- 81.7% -- graded 9, and no Combined Science entries recorded at all. That is a true zero rather than a suppressed low count: DfE's own data prints other genuinely small cohorts in the same file without hiding them -- Hasmonean High School for Girls, also in Barnet, shows 4 Biology entries in the same table -- so an absent row here means the school entered no pupils for Combined Science, not that a small number was withheld.

Between them, the two grammars entered 275 pupils for separate Biology and only 21 for Combined Science in 2024/25 -- 93% of their combined science cohort on the separate-sciences pathway, against 32.5% for Barnet as a whole. A family judging a Barnet school by the borough-wide Combined Science ratio alone would badly misjudge either of these two schools specifically; the honest comparison has to be made school by school, not from the borough figure down.

A closer split in Islington, and a Croydon data anomaly worth knowing before you choose a school

Islington's borough-wide ratio -- 365 Biology entries against 1,019 Combined Science, 2.8 to 1 -- sits close to the London average. At St Mary Magdalene Academy, an all-through Church of England academy in Islington, the split is far tighter: 87 Biology entries against 107 Combined Science, closer to parity than any of the seven boroughs manage on their own. Twenty-three of its 87 Biology entries -- 26.4% -- were graded 9, and 85 of 86 graded entries reached grade 4 or above.

Croydon's borough figures include one genuine data-quality flag worth knowing before choosing a school there. Harris Academy South Norwood recorded 164 GCSE Biology exam entries in DfE's 2024/25 table, but 149 of them are coded "X", which DfE's own data guidance defines as "pupils who were absent or whose results are pending." Only 14 of the school's 164 recorded Biology entries carry an actual grade (eight of the 14 at grade 9). That single school's 149 uncoded entries are close to a fifth of Croydon's entire 827-entry Biology cohort, and are the most direct explanation for why Croydon's borough-wide Biology grade 4-or-above rate (73%) sits so far below its neighbours. A parent comparing Croydon secondaries on Biology results should look at this school's own admissions or exam-board correspondence before relying on the borough average alone; both Harris Academy South Norwood and St Mary Magdalene Academy are confirmed open on the Department for Education's Get Information about Schools register as of 28 August 2026.

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