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GCSE

British

abbreviation

General Certificate of Secondary Education: a public examination in specified subjects for 16-year-old schoolchildren. It replaced the GCE O-level and CSE

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

And at GCSE, there was a proposal to move to the grading system used in England and Wales, where a numerical system from 9-1 is used where 9 is the highest grade.

From BBC • Feb. 18, 2026

She says schools in her region are offering fewer languages at GCSE, which leads to fewer pupils taking them at A-levels and then going on to study them at university.

From BBC • Dec. 15, 2025

"If you then drop it at A-level, ultimately students may decide, 'Well, if I can't progress beyond GCSE, I'm not going to take that subject,'" he says.

From BBC • Dec. 15, 2025

And she addressed the claims that scrapping the EBacc could lead to fewer pupils taking history, geography and languages at GCSE, saying the measure "hasn't led to improved outcomes" or "improvement in language study".

From BBC • Nov. 4, 2025

The problem may also be more deeply rooted, and in many cases may go far further back than GCSE.

From BBC • Aug. 21, 2025

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023