ENGLISH GCSE results are set to plunge this summer as teenagers tune into the World Cup instead of revising, according to a study.
Researchers at Oxford and Bristol universities analysed the GCSE results of 3.5 million pupils between 2002 and 2008 and noticed a dip in grades in World Cup and European Championship years.
On average, students dropped a quarter of a grade in each of their subjects which the paper claimed was ‘roughly equivalent to the difference between being taught by a very poor teacher, rather than by an excellent one’.
The authors of the paper claim exams should be taken three weeks earlier to let pupils enjoy the tournaments before knuckling down for tests.
The report states: “The world’s most watched international football tournaments overlap with the main high-stakes exam period in schools in England, well known to be a nation obsessed with football.
“Time spent watching and talking about football is clearly time not spent studying, so our findings give an indication of just how much student effort matters for achievement at GCSE.
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“It is worth studying hard, avoiding distractions and concentrating on work, particularly last minute effort just before the exams.”
Boys from low-income homes performed up to half a grade worse compared to their well-off peers.
Dr Robert Metcalfe, a research fellow in economics at Oxford and one of the study’s authors, said: “In even years, when the tournaments take place, the disparity between poor and better-off pupils increases.
“Tournaments widen the difference between these two groups.”
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