Everyone who is under 19 and still in education must develop their maths and English language skills.

If you didn’t achieve a grade 4 in your maths and/or English GCSEs you must retake them. This is part of your study programme.

This means that you will have maths and/or English lessons to support you to resit your exams. The resits may be in November or May/June, depending on how long you need to be ready to resit them.

You do not have to apply separately to retake maths and/or English. If you need these qualifications they will be built into your study programme.

We may recommend that instead of a GCSE you do a Functional Skills qualification. This will depend on the grade you got in your GCSEs originally.

Functional Skills are qualifications that focus on practical skills for real-life situations. For example on a hospitality course you may learn about how to write a menu and work out the costs of ingredients.

There are two levels of Functional Skills: level 1 and level 2. Level 2 is equal to a pass at GCSE (grades 4-9), while level 1 is pre-GCSE level (grades 1-3).