Cayman’s public schools beat England in English by 22 points

Ahead of England in English and science

In 2025, 82% of Year 11 students in Cayman’s public schools passed English, against 60% in England. In science the figures were 73% and 59%. Maths is the exception: 54% in Cayman, 58% in England, though still well ahead of the Caribbean region at 39%.

One caveat the Ministry’s table doesn’t spell out: Cayman’s students sat the Caribbean CSEC exams, while England’s figures are GCSE pass rates. It is a comparison of two different exams, so read the gap as a broad signal rather than a like-for-like score.

Year 12 fell. Year 11 rose.

The coverage led with Year 12: the share of students with five or more passes including English and maths fell from 56.7% to 47.8%. But Year 11 moved the other way, from 39.5% to 48.1%, and maths rose from 41.2% to 48.9%.

The two are linked. This year’s Year 12 is last year’s weak Year 11, which the report says entered secondary school with lower prior attainment. That group went from 39.5% to 47.8% in one year, close to the 10.1-point gain Year 12 usually adds. If this year’s stronger Year 11 does the same, next year’s Year 12 headline should recover.

Maths has barely moved since 2019

Year 12 maths stood at 49.4% in 2019 and 49.3% in 2025. The one standout year, 64.1% in 2021, came when exam boards adjusted how exams were run and graded because of Covid. Strip that out and maths has been flat for six years.

The gap is widest at the bottom. Students are grouped by a cognitive ability test, and in the highest band 97% passed maths; in the lowest, 31% did. The public-school intake also starts below average: this Year 11 group scored 93.5 on that test, against a norm of 100.

Mostly a boys’ story

Year 12’s decline was concentrated among boys. The share exceeding the expected standard fell from 46.2% to 34.6%. In maths it dropped from 59.1% to 43.9%, and in single science from 95.2% to 58.4%. The report describes the change in girls’ results as cohort-specific rather than a decline.

Attendance: one day in ten missed

Public-school attendance averaged 89.4% in 2024-25, down 1.8 points on the year before. That is roughly one school day in ten. The national benchmark set by the Office of Education Standards is 96%, and the report’s ten-year chart never reaches it: the best year was 95.5%, in 2018-19.