Summary
• A-level results in England showed biggest drop on record A-level grades awarded in England have shown their biggest drop after results plummeted across the board, in line with the government’s policy of enforcing a return to pre-pandemic grading.
• Private and grammar schools had the largest drop in top grades compared with last year – however it has not made up for the disproportionate boost in grades those types of schools had during the pandemic.
• Exam chiefs confirmed there were 67,000 fewer A/A* grades this year, compared with 2022, but 26,000 more than in 2019. Jo Saxton, the chief regulator of the exams regulator Ofqual, defended this year’s results and the decision to bring them back roughly to 2019 levels, but expressed sympathy for students who have suffered during the pandemic.
• Social mobility charity warned of “growing disparity” between the most and least well-off. The gap between private and state schools in England closed but private pupils are still far ahead.
• Results show sharp regional disparities. While London and south-east England recorded a greater proportion of top grades compared with 2019, there was a fall in the north-east England, and Yorkshire and Humber regions. There was an 8 percentage point gap between students getting A*-A grades in south-east England and those in the north-east, wider than the 5 percentage point gap in 2019.
• Mathematics remained the most popular subject for this year’s students, while economics replaced geography in the Top 10 most popular subjects, with more than 39,000 students taking the subject. English literature went up in popularity, after two years of declining entries, while computing recorded the highest increase with 16% more entries this year.
We are closing this A-level liveblog now, thanks for joining in and congratulations to everyone who got their A-level and T-level results today. And if you didn’t quite get what you want, good luck for the next few days and months ahead – and remember Jeremy Clarkson only got a C and 2Us … and he’s got his own brewery.
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Lovely video this: “I’ll finally have a restful sleep!”
Nice story from Pontypridd in Wales, where a budding quantum physicist got four A*s and secured a place at the University of Oxford.
Jacob Jones, 18, got four A*s in physics, maths, further maths and chemistry after studying at Coleg y Cymoedd (meaning college of the valleys), and will study physics at Oxford’s Jesus College in September.
Apparently, despite being academic, he didn’t think that he was “Oxford worthy” until he received outstanding grades in his AS-levels, making him think that applying was worth a shot.
He went to two four-day residential summer schools – one research-focused programme at University College London (UCL) and another more hands-on scheme at Oxford, where he lived on site and attended lectures like an undergraduate.
Jacob was part of the Seren programme while at college – a Welsh government funded scheme aimed at supporting Wales’s brightest state school learners, regardless of their background or financial situation.
He said:
Although I got good grades in my GCSEs, I hadn’t thought about going to Oxford before. It’s got such a high reputation so I didn’t think I would be good enough to go there.
[…]
I worked so hard to prepare for my interview and admissions test and the support I had from my college and the Seren programme really helped make a difference. I still couldn’t believe it when I got my place though as I had struggled with one of the exam questions and I’d lost hope after that.
“I’m now so excited to start university now. I picked Jesus College because it’s known as the ‘Welsh college’ – moving to Oxford will be a big change but hopefully being there will provide a sense of home.
Looking ahead, the young man said he is open-minded about future careers but was interested in quantum physics.
He added:
I want to learn everything there is to learn about the subject. I hope to get my master’s and eventually a PhD, and then maybe go into a research-based role.
Lovely story from Pontypridd, where a budding teen physicist has bagged 4 A*s and is off to @UniofOxford despite not thinking he would be "good enough". Well done Jacob Jones! #ALevelResultsDay2023 pic.twitter.com/hur4gTRb6O
— Alexandra Topping (@LexyTopping) August 17, 2023
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Royal College of Nursing: 13% drop in people taking up nursing courses deliver blow to government's NHS workforce plan
The Royal College of Nursing has analysed Ucas acceptance statistics and found a 13% drop in the number of people accepting places on nursing courses in England.
RCN deputy director for nursing, Dr Nichola Ashby, said:
The UK government has stumbled at the first hurdle of their NHS workforce plan, with 13% fewer people expected to take up nursing courses this year in England. These numbers are not just a sad story for today, but a story for years to come of how the ministers baked future nursing shortages into the NHS.
If the NHS workforce plan is to succeed, the UK government must start providing details on how the plan will begin to deliver the students the NHS needs to see for the future workforce. It must fund more university places for nursing students and remove the burden of student debt and tuition fees from prospective nurses.
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Lib Dems: Sunak owes students an apology
After the biggest drop in A-level results on record, the prime minister owes students an apology, says Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Munira Wilson.
She said:
Congratulations to all those students who received their results today, whether that was A-levels, AS-levels, T-levels or BTecs. For many the exams they took were the first formal exams they have ever sat and they also endured the full brunt of the pandemic on their education.
While every single student should be immensely proud of the results they have received today, there are thousands who will have missed out on the grades they hoped for.
To those students, Rishi Sunak must apologise for the 28 million days of lost learning during the pandemic and for his refusal to invest in Covid catchup programmes.
No child should be left behind or forced to miss out on a university place because of this government’s incompetence.
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Head of Ofqual defends results
After weeks of speculation about the scale of the drop in top grades at A-level this year, exam chiefs confirmed there were 67,000 fewer A/A* grades this year, compared with 2022, but 26,000 more than in 2019.
Jo Saxton, the chief regulator of the exams regulator in England Ofqual, defended this year’s results and the decision to bring them back roughly to 2019 levels, but expressed sympathy for students who suffered during the pandemic. She told a virtual results briefing:
You know our hearts go out to students who since 2019 have been through so much and shown so much resilience.
This has been a two-year-plan. There are no surprises here, and the changes in grading that we’re seeing are very similar to the changes that we saw last year.
And these results are above those of 2019 so these students have absolutely had the protection that they deserve, given everything they went through.
Saxton also played down the variation in results between the different nations in the UK and any impact that might have on university admissions.
There have been differences between qualifications across the devolved administrations for as long as there’s been devolution.Because we worked hand in hand with universities and employers this is well understood.
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Language entries at lowest level in over a decade
Although the number of A-level entries are up overall compared with last year, some subjects have seen large drops.
Modern foreign language subjects have been particularly affected, with the total number of entries across French, Spanish and German down by 12.8% compared with last year.
Entries had held steady since 2018 and throughout the pandemic, but this year’s figures mark a record low since at least 2010.
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Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, has urged students receiving A-level and T-level results to be “quick off the mark” when considering their next steps.
She said:
University is still the best thing for many but earning while you learn on high-quality and debt-free apprenticeships is an increasingly sought after option too.
Standards are so much higher now employers design them with IfATE support. Young people are clearly becoming more aware of this so it’s vital we now support them in understanding the full range of choice. There are over 670 to choose from and all are showcased on our occupational maps.
As well as all the traditional trades, they now train economists, nurses, aerospace engineers, countryside rangers, brewers, laboratory scientists, graphic designers and even archaeologists. Satisfaction rates are well over 80% and they are definitely worth serious consideration by all school leavers.
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Girls outperformed boys when it came to the very top grades in England ... just. What follows is a potted history of the (sometimes chaotic) results of recent years.
In 2019, when most of us were blissfully ignorant of the word Covid we had exam-based results with boys and girls almost neck-and-neck in terms of A* and A grades (25%). It’s fair to say that 2020 was a fiasco, when the original algorithm-based results were later ditched and replaced with teacher-assessed grades. Because girls tend to do better on coursework than male students the gender gap widened to 3.1 points.
In 2021 the A-levels were teacher-assessed from the get go and the gap widened even further: 46.4%(!!!!) of girls’ grades resulted in an A* or A compared with 41.7% of boys, almost a 5-point gap.
Last year they reverted to exam-based for the first time post-pandemic, but grade boundaries were set a bit higher leading to reduced grades and closing the gap to 2.2 points.
This year we are almost back to normal and the gap is practically nonexistent. So don’t be surprised if boys outdo girls next year for the first time since 2019.
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Private and grammar schools saw the largest drop in top grades compared with last year – however it hasn’t made up for the disproportionate boost in grades those types of centre had over the pandemic.
Independent school including city training colleges (CTCs) saw 47.4% of exam entries get an A or A* – down a massive 10.6 percentage points from last year. However, that’s still up 2.6 points on 2019: a larger gain than any other type of school or college over the same period.
Selective schools saw a similar trend - 39% of grades achieved A* and A: down 12 points compared with 2022, but up two points on 2019.
Meanwhile 25.4% of entries from academies achieved A* or A – up 1.4 points from 2019.
Top grades at six form colleges were up only 0.6 points compared with 2019, while free schools were up only 0.5 points. Further education colleges have lost out over the period of grade disruption – As and A*s were down 2.3 percentage points compared with 2019.
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Social mobility charity warns of “growing disparity” between the most and least well off
This year’s A-level results reveal a “growing disparity” between the most and least well off, the head of a social mobility charity warned.
PA reports:
Sir Peter Lampl, founder and chairman of the Sutton Trust and chairman of the Education Endowment Foundation, said:
The overall picture today is one of growing disparity between the most and least well off young people. There are significant regional differences in attainment, with top grades falling most in the North East while they have increased most in London and the South East, in line with patterns of regional prosperity. Likewise, the gap in those achieving top grades has widened between those at independent and state schools.
Comparing this year’s university acceptances to pre-pandemic levels in 2019, the gap between the most and least deprived pupils has widened and is now at levels last seen a decade ago. However, it has narrowed slightly since last year.
The large increase seen in university acceptances for students eligible for free school meals is in line with the huge jump in FSM eligibility since 2019, as more and more families have fallen into poverty during the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis.
This from my colleague Steve Morris in Wales:
The proportion of A and A* grades this year in Wales has dropped less sharply than across the border in England – 34% compared with 40.9% in 2022.
The Welsh education minister, Jeremy Miles, told the Guardian: “What we’ve done in Wales is make sure the grade boundaries are broadly in between where they were in 2019 and 2022. That’s what the results have shown. That’s in line with the approach taken in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
“In Wales, AS results contribute to A-level grades so this year’s A level students have their ASs marked under last year’s grading scheme. That has shaped how we are transitioning back to the pre-Covid approach, which we expect to be in place from next year onwards.
“This group of young people has had a very challenging time in education. Their GCSEs and the start of their A-level courses will have been disrupted. We provided extra support – some advance information on areas to revise for and we provided a really popular online toolkit around mental health support and revision tips.”
Miles said there was no evidence the difference in approach between Wales and England was confusing.
“All four countries have a slightly different approach to A-levels in any year. What’s been happening behind the scenes is that the exam regulators have been working closely together, and with universities, so that everyone understands the approaches being taken in the four countries, and I don’t think we have any evidence that is causing issues in terms of universities’ expectations.”
Miles said he was proud of all those who had taken A-level, AS, advanced Welsh baccalaureate and vocational courses. “They have been through an incredibly difficult time and they have shown real dedication and real resilience,” he said.
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(Loving the slight sigh I can hear from our data projects editor Pamela Duncan here.)
I’ve been covering the A-levels for years now and am a bit sick of saying maths is the most popular subject … but maths is the most popular subject again, indeed, entries increased slightly this year.
The second- and fifth-most popular subjects in England respectively, psychology and sociology, gained students, with entries up by 2.4% and 5.2%.
Biology had 4.1% more entries while chemistry gained 4.8% more students, leaving them secure in second and third place. But their sister subject, physics dropped by 2.5% meaning it is now less popular than economics, which jumped 7.3% this year.
The popularity of the three English subjects - English literature, English language and English language and literature - had been dwindling, but there was a very slight increase in the number of combined entries for the three exams this year.
English literature, the most popular of the three, remained the 12th most popular subject among students sitting the exams in England this year, having fallen out of the top 10 for the first time in 2022.
The big winners (albeit based on fewer entries compared with the more popular subjects listed above) are classical studies, up by more than 20% to 5,801 students, and computing, up 16.5% to more than 17,000 entries.
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Seems somewhat odd for the prime minister to be reassuring students that A-level results don’t really matter, but then the desire to agree with Jeremy Clarkson is strong.
This morning Rishi Sunak retweeted the former Top Gear presenter who continued his annual tradition of announcing that he got a C and 2 Us (see 8.29), adding that “it’s not the end of the world if your A-level results aren’t what you’d hoped for”.
The prime minister said:
Jeremy has made a career of being the exception not the rule but he does have a good point here: Results day is important, but not necessarily a deal-breaker.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) August 17, 2023
Whatever results you got today, there are lots of options available to you 👇 🧵 https://t.co/Fkku7iNdhg
He added that there are “lots of options” available, including apprenticeship courses, higher technical qualifications (HTQs) and the possibility of finding a different university course through clearing.
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Dr Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, has congratulated all students receiving their A-level, applied general and other level 3 qualification results today, saying they have “kept going through the pandemic and through years of austerity”.
She used the opportunity to argue that the exam system is “badly in need of reform” saying: “end-of-course exams [do] not allow students to demonstrate all they are capable of”.
She added:
Their determination and resilience, alongside the efforts of educators, parents and carers who support them, deserve great credit.
Exam results should not be taken as a valid measure of school quality. It would be wrong to compare results at a national level with those of previous years. It would also be wrong to use them to compare individual schools and colleges. Different methods of assessment have been used, different levels of pandemic disruption have been experienced and Ofqual has implemented different approaches to grading from one year to the next.
The efforts of parents, students and teachers are not matched by the quality of the exam system. The decision to return abruptly to pre-pandemic grading risks damaging the future of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, whose lives and learning have already been hit hard by the pandemic.
The exam system itself is badly in need of reform. The ways in which students and their schools and colleges are judged does not do them justice. Just as is the case with blunt, one-word Ofsted judgments, one figure calculated from the results of exams cannot alone demonstrate everything about the education on offer at a school or college. Relying on end-of-course exams does not allow students to demonstrate all they are capable of.
As the Independent Assessment Commission has argued, the demand for change is growing. There is a wide consensus that a curriculum and assessment review in England working towards a broader, fairer, more reliable and more inclusive assessment system is urgently required.
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University and College Union calls on vice-chancellors to settle industrial dispute
The University and College Union (UCU) has congratulated students and their teachers on this year’s A-level and BTec results, but called on employers to settle the current university dispute so as not to disrupt students’ education further.
Three days ago the UCU said universities across the UK will face another round of strikes next month unless employers agree to return to the negotiating table.
A marking boycott that has left tens of thousands of students without their degree results this summer will continue, the union said, while preparations will get under way for a new strike ballot to renew the union’s mandate.
If successful, the UCU’s long-running and increasingly acrimonious dispute over pay and conditions will continue to affect campuses well into 2024, with no end in sight to the stalemate after talks with employers broke down.
The UCU general secretary, Jo Grady, said:
Today’s results are a testament to the hard work and dedication of both students and staff, all of whom should be congratulated. Students heading to university should now be looking forward to freshers’ week and the next big milestone in their lives. But those celebrating will have heard that the start of term may be hit with strike action.
Vice-chancellors need to settle the dispute, stop the disruption on campus and allow staff to get back to doing what they know and love best. They urgently need to get back round the negotiating table and make staff a fair offer.
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While the proportion of A-level entries receiving top grades is almost-but-not-quite back to 2019 levels in England, there has been an interesting shift among middle and lower grades compared with pre-pandemic results.
At one end of the scale more entries achieved A*s (up 0.9 percentage points) and As (up 0.4 points), while at the other end, more also received Es (up 0.5 points) and Us (up 0.3 points).
These changes might sound small, but the figures suggest a polarisation of student grades in England, with proportionally fewer entries achieving C or D grades (down 1.6 and 0.8 points respectively).
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A-level results in England show biggest drop on record
A-level grades awarded to students in England have shown their biggest drop after results plummeted across the board in line with the government’s policy of enforcing a return to pre-pandemic grading.
Five thousand fewer students in England gained three A* grades than in 2022, while the proportion of top A*-A grades shrank from 35.9% to 26.5% within a year.
Headteachers said they were alarmed to see that in some cases grading was even more stringent than the last set of A-level exams taken before the pandemic, with the proportion of A*-C grades this year lower than those awarded in 2019 because of a sharp increase in the number of lowest grades.
For the first time, more than one in 10 entries in England were awarded an E or U (unclassified), a 10% increase on such grades in 2019. The increase is likely to be the result of more students taking A-levels based on their GCSE results awarded by teacher assessment when exams were cancelled in 2021.
England’s results also showed a large gap in top grades compared with Wales and Northern Ireland, where regulators have taken into account the long-term impact of the pandemic through more generous grading.
Northern Ireland awarded A*-A grades to 37.5% of its A-level entries, while Wales awarded 34% – in stark contrast to the 26.5% in England.
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Drop in top grades not experienced by all nations equally
The drop in top grades was not experienced by all nations equally: while English top grades dropped by more than 9 percentage points, the Welsh and Northern Irish falls weren’t quite as steep (Scotland has a different exam system to the rest of the UK).
In England, 26.5% of entries receive an A* or an A – a fall of 9.4 percentage points compared with last year, and just above the 25.2% recorded in 2019. Wales entries fell by 6.9 percentage points, with 34% receiving one of the two top grades, while 37.5% of Northern Irish students received an A* or an A - down only 6.5 points on last year.
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A-level grades down this year, but remain higher than in 2019
Some initial analysis on the A-level results from our data editor, Pamela Duncan.
As expected, this year’s grades are down on last year’s and a far cry from the pandemic-influenced highs of 2020 and 2021. But, while the exam boards set out to bring grades down to pre-pandemic levels, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to go the whole hog.
The headline figures then are that, across the UK more than a quarter (27.2%) of entries led to an A grade or higher, down by 9.2 percentage points on last year (36.4%) but still higher than in 2019.
The figures for England were slightly lower: 26.5% of entries resulted in an A grade or A* this year compared with more than a third of last year’s cohort (and down from a whopping 44.3% in 2021). But again, this was higher than in 2019 (25.2%).
Outside the top grades, the powers-that-be exhibited more steel: 75.4% of test papers led to a grade of C or above, ever so slightly lower than the last pre-pandemic entries (75.5%).
What we didn’t see coming was a sharp increase in E grades (the lowest pass grade) and in incomplete entries, which made up 10% of England entries this year, the first time that the combined figure has exceeded one-in-10 students, at least by the Guardian’s record, which starts in 2010.
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Number of students accepted on to UK degree courses has fallen, Ucas figures show
The number of students accepted on to UK degree courses has fallen this year, Ucas figures show.
PA Media reports:
A total of 414,940 applicants (of all ages and domiciles) have gained a place at university or college – down 2.6% on the same point last year, according to data published by the university admissions service. For 18-year-olds in the UK, 230,600 applicants have been accepted – down 3.1% on last year.
Overall, 19,010 UK 18-year-old applicants have missed the conditions of their university offer and are now eligible to find places in clearing, compared to 15,090 last year and 17,270 in 2019.
Ucas said 79% of 18-year-old applicants from the UK have gained a place at their first choice university or college, which is down from 81% last year but up from 74% in 2019 - the year before the pandemic. Nearly one in ten (9%) have not been placed at their first or insurance choice and are now in clearing, Ucas said, compared with 7% last year and 12% in 2019.
The number of 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds in the UK to gain places on courses is 25,760 this year, compared with 26,440 last year.
The number of 18-year-olds from the most advantaged backgrounds in the UK to be accepted is 76,780, compared witho 79,650 in 2022. The admissions service said this means that for every disadvantaged student, 2.30 advantaged students progress compared with 2.29 last year.
Overall, 51,210 international students (all ages, all domiciles) have been accepted – down 2.3% on last year. The top three countries with placed applicants are China, India and Hong Kong.
Clare Marchant, Ucas chief executive, said:
Firstly, I want to say a huge congratulations to the hundreds of thousands of students up and down the country who are celebrating their results and next steps today.
I am delighted to see more than 200,000 UK 18-year-olds have secured their first choice, which is testament to their hard work and commitment to progress to higher education in a year that has seen many complex factors at play, such as geopolitics, the economy and job market, and cost of living.
However, today’s data shows that challenges in widening participation to the most disadvantaged students still persist. This demonstrates that we all need to continue the efforts to ensure the most disadvantaged individuals in society are able to benefit from life-changing opportunities in higher education and training, particularly as the 18-year-old population grows.
For anyone who may not have got the results they were hoping for, or for those applicants who want to change their mind, there is plenty of choice in clearing with nearly 29,000 courses and 8,000 apprenticeships currently available.
We also have a team of advisers hard at work to provide students with expert information, advice and guidance on the phones, social media, and on ucas.com.
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Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour’s education secretary, has also given her congratulations to all students receiving their results today.
She said:
Labour recognises the enormous effort that all of our young people have put into their studies over the past year.
Young people have achieved these results despite the challenges they’ve faced: with a Labour government behind them, offering them pathways to good prospects, there will be no limit on what they can achieve.
Under Labour, your background will be no barrier to you getting on: we will shatter the class ceiling in Britain that holds young people back and spread opportunity across our country.
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Sky News have posted this helpful round up of the UCAS statistics
UCAS have released statistics on A-Levels results day 👇
— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 17, 2023
🟢 79% of 18-year-old applicants gain first university choice
🟠 12% of students have been placed at their insurance university
🟡 9% of students will go through clearinghttps://t.co/jlHD31IkF9
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/doqxqxKY6P
Education secretary hails 'incredible resilience' of A-level cohort
The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, has congratulated this year’s A-levels cohort, saying they had “a lot to deal with” and had shown “incredible resilience”.
Keegan also said the latest Ucas figures showed the UK government was “right to put the grading system back to normal”.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
We’ve just had the Ucas figures out … which is that 79% of those students receiving their results today got their first choice of university. And that is up from 74% in 2019.
And the great news is that 16,500 students on free school meals gained a place at university, which is a 60% increase from 2019 and 14% up from last year.
So in terms of destinations, this cohort has done incredibly well and most of them – 79% – have actually got their first choice of university. So hopefully that will lead everybody to understand that we were right to put the grading system back to normal.
The university admissions officers know how to deal with these differences, they know how to deal with the difference from previous cohorts and they also know how to deal with differences between the English system and the Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish.
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Here we go, students all over the shop getting their A-level results. The pictures are arriving but get in touch with your stories!
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Ah, here we go – I knew he wouldn’t disappoint. Adrenaline-junkie TV presenter turned zen-like farmer Jeremy Clarkson has posted his yearly encouragement to those who don’t get the results they want.
It’s not the end of the world if your A level results aren’t what you’d hoped for. I got a C and 2 Us and here I am today with my own brewery.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) August 17, 2023
Here are some other classics of the genre.
It all started back in 2014, when Clarkson boasted that getting a C and 2 Us hadn’t stopped him getting a Mercedes Benz.
If your A level results aren't joyous take comfort from the fact I got a C and two Us. And I have a Mercedes Benz.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) August 14, 2014
The following year he noted:
If your A level results aren't great, be cheered by the fact that I got a C and two Us. And I'm currently sitting in a villa in St Tropez.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) August 13, 2015
And it goes on … year … after year … after year. In 2021 Clarkson was criticised for suggesting that teachers were “giving grades” to students who had been forced to work on their own at home for much of the academic year.
If the teachers didn’t give you the A level results you were hoping for, don’t worry. I got a C and 2Us and I’ve ended up happy, with loads of friends and a Bentley.
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) August 10, 2021
Last year saw a return to simple bragging:
Don’t worry if your A level results are disappointing. I got a C and 2 Us and I’m currently holidaying on this boat. pic.twitter.com/f7BQxi86wS
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) August 18, 2022
Great encouragement Jeremy!
(Just leaving this tweet from the Politics Home editor, Alan White, here, without comment)
Celebrities realising it’s A level results day and they can do an inspirational tweet about their life achievements pic.twitter.com/5ByqYFQ3O0
— Alan White (@aljwhite) August 17, 2023
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If you are concerned about missing your grades today - don’t miss this moving and thoughtful piece from Dorothy Dunn, who didn’t get the grades she needed a decade ago.
She writes:
If you open that envelope today and realise you haven’t got your first choice of university, don’t make the same mistake I did. Clearing can be brilliant – lots of people find courses on there that are perfect for them. But take the time you need to work out if that’s actually the case, or whether you feel pressured to opt for something just to escape a sense of failure that you shouldn’t have to feel in the first place.
A-level students in England may miss out as stricter grading returns
Many students in England opening their A-level results on Thursday morning should be braced for disappointment, writes my colleague Richard Adams – especially as many will be those who enjoyed a bumper set of GCSE results two years ago.
Our education editor writes:
The bulk of this year’s school-leavers receiving their results are those whose GCSE grades were awarded by teacher assessment after exams were cancelled in 2021, with a record-breaking 30% of those entries receiving top 7s, 8s and 9s grades, equivalent to As and A*s.
The higher GCSE grades meant a bigger proportion of students qualifying to take A-levels in more subjects.
But the more generous grading of two years ago has been replaced by a policy of returning grades to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, meaning a steep fall in the proportion of top grades awarded compared with the last three years.
He adds:
In 2021, 44.3% of A-level entries in England received As or A*s, while those who sat A-level exams last year saw 36.4% of entries awarded the top grades. By contrast, in 2019 just 25.8% received As or A*s.
Some forecasters have predicted that up to 50,000 students are likely to miss out on the top grades that they would have achieved had they taken their A-levels last year rather than this spring.
A-level results will also be published in Wales and Northern Ireland, where regulators have taken a more lenient approach. Qualification Wales said exams would be graded more generously to reflect the “long-term impact” of the pandemic, with a return to pre-pandemic levels next year.
Read the full story here:
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It's A-level results day!
Hello and welcome one and all to the Guardian’s A-level results live blog, where we will be keeping you up to date on all the trends from across the UK as well as sharing stories from our young people. Our incredible team of education reporters and data specialists will be feeding into this blog, but please do get in touch if you think there are stories we have missed.
There will be tales of exceptional achievements, of triumph over adversity, inevitably, plenty of photos of young people holding sheets of paper and jumping in the air. And we want to hear from you too!
If you are expecting your results today – how did it go? Did you get what you wanted? Parents and loved ones – this is your opportunity to boast, or commiserate, please do get in touch.
You can comment below the line, email me on alexandra.topping@theguardian.com or on Twitter I am @lexytopping.
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