Students in England opening their A-level results on Thursday morning should be braced for disappointment – especially as many will be those who enjoyed a bumper set of GCSE results two years ago.
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But the more generous grading of two years ago has been replaced by a policy of returning grades to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019, meaning a steep fall in the proportion of top grades awarded compared with the last three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.
Headteachers who spoke to the Guardian said they feared there would be “tears for a few students” who might have been expecting better results.
Experts at the FFT Datalab education consultancy said the rollercoaster ride of pandemic-era GCSE grades and pre-pandemic A-levels could disproportionately affect disadvantaged students who in previous years would not have sat A-levels but were encouraged to do so this year.
“We don’t have the figures yet but these unusual circumstances might well mean that a higher proportion of disadvantaged pupils went on to enter A-levels this year than in a typical year,” Natasha Plaister, a statistician at FFT Datalab, said.
But top grades will fall across the board compared with the last three years, as the government in England has imposed a return to pre-pandemic grading despite the lingering effects of Covid and school closures, with FFT Datalab noting that disadvantaged students missed more classroom time during the pandemic.
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.
The expected fall in top grades is especially concerning for those applying for university places who need to meet their offers.
A survey by PA found that 130 universities had 22,521 courses with vacancies for UK applicants on Wednesday, similar to the number of vacancies at the same time last year.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary in England, said: “I’m incredibly proud of all students receiving their results today. For many, this will have been the first set of formal exams they have ever taken, having faced unprecedented circumstances in the years building up to this summer.”
But Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called for the government to make employers more aware of the changes that have taken place to grades between 2020 and 2023.
“This will feel like a bitter pill to many in this year’s cohort as they also suffered disruption during the pandemic, and those in disadvantaged circumstances were adversely affected in particular. It is essential that everything possible is done to support these young people,” Barton said.
