Five key takeaways from this year’s baccalaureate results

Finally, after five years of changing approaches to testing and grading, it’s done.

This is the year when A-level grades in England, Wales and Northern Ireland return, more or less, to where they were before Covid.

Most of the students who achieved Level 3 results were in Grade 9 when the pandemic began.

They were the first class to take GCSEs in person after the Covid lockdowns, when they had extra measures to support them, such as advance information on revision topics.

This year, however, that extra help has disappeared and the grading approach has remained the same as if the exams had never been cancelled.

Here’s what you need to know.

Across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, top grades rose for the first time since 2021 – with 27.8% of all grades graded A* or A.

This figure represents an increase from 27.2% last year.

The results for individual nations, however, tell a more complicated story, with results up in England but down in Wales and Northern Ireland.

This year, the proportion of A-levels graded A* and A was:

• 27.6% in England, compared to 26.5% in 2023
• 29.9% in Wales, compared to 34% previously
• 30.3% in Northern Ireland, compared to 37.5% previously

Some students from Wales and Northern Ireland may be disappointed, but the story here is bigger than individual performance.

Efforts have been made in recent years to bring top grades back to pre-pandemic levels, since the sharp increases in 2020 and 2021, when exams were cancelled and results were based on teacher assessments.

In England, the exams regulator had predicted that this return to 2019 levels would occur last year (although they remained slightly higher).

But in Wales and Northern Ireland, it was always expected that grades would return to pre-pandemic levels this year.

In all three countries, the percentage of students achieving top grades this year remains higher than in 2019, when it was 25.4%.

It is worth bearing in mind that, unlike last year’s A-level students, these teenagers had already taken external examinations before this year and had obtained exam results on which to base their choice of A-level subjects.

Overall, 27.6% of A-level grades in England were awarded an A* or A this year.

But the proportion varies depending on where you live, and regional differences remain entrenched.

The gap between the two regions with the highest and lowest proportions of A* and A grades each year has widened and remains higher than it was before the pandemic.

In London, the best performing region this year, 31.3% of all grades were A* or A, while in the East Midlands, the worst performing region this year, the figure was 22.5%.

More generally, we still observe a North-South divide – which existed before the pandemic and has worsened with Covid.

This year, many regions in the Midlands and North have seen faster improvement than those in the South, with the North East and West Midlands seeing the strongest growth in higher grades.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said it was “too often the case” that where you come from determines what you can achieve.

“The gaps that have opened up under the last Conservative government in terms of regional differences are really stark,” she said.

“There are a lot of things we need to do.”

Last year, MPs warned that it could take a decade for the gap between disadvantaged pupils and others to close to what it was before Covid.

There was no change in the top 10 most popular subjects this year.

But maths is the real winner: not only does it remain the most popular subject, it is also the first A-level to exceed 100,000 entries.

Of all subjects with more than 10,000 entries, advanced mathematics saw the largest increase in enrolments, followed by physics, computer science, mathematics and then English literature.

(Computer science entries, by the way, have increased by 83.1% since 2019.)

There is concern, however, that boys make up the majority of students in most science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.

A report published last week by the National Foundation for Educational Research, commissioned by the British Academy, suggests that the range of subjects studied by young people after the age of 16 has narrowed.

He said there had been a particular drop in the take-up of arts and humanities subjects, with 38% of sixth-form pupils studying a humanities subject in 2021-22, compared with around 60% in 2016.

All of this should ring alarm bells for universities trying to recruit enough students to keep arts and humanities programs open.

This is the third year that the results of England’s T-levels have been published – the technical qualification introduced under the Conservative government which involves a split between classroom learning and work placements.

The dropout rate remains high. Last year, 66% of T-level students completed their course.

The retention rate is better this year, at 71%, but remains well below that of A-levels in England, which is regularly above 90%.

That’s important because T levels are “here to stay,” Phillipson said.

“We want to make sure T-Levels is a success,” she said.

“The last government botched the rollout and there are many underlying issues that we are looking to address.”

It’s a good year to apply to college, with 82% of applicants getting into their first choice.

Figures from the University and College Admissions Service suggest that 376,470 applicants – of all ages and from all over the world – were accepted to their ‘firm’ choice, a 4% increase on last year.

This year, more people got top marks in their baccalaureate, but there is also a broader context here.

Universities say they need more funding, with around 40% of them in England at risk of running into deficit, according to the Office for Students.

Tuition fees for domestic students have remained more or less frozen since 2012, losing their real value due to inflation.

For several years, universities have been recruiting more international students, who pay higher tuition fees, to compensate for the loss of funding. However, recent changes to visa rules and the currency crisis in Nigeria are expected to lead to a drop in the number of international students starting their studies at UK universities next month.

All this means that universities need to boost their funding – and that will include recruiting more domestic students.

Additional reporting by Rob England, Phil Leake and Muskeen Liddar