The attainment gap between the most deprived and least deprived pupils’ school results has grown slightly from last year but remains lower than pre-pandemic levels.
Results from the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) show that those in the fifth most deprived areas achieved A to C grades at a lower rate than those in the fifth least deprived areas. For Higher results, the difference went from 6.5% last year to 7.9% in the 2021 results.
Both of these were down considerably from the pre-pandemic figures in 2019, which showed a 16.9% gap.
The SQA said the different models of assessments used in the wake of coronavirus made it difficult to compare figures on a year-to-year basis, while the slight increase in 2021 is unlikely to be statistically significant.
The A-level live blog will be closing shortly. Thanks to everyone for their contributions today.
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Several A-level students who responded to a Guardian callout about this year’s exam results expressed concern that the record number of good grades this year might not be perceived as of the same standard to previous years.
Joe, 18, from Birmingham, who got three As and is going to Sussex University, says: “I’m concerned that my year-group’s results will be devalued due to them being assessed differently to a regular year of exams.”
Eliška Doran, 18, who also got three As and is going to Leiden University in the Netherlands, agrees: “I am worried that in the next couple of years our cohort of grades will not be taken as seriously as the years that had the traditional exams.”
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Faseeha Khalid, 18, from Ipswich, got into the University of Westminster, her first choice, after getting an A and two B grades.
Despite her success, she is concerned that determining grades by teacher assessment has been unfair.
“I was a bit disappointed with a B in history as I had got an A the whole year round and received the best grade in the class for my coursework,” she says. “My peers who I helped with the subject ended up getting higher than me. I do believe some teachers were biased.”
Khalid says the past year was challenging in terms of mental health as it involved “a lot of independent learning. You didn’t have that much support.”
She is waiting to hear whether her university course will be taught online or in person before deciding whether or not to start in September or defer for a year.
“I am not sure if I am going to defer a year as I don’t want to go through online lessons once more. I think mental health wise, [studying my A-levels] was a really tough period. When you’re going to uni, you’re going to be alone [if studying online]. I don’t want to pay £9,000 to do that.”
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Summary of the latest news on A-level results day
- Nearly 45% of A-level entries across the UK were awarded top grades in A-level results published today, a record-breaking return for students after more than a year of disruption and school closures during the pandemic. The 44.8% in top grades in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland matched earlier predictions by university admissions officers and was lower than others had feared, following the 13 percentage point increase seen between 2019, the last time that formal exams were held, and 2020.
- The secretary of state for education said that grade inflation was justified this year because of the pandemic and the system would not return to normal next year.
- A record number of students have been accepted on to UK degree courses this year, Ucas figures show. In total, 435,430 students have had places confirmed on an undergraduate course in the UK, up 5% on the same point last year, according to data published by the university admissions service. A record 395,770 students have been accepted on their first choice full-time undergraduate course in the UK, up 8% from 365,500 in 2020.
- Boris Johnson congratulated students on receiving their A-level results after what he called an “extremely challenging” year. In a video on Twitter, the prime minister said: “Congratulations to everybody getting their A-level results today. I know it’s been a particularly difficult year for everybody doing A-levels because of the pandemic and the conditions in which you’ve been working, but thank you for persevering, thank you for getting on with, obviously thank you also to your amazing teachers.
- Boys in England typically outperform girls when it comes to A* maths grades. But the switch to teacher assessment has appeared to boost girls’ performance. The highest-ever proportion of girls achieved an A grade and above in England this year – 56.8% compared with 52.9% among boys. This marks a reversal of the pre-2020 results where boys usually did better at this grade level than their female counterparts.
- The gender gap for top grades among A-level students in England is at its highest since at least 2011, with the rate of A* and As standing at 46.4% for girls and 41.7% for boys. This marks a gap of 4.7 points compared with 3.1 points last year and a reversal of the trend seen in the three years prior to that when boys outperformed girls in exams.
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For Anna Sazuze, the last 16 months have been hard, after losing her mother, Elsie, a care home nurse, to Covid in April last year. The 16-year-old says she misses arguing and debating with Elsie about everything from TV shows to chores.
“She was so funny, her energy always matched mine. She was a shape-shifter. She could be your best friend, your worst enemy, your mum, your sister, whatever you wanted. She could shape-shift into any moment, and she was ready for anything and everything.”
Elsie’s death was sudden, and her loss left the family emotionally and financially broken. Over the last year, as they have been trying to process their grief, they have been supported by the Healthcare Workers’ Foundation (HWF), an NHS-founded charity, through its Family Fund, which provides the bereaved families of health workers who have died from Covid with access to support including counselling, tutoring, and respite.
“It has meant a lot,” says Anna, who really struggled emotionally when she started in Year 12 in a new school last year. While lockdown allowed her to have her emotional outbursts freely, she found herself faced with the pressure of processing her grief while trying to focus and not fall behind on her work. “I was trying to balance how I felt with all the things I had to get done, and it became a cycle of feeling angry and upset and not being able to do any work because my head isn’t always there. Some days I can’t give it 100% or even 20% because I feel so overwhelmed. I was just drowning basically, in school work and emotions.”
Through the trust, she has been receiving tutoring sessions since June in biology and chemistry, which have made a huge difference in helping her work towards her goals and providing the extra help she needs. “As much as talking it out is helping me, the action of having tuition has given me so much hope and making things change,” Anna says. “So it’s supported me mentally as well because it’s helped put my mind at ease.”
Next year, Anna will also benefit from HWF’s Memorial Fund, launched on Tuesday to coincide with A-level results day, which will provide an annual grant of £5,000 to support her through her higher education journey. Her dream is to study medicine, inspired by years of watching both her parents’ study nursing and her mother’s passion and drive for her work.
She initially wanted to be a nurse too, but Anna remembers her mum telling her: “You know what, don’t do nursing – you need to one-up us and do medicine and become a doctor. You don’t want to just follow us and be in our lane; you need to make your own.”
Anna is hugely grateful for the tutoring, which has seen her grades go from an E to a B, and she is determined to continue improving her grades as she moves into Year 13.
“I felt like I’d made all these promises, especially to my mum, about doing my A-levels and getting to uni – but it felt like now I’m here, I can’t do them,” she says. “[The support has] allowed everyone to take a breath and think: ‘OK, we can do this’.”
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Below are a selection of photographs of students from Ark Academy, in Wembley, north-west London, getting their A-level results.
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The Welsh children’s commissioner, Sally Holland, has urged people not to undermine the confidence of students by questioning the validity of their results.
She said: “I think the way young people have dealt with the past 18 months has been remarkable, and they should be extremely proud of everything they’ve achieved this year.
“We need to make sure all young people and their teachers feel confident that we value the hard work that these qualifications represent. A negative focus on grade inflation risks dismissing the huge learning curve our young people have been on and the skills and resilience they’ve developed in this period while ignoring the inbuilt inequalities of much of the pre-pandemic exam system.”
Students who want to study medicine are being offered £10,000 if they are required to move medical schools amid capacity constraints.
The Medical Schools Council (MSC), which represents 44 heads of medical schools across the UK, has launched a “brokerage programme” for oversubscribed schools to ensure that applicants who have met the terms of their offer are still able to study medicine this year.
Under this scheme, students that are required to move medical schools will receive a payment of £10,000 “for the inconvenience”, the MSC has said.
It comes after the government announced last week that medicine and dentistry schools in England will receive extra funding to expand courses this year following an increase in applications for these subjects.
Opposition parties in Scotland have branded the widening of the attainment gap evidenced in this year’s exam results “a disgrace” and called for the head of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, Fiona Robertson, to step aside.
Scottish Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Beatrice Wishart MSP said: “Pupils were forced into exams in all but name, sitting as many as 16 assessments in a week, crammed in with little notice. The SQA shifted workloads on to teachers and gave them precious little leeway to recognise that some of their students had missed months of education due to repeated stints in isolation or disruption at home.”
Calling for the SQA head to stand down, she added: “The fact that the gap between the richest and the poorest has increased again make a mockery of SNP promises to close the attainment gap.”
The Scottish Conservatives’ shadow cabinet secretary for education, Oliver Mundell MSP, said that this year’s grading system had been proved just as unfair as the system last year that resulted in thousands of poorer pupils being down-graded.
Mundell said: “Most damning of all, pupils from poorer backgrounds have been marked down the most from 2020 to 2021. They are twice as likely to see their grades fall at Higher and Advanced Higher than children from the most affluent areas, year-on-year. That is nothing short of a disgrace. It is apparent that once again, young people have been judged because of where they come from and where they go to school.”
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Pupils at an inner-city state school are celebrating after 55 teenagers got the A-level grades needed for them to study at Oxbridge, which is more than the offers made to Eton College students.
The majority of pupils at Brampton Manor Academy in Newham, east London, are from ethnic minority backgrounds, in receipt of free school meals (FSMs), or will be the first in their family to attend university.
Sam Dobin, Brampton’s sixth-form director, said he is “delighted” that 55 of its students are now set to study at Oxford or Cambridge University this year, which is more than leading independent schools.
At Eton, where Boris Johnson studied, 48 pupils secured Oxbridge offers, a fall from 69 last year. After a bout of excited screaming, hugs, and hyperventilating, Nyat Aron-Yohannes said there was “black excellence in this building” after hearing about how many of her classmates are now heading to Oxford or Cambridge.
The 18-year-old, from Purfleet, Essex, who got three A*s and is going to Oxford to study philosophy, politics and economics, said: “the struggle was real”. She added: “We woke up early to come into school and sometimes it did not even seem like it was worth it at those times when the grades were not matching up to your work ethic.
“Then lockdown happened and you had to persevere on your own because you did not have your classmates or teachers physically nearby to push you. You had to find strength somewhere else. I am just grateful it paid off. We were walking in faith.”
She said she was happy for her relatives, particularly her father Abraham, adding: “I am the first in my family to go to Oxford.
“My father told me this could be possible.
“His words were of motivation.”
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Boys in England typically outperform girls when it comes to A* maths grades. But the switch to teacher assessment has appeared to boost girls’ performance.
The highest-ever proportion of girls achieved an A grade and above in England this year – 56.8% compared with 52.9% among boys. This marks a reversal of the pre-2020 results where boys usually did better at this grade level than their female counterparts.
This year also marked the first in which more girls got A* grades in maths than boys, albeit marginally at 28.4% and 28.3% respectively.
The change from algorithm to teacher assessment also had an impact on the 2020 results, which have been revised retrospectively. When the algorithm-based results came out in 2020, the percentage gap between male maths students achieving an A* grade (17.4%) was 1.9 points higher than for girls (15.5%).
But with the algorithm results now scrapped and replaced with teacher-assessed grades, the proportion of students achieving the top grade grew to 23.8% of boys received an A* grade compared with 22.7% of girls, a 1.1 percentage-point gap.
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This year’s method of grading exams was supposed to be an improvement on the algorithm that last year resulted in the downgrading of some of the poorest pupils’ results and an ensuing political rammy.
But officials at the Scottish Qualification Authority accepted that the overall attainment gap had widened slightly compared with last year, though they pointed out it was narrower than in 2019. The difference in attainment this year between those from the most deprived and most affluent backgrounds at Higher level increased by 1.9% for an A grade and 1.2% for A to C grades.
Less well-off pupils were doubly impacted by the falling pass rate: while the overall Higher pass rate for the wealthiest pupils was down by 1.1%, the drop among the most disadvantaged was more than double that at 2.5 %.
Chief executive of the SQA Fiona Robertson insisted that the authority – which is to be disbanded and replaced with a new specialist agency following ongoing criticism – had worked hard to “ensure equality is at the heart of our approach”. She acknowledged the “slight widening” in the attainment gap but said this should be understood in the context of previous years when the gap had narrowed.
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The A-level attainment gap between rich and poor students and black pupils and those from other ethnic groups has widened in England, according to an analysis of this year’s grades by the exam regulator Ofqual.
Sam Freedman, a former policy adviser at the Department for Education, was among the experts who raised concern on Twitter about attainment gaps for students on free school meals, those from areas of high deprivation and black candidates.
Gaps between rich and poor and between black pupils and other ethnic groups have been widened by this grading "system". https://t.co/WNGuWwdXwA
— Sam Freedman (@Samfr) August 10, 2021
Freedman, now a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, added: “Often get told that exams are unfair on young people from poorer backgrounds but this is further evidence that they do worse under systems that do not use blind marking on standardised tests.”
Education specialists have previously raised concerns that minority ethnic and working-class pupils are disadvantaged by teacher assessment due to unconscious bias.
An A-level student who suffered a “life-threatening” brain tumour has now achieved three A*s and now hopes to study at Cambridge University.
Melos Krasniqi celebrated with friends and family after seeing his “better than expected” results in maths, physics and geography.
The 17-year-old, who studied at Kensington Aldridge Academy in west London, said he missed a few months in his first year after doctors discovered a tumour in his brain.
He told the PA Media news agency: “Midway through October in my first year I had a scan for some headaches and it turned out I wasn’t very well. I had some complications in my brain and emailed the school to tell them what had happened. The teachers were so supportive.
“I had two surgeries to resolve everything and they removed the tumour, which was life-threatening because it had been going on for some time. The teachers recommended that I could skip the rest of the year and redo year 12 or do whatever I felt best.
“I came back part-time a few months after my surgery and had catch-up sessions, which was obviously more work on top of the pandemic.”
Melos said he had no intention of missing a school year and, during his recovery, he asked his teachers for more work so he could catch up. He now hopes to study engineering at Cambridge University and is waiting to hear his place is confirmed.
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Boris Johnson congratulates A-level students in 'particularly difficult year'
Boris Johnson congratulated students receiving their A-level results after what he called an “extremely challenging” year.
In a video on Twitter, the prime minister said: “Congratulations to everybody getting their A-level results today. I know it’s been a particularly difficult year for everybody doing A-levels because of the pandemic and the conditions in which you’ve been working, but thank you for persevering, thank you for getting on with, obviously thank you also to your amazing teachers.
“I hope you’ve done well. If you haven’t got exactly the results that you were wanting, never mind, it happens to the best of us and there are plenty of options available through Ucas.
“If you have done well, which I’m sure you have, then well done and good luck with your next big moves.
“Can I suggest that one of them should be straight away, if you hadn’t yet done it, to get a vaccination, get a jab.”
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School results in Scotland are consistently lower than last year but have shown a sharp rise since 2019, figures published on Tuesday show as the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted a second year.
Students have known their individual grades since the end of June, due to the use of an alternative grading model focused more heavily on teacher judgement.
But in general, the rate of students receiving between an A and a C - known as the attainment rate - fell in all of the qualifications published by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) on Tuesday.
For National 5 qualifications, the attainment rate was 85.8% this year, compared to 89% in 2019-20 - but is still substantially higher than the 78.2% reported for the 2018-19 school year.
Higher attainment fell from 89.3% to 87.3%, while Advanced Higher dropped to 90.2% from 93.1%.
Similar to the National 5 attainment rate, the figure for Higher qualifications is significantly above the 2018-19 level, which was just 75%, while the Advanced Higher rate increased from 80%.
Last year, an alternative assessment model was also due to be employed, but the plan was scrapped after it emerged that more than 120,000 entries had been downgraded due to an algorithm that accounted for, among other factors, past school performance to moderate teacher judgment.
Between the use of exams in 2018-19 and the alternative, teacher-led model this year, National 5, Higher, and Advanced Higher pass rates rose an average of 10%.
The number of total entries to the SQA rose by 8,201 to 660,661, with almost 137,000 pupils receiving certificates on Tuesday.
Despite the drop in the attainment rate, Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville described the results as “strong”, adding they had been “achieved under extraordinary circumstances”.
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Northern Irish students outperformed their UK counterparts in terms of top grades in 2021. In Northern Ireland, 50.8% of entries were awarded A* or A, up from 31% in 2019.
Its increase in top grades of 7.5 points in the last year was higher than in both England and Wales. Meanwhile, in Wales, the proportion awarded top grades rose by 6.5 percentage points compared with last year, to 48.3%.
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Another education chief has struggled to remember his A-level results. Asked by a television reporter what his results were, the Welsh education minister Jeremy Miles said he could not remember. After the interview, he made a call to check. It turned out to be three As, for the record.
Nineteen-year-old Ellie Curran, who has cerebral palsy, celebrated receiving an A* in sociology, a B in business and a distinction in BTEC law when she picked up her results at Archbishop Blanch school in Liverpool.
She said she was “in shock” but very excited about going on to study criminology at Liverpool Hope University.
Ellie, who is also a keen wheelchair football player, said: “It’s been hard working from home and trying to get everything done.”
Her mother Margie said: “She’s very dedicated, in lockdown she would be up at 8am at her desk. She’s always been dedicated, I think she just wants to prove everyone wrong and show she can do it.”
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Teachers’ unions are urging the government to put easing workload front and centre of plans for assessment next year, after school and college staff faced “huge pressures” grading their students.
Dr Patrick Roach, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), said: “Whilst schools have done a tremendous job in picking up the pieces left of ministers’ last-minute decision-making, many teachers were left running on empty with teacher workload at breaking point at the end of last term. We cannot afford a repeat of this confusion and chaos for yet another year.
Roach called upon ministers and regulators to introduce a more “realistic and responsive” system next year, which would slim down subject content to reflect the disruption pupils have faced to their learning over the past five months.
Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) sought to assure students of the validity of their results, encouraging them to “ignore the chat about grade inflation”, since marks have been awarded in a very different way to normal exams. “Students should be confident that they are getting the grades they deserve and that reflect the standard of achievement they have demonstrated,” he said.
Meanwhile, the University and College Union urged universities to share with staff the rewards from “record numbers of students entering higher education this year”.
Staff were offered a 1% pay rise this year, which the union says represents a real-terms pay cut. “[Employers] need to think again and demonstrate they value their workforce, otherwise we will see sustained strike action at colleges across England come autumn,” said the union’s general secretary, Jo Grady.
Responding to the 8% increase in acceptances on to nursing courses, the Royal College of Nursing England director, Patricia Marquis, said this was testament to “the high profile and professionalism of nursing staff during the pandemic”, but warned it would take time to plug staff shortages since students won’t qualify until 2024 at the earliest. “It is clear acceptance numbers are still not keeping pace with vacancies,” she said.
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As A-level students across the country are getting their results, we have seen hundreds of pictures come in showing joy and relief on people’s faces.
Here’s a selection of the best photos so far:
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Education secretary Gavin Williamson has claimed that he cannot remember the results of his A-levels.
As hundreds of thousands of students received their A-level grades, Williamson vividly recalled the day 27 years ago when he received his results. But pressed on what they actually were, he insisted that his memory failed him, although he acknowledged he did not get top marks.
“I didn’t get three A*s, it’s fair to say,” he said when pressed by LBC’s Nick Ferrari. “I have forgotten, it is so long ago. It is 27 years ago.
You probably can’t remember what was happening last weekend.”
Earlier, however, Williamson recounted how he went to his sixth-form college in Scarborough to pick up the envelope with his grades.
He recalled his “absolute delight” when he saw the results and realised “all my dreams of doing social science at Bradford University” had been achieved.
“For a lad growing up in Scarborough, Bradford was the most exotic and exciting place in the whole world,” he said.
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Exam results have been published in Scotland despite the exam diet being cancelled for the second year running due to the coronavirus pandemic, showing a drop in pass rates from last year.
The Scottish Qualification Authority results this year are based on teacher judgment in a system named the alternative certification model.
They show the pass rates at grades A-C for Higher was 87.3%, the Advanced Higher pass rate 90.2% and the National 5 pass rate was 85.8%. In 2020, the Higher pass rate was 89.3%, the Advanced Higher pass rate was 93.1% and the National 5 pass rate was 89.0%.
Scotland’s education secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said: “This is a strong set of results, achieved under extraordinary circumstances.
“It’s been one of the toughest academic years we’ve ever known, with the pandemic throwing significant challenges at our young people.
“So, to have this many learners receiving certificates and for the number of passes at Higher and, Advanced Higher to be so high is incredible.
“These results are testament to the hard work, resilience, and determination of learners – and to the dedication of their endlessly supportive teachers and lecturers, who have been with them every step of the way, going above and beyond to make sure pupils got the grades they deserve.
“Learners can be confident that their awards are fair, consistent, and credible. Indeed, industry representatives have made it clear how much they value this year’s qualifications.”
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The gender gap for top grades among A-level students in England is at its highest since at least 2011, with the rate of A* and As standing at 46.4% for girls and 41.7% for boys.
This marks a gap of 4.7 points compared with 3.1 points last year and a reversal of the trend seen in the three years prior to that when boys outperformed girls in exams.
In terms of achieving an A-grade or above, boys outperformed girls in only three subjects: performing/expressive arts, German and Spanish. When it came to C grades and above, girls outperformed boys in every subject this year.
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Maths, psychology, biology and chemistry were England’s most common A-level subjects, with more than 50,000 students taking each subject. Maths was the most popular subject, with more than 90,000 entrants, up 3.2% year-on-year.
There was a large increase in students taking geography, which reported a 16.4% jump in entrants, while the number of students taking psychology was up by 8.5%.
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In Wales, 99.1% of learners achieved A*-E grades, up from 97.6% in 2019. There was an increase at A* with 21.3% of candidates achieving this grade, compared with 16.3% in 2020.
The total number of A-level entries in Wales this year was 35,867, an increase of 14.5% on 2020, reversing the decreasing A-level entries since the summer of 2015.
Addressing the students, education minister Jeremy Miles said: “This year has been like no other and you’ve had to make many sacrifices. You have had to deal with so much disruption to your studies over the past 18 months, but have shown tremendous resilience and determination to continue your learning.
“While your experiences and the way in which you have been assessed have been different, the value of these qualifications is not. You can can be sure that your grades reflect your hard work throughout this year, and you fully deserve the qualifications you receive.
“Our school and college staff have also been tremendous, working incredibly hard and under a lot of pressure to deliver and mark learners’ assessments.
“The most important thing this year is that learners are able to progress to the next stage of their education, training or their work careers.”
Wales cancelled exams two months earlier than in England, which the Labour-led government said has provided more certainty for centres and learners.
There is a different appeals process. Unlike in England, learners in Wales had their provisional grades ahead of today and have had the opportunity to appeal their grades.
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The proportion of A grades achieved by students this year was at its highest ever rate as teacher assessments replaced usual exam-based grading and the 2020 algorithmic means of assessment was scrapped.
The 2021 results tables show that 44.3% of English A level entries were awarded one of the top grades, A* or A.
This marks a 6.2 percentage points rise on last year’s results, but a massive 19.1 percentage point rise compared with the pre-pandemic exam outcomes of 2019.
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A-level grades surge to record high after exams
Nearly 45% of A-level entries across the UK were awarded top grades in A-level results published today, a record-breaking return for students after more than a year of disruption and school closures during the pandemic.
The 44.8% in top grades in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland matched earlier predictions by university admissions officers and was lower than others had feared, following the 13 percentage point increase seen between 2019, the last time that formal exams were held, and 2020.
In Northern Ireland, 50.8% of entries were awarded A* or A, up from 31% in 2019, while in Wales the proportion awarded top grades rose by more than six percentage points compared with last year, to 48.3%.
In England alone, 44.3% of entries gained A* and A grades, compared with 38.1% in 2020. The figures also revealed that 12,945 sixth-formers in England gained three A*s, compared with 7,700 in 2020 and 3,000 in 2019. Nineteen per cent of entries were awarded A*, compared with 14% in 2020 when grades were also assessed by schools.
The rise was fuelled by a record-breaking increase in grades awarded by independent schools and centres outside the state sector, where 70% gained top grades compared with 44% in 2019. The latest figures are likely to spark further questions about the unequal distribution of grades.
There were also wide disparities in regional results. While more than 47% of entries in London and the south of England received A* or A, 39% of those in the north-east of England did so.
Overall, 88.2% of the more than 750,000 entries by 18-year-olds in England received grades C or above, little changed for 2020 when 87.5% did so.
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Ucas figures show that 245,330 18-year-olds from across the UK have been accepted on to degree courses, up 17% on the same point last year.
The number of UK 18-year-olds taking up places has risen to 34.1%, up from 30.2% in 2020.
Overall, the total number of students accepted on to nursing courses has increased by 8% to 26,730. The figures show that 8,560 students from England have been accepted on to medicine and dentistry courses, up 23% from 6,960 on results day 2020.
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Williamson: universities that don't return to face-to-face teaching should charge less
Universities that do not return to face-to-face teaching this coming academic year should not be charging full fees, the education secretary said.
Gavin Williamson told Sky News: “I think if universities are not delivering what students expect then actually they shouldn’t be charging the full fees.”
Williamson said ministers would give the Office for Students – the independent regulator of higher education in England – “all the power and all the backing” in pursuing universities “that aren’t delivering enough for students that are paying their fees”.
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Education secretary Gavin Williamson has said that, while the government wants to return to an exam-based system, pupils will continue to need extra support into 2022.
“We also recognise that those students who will be taking exams in 2022 will have also had their education disrupted,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He said, however, he hopes it will be possible to return to a more normal system before 2024.
“I would hope that we would be able to move to a normal system of exams much more rapidly than that, but we are making sure that we are getting the support in place for students again who have seen disruption to their education,” he said.
“For me, that is incredibly important. The impact of the pandemic isn’t just one year.”
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An increase in the number of nurses being accepted on to courses has been welcomed by the Royal College of Nursing. However, it warned this does not “equate to record numbers of nurses entering the workforce” as many won’t qualify until 2024 and beyond.
The RCN England director, Patricia Marquis, said: “There are already significant staff shortages in nursing and it is clear acceptance numbers are still not keeping pace with vacancies.
“Pressures of the pandemic have also left nursing staff exhausted. This not only puts patient care at risk but means students risk not completing their studies and entering the workforce.
“Ministers must reverse the 3% pay deal if we are to discourage many from abandoning the profession, leaving future nurses without the expert teaching they need.”
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Record number of students accepted on to UK degree courses, Ucas figures show
A record number of students have been accepted on to UK degree courses this year, Ucas figures show.
In total, 435,430 students have had places confirmed on an undergraduate course in the UK, up 5% on the same point last year, according to data published by the university admissions service.
A record 395,770 students have been accepted on their first choice full-time undergraduate course in the UK, up 8% from 365,500 in 2020.
The figures come on the day that students across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are receiving their A-level results, and students across Scotland are receiving their Highers results.
Overall, 388,230 people from across the UK have had places confirmed. This is an 8% increase on results day last year.
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This year A-level, AS-level and GCSE results in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be awarded through teacher-assessed grades (Tags) overseen by examination boards, while the Scottish Qualifications Authority will use a similar process in making awards.
Education policy is devolved to national governments, so each of the four countries have their own systems and qualifications.
Last year Ofqual, the exam regulator in England, attempted to award qualifications using an algorithm that allocated grades to each school based on past results, but that was abandoned shortly after A-levels were published, following an uproar.
This year grading has been left in the hands of schools without restrictions, leading to expectations that average grades will rise. But Ofqual and Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, have defended teachers from accusations of causing grade inflation.
A record number of school-leavers have applied through Ucas for places on university courses for this autumn, with 43% of the UK’s 18-year-olds wanting to enter higher education. University admissions officers have reported strong demand for health-related courses such as nursing and medicine, most likely as a result of the Covid pandemic.
Share your experiences with us
We want to hear from school leavers, parents, and teachers about how A-level grades and Scottish highers have been affected, and their experience of this year’s assessments. Have you achieved better results than you expected, or lower? Do you think the lack of summer exams has penalised you in any way? Or have you been unaffected?
You can share your experiences in the form here. Parental permission is required for those under the age of 18.
Please ensure you include important details, like the name of your school, in the description box. Photos would be great too. We will include some of your responses in our ongoing coverage.
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Grade inflation justified this year due to pandemic, says Gavin Williamson
The secretary of state for education said that grade inflation was justified this year because of the pandemic and the system would not return to normal next year.
“We are expecting children – students – to get better grades this year than maybe they have done in previous years, but they have been youngsters who are operating under quite exceptional circumstances and in quite unique circumstances. This cohort of youngsters have probably never had – no cohort has ever seen – a level of disruption that these youngsters have done, and you know you just cannot compare this year, with other years,” Gavin Williams told Times Radio.
He said that next year’s A-level students would still be affected by the pandemic. “You are still going to have youngsters who will be taking their examinations next year who will have equally suffered as a consequence of this pandemic, and sadly the tentacles of a pandemic actually reach far. So, what we need to do is ensure that there’s proper thoughtful and careful mitigation because you know we do need to have a sort of a glide path back to sort of normality,” he added.
“We shouldn’t be looking at creating sudden sharp shocks, because we recognise that we have a duty not just to these students as they’re getting their qualifications this year, but actually future students. So, how we manage that back as what’s being sort of careful and considered.”
Williamson also shared memories of his own A-level results day: “Well, I remember going up to college in Scarborough, getting that envelope, because it was a long time ago now, it is 27 years. Opening that envelope and recognising that my dreams had come true. And it opened the door for the next stage of my life, which was to go off to university to study social science at Bradford and I remember growing up in Scarborough, Bradford seems an incredibly exciting and exotic place so I was very excited about it and really looking forward to it. So, what it is, it gave me the opportunity to progress to the next stage of my life.”
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What should students do if they are unhappy with their final grades?
Pupils in England who want to appeal against their grade must first request that their school or college reviews whether an administrative or procedural error was made. Each school or college will set its own deadlines by which students must ask them to review a grade.
If the school or college rules no error was made, then students can escalate the appeal to the exam boards, which their school or college is expected to submit on their behalf. In England, the deadline to send an appeal to the exam board is 17 September.
There is an earlier deadline of 23 August for priority appeals, for example, if a student has not got their first choice of university place confirmed.
Can students sit an exam if they do not like their results?
Students in England who are unhappy with their A-level or GCSE grades will have the opportunity to take exams in the autumn.
AS and A-level exams will be held in October, while GCSE exams will take place in November and December. The higher-grade will count for applicants who wish to take an autumn exam.
What is the plan for the summer exams in 2022?
In England, ministers hope that exams will go ahead in summer 2022 after two years of cancelled exams. But pupils taking GCSE and A-level exams next year could be given advance notice on the focus of exam papers to ensure they are not disadvantaged as a result of lost learning during the pandemic.
The proposals include giving schools and colleges some choice over the topics that students are assessed on, as well as providing exam aids, but final details will not be confirmed until the autumn term.
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The education secretary has said students getting their A-level results today “deserve” the grades they get, awarded by teacher assessment rather than national exams.
Gavin Williamson was trying to dispel worries about so-called grade inflation: when more students appear to attain higher grades than in previous years.
Williamson’s intervention comes on the day that sixth-formers across the country wake up to their A-level results, which have been determined by teachers after this summer’s exams were cancelled.
Writing in the Telegraph, the education secretary defended the government’s decision to cancel exams. He said: “Any debate about the system we’ve used this year should not undermine or question the value of the grades students will be getting.
“We should congratulate them all for their resilience and determination not to allow the pandemic to be a barrier to their futures.”
He added it would have been “unfair on students” to examine them after more than a year of virtual lessons for many.
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Hundreds of thousands of students in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland will receive their A-level and GCSE results this week. A-level and AS level results day are today, 10 August, and GCSE results day is Thursday, 12 August.
All four nations – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – adopted a system of awarding grades this summer based on teacher-based assessment.
Teachers in England have been required to consider a range of evidence, including mock exams, coursework, and in-class assessments using questions by exam boards, to make decisions on pupils’ grades.
Headteachers had to submit a personal declaration that they believed grades to be accurate.
Schools and colleges were asked to provide samples of student work to exam boards, as well as evidence used to determine the grades for the students selected, as part of quality assurance (QA) checks. Random and targeted sample checks of evidence were also carried out after grades were submitted.
In some cases, where the evidence did not support the grades submitted, schools and colleges have been asked to review their grades.
Last summer, the fiasco around grading led to thousands of A-level students having their results downgraded from school estimates by a controversial algorithm, before Ofqual announced a U-turn.
But this year, no algorithm will be used to moderate teachers’ grades.
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Morning and welcome to the Guardian’s A-level results blog, where we bring you the latest news around A-level and AS level results day today. If you have any questions, comments, or want to share a contribution then please get in touch via any of the methods below.
Twitter: @sloumarsh
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Email: sarah.marsh@theguardian.com
