GCSE results reached an all-time high after exams were cancelled for the second year in a row.
A total of 28.9 per cent of UK GCSE entries were awarded one of the top three grades - 7 or above - up 2.7 percentage points from last year’s results.
Record numbers of straight 9s were also witnessed in this year’s results. The number of 16-year-olds taking at least seven GCSEs and achieving a “clean sweep” of straight 9s - the highest possible mark - across all subjects rose by 36 per cent in a year.
Some 3,606 students across England achieved straight 9s across seven subjects this summer, compared with 2,654 in 2020.
Despite the surge in top grades, an analysis from Ofqual has shown that poorer pupils in England have fallen further behind. The exams regulator said that the gap between students who receive free school means and those who do not widened by a tenth of a grade, compared with figures from 2019, the last time exams were held.
The analysis also found that the gap between white and Gypsy and Roma pupils had widened by nearly one fifth of a grade.
Amid the widening gap, shadow education secretary Kate Green said: “Children on free school meals have been abandoned by this government and students in state schools are again being outstripped by their more advantaged private school peers.
“These widening attainment gaps are testament to the Conservatives’ failed approach to education,” she added.
