Girls have pulled further ahead than boys amid the boom in top grades at GCSE sparked by the Covid-19 crisis, new figures show.

Exam board data released today by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) shows that the gap between boys and girls achieving the top grades has increased from 6.5 percentage points in 2019 to 8 in 2020.

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In 2020, the proportion of female entries scoring an A/7 or above stood at 30.2 per cent, up from 24.1 per cent last year. 

Boys also saw an increase, from 17.6 per cent in 2019 to 22.2 per cent in 2020.

But the gap between the two genders has widened, indicating that girls may have benefited more at the top level from the GCSE grades boom that followed the cancellation of exams this year, and the decision to largely abandon moderation in favour of teacher assessed grades.