A levels: what to expect from tomorrow’s results

Ahead of tomorrow’s A-level results being released, we break down the trends that schools can expect to see – including a potential drop in the proportion of top grades

14th August 2024, 1:34pm

Jasmine Norden

A-level results will be released across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland tomorrow, and thousands of pupils are set to receive their grades.

This is the third year of A-level exams taking place after being cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Below, we break down what we might expect to see on the day.

A-level grades should look broadly similar to last year

A-level results are expected to be broadly similar to summer 2023, exams regulator Ofqual has said.

Ofqual has emphasised that grading will happen as normal this year, after it completed the return to pre-pandemic standards last year.

Examiners have been asked to “maintain standards from 2023” and to ensure that the level of work this year is “broadly comparable to last year”.

However, they have also been asked by Ofqual to bear any “residual impact” of the disruption in mind.

Last year’s results saw 8.6 per cent of entries receive an A*, 17.9 per cent receive an A, and 48.9 per cent receive a B or C. This remained slightly above 2019 levels.

However, a report by Professor Alan Smithers at the Centre for Education and Employment Research has predicted the proportion of top grades this year could fall slightly back to 2019 levels.

Concern there could be growing divides

This year’s A-level cohort was in Year 9 when Covid first hit, so still experienced two years of disruption while they were at secondary school. They took their GCSE exams, but with mitigations in place.

The disadvantage gap at key stage 4 has widened since the pandemic - including for the cohort now taking their A levels.

Some school leaders and academics have raised concerns that the long tail of the pandemic could mean wider gaps in attainment.

Social mobility professor Lee Elliot Major said: “I’m concerned that the A-level results this year will show growing academic divides - fuelled by Covid learning losses, record-level school absences and rising child poverty.

“This will be demonstrated by stark achievement gaps between state and private schools, and regional disparities in achievements, amid falling numbers of the poorest students applying for university.”

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has promised to tackle disadvantage gaps by turning around “baked-in” educational inequalities.

She has accused the previous Conservative government of leaving a legacy of attainment disparities between private- and state-school pupils, as well as regional disparities.

A narrowing of the gender gap?

Professor Smithers has also predicted that boys will draw level with girls this year in terms of the proportion of top grades they receive, it has been reported.

The gender attainment gap at A level fell last year compared with 2022, with girls achieving around 1.5 grades higher than boys across their best three subjects.

The gap was 1.8 in 2022, though had been 1.6 before the pandemic.

Three students receiving A-level exam results at school

The impact of disruption

There were 234 schools and colleges impacted by the reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) crisis at the start of the last academic year.

For some pupils, this will have caused significant disruption - with those in the worst-affected schools learning in temporary buildings or on separate sites, or going without specialist classrooms such as science labs for much of the year.

The Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) has said that pupils affected by RAAC will not receive special consideration - though schools can apply using the normal process if RAAC caused less favourable conditions on the actual day of the exam.

This week, Ofqual’s chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham warned that it would be “difficult” to allow a special uplift to the results of students in schools affected by RAAC and then not make adjustments for other factors such as teacher shortages and “inadequate” facilities.

Changing entry trends

Maths is the most popular A level with 101,230 entries this year, provisional entry data has shown. Further maths entries have also risen.

Science A-level entries have also increased, particularly in physics.

French and Spanish have also seen slight rises in entry this year compared with 2023. At the same time, sociology, geography and psychology have seen small declines in entries.

Professor Smithers suggested that provisional entries this year show “a general move towards subjects that are seen as leading to occupationally valuable degrees”.

An analysis from the Association of School and College Leaders has found that A-level entries in creative subjects have “collapsed” over the long term.

Drama, design and technology, and music all saw entries fall by more than 40 per cent between 2011 and 2023.

University places and clearing available

It has been suggested that universities will be competing for students to fill places in clearing this year, with three in four universities estimated to have places available through this process.

As of last week, the PA news agency had found more than 23,000 courses have places on them available for undergraduate students next year.

Ucas chief executive Jo Saxton said that students finishing school are increasingly waiting until they get their results before they make a final university course decision.