A-Level Results Day 2016

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are receiving their A-level and AS results today. The A-level results show a stable pattern compared with last year.

Maths remains the nation's most popular choice of subject, as it was last year, and increasing numbers are also opting to take Further Maths at A-Level.

The proportion of top grades (A and A*) is 25.8%, down by 0.1% on last year. The overall pass (grades A*-C) rate of 98.1% remained the same. Northern Ireland remains the region with the biggest proportion of top grades, 29.5%.

Girls fared better than boys, once again, with 79.7% of girls getting a pass grade, compared with 75% for boys. Boys are getting more A* grades (8.5% compared with 7.7% for girls), although this gap between the very top-performing girls and boys has narrowed for the first time in five years. The overall level of A* grades (8.1%) has been falling now for 2 years.

According to Ucas, the universities' admissions service, 424,000 university places have been offered to hopeful students, which is up by 3% on the same time last year. But many places are reportedly still available through clearing, including at leading universities and for highly sought-after courses, such as medicine.

The increase in the number of places still available is mainly due to two factors: a roughly 2% fall in the number of school-leavers and the removal of the cap on the number of places universities in England can offer.

AS levels are being "decoupled" from being part of A-levels - and this year's figures show a 13.7% drop in entries for the AS course. Previously the AS has carried with it the option of continuing on to a full A-Level, but this will now cease to be the case: if you register for an AS, this is the qualification you will get.

Teachers and head teachers' leaders have warned that, although the overall results appear to show stability when compared with recent years, individual schools and pupils are facing some unpredictable outcomes.

The current cap of £9000 for university tuition fees is being removed, so students starting at England's universities in the autumn could face higher fees. Exeter University has been the first to announce that it will increase fees to £9,250 for all current and new students.

With the prospect of increasing fees, school leavers may opt not to go to university at all. Financial services firm PwC says that it has had a 20% increase over two years for new recruits of those leaving school with A-levels.

A-Level Results 2015

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their A-level results on Thursday.

The proportion of A-level entries being awarded top A* and A grades has fallen slightly this year to 25.9% of entries, down from 26% last year.

In a year of "stable" results, overall passes (A*-C grades) rose marginally by 0.1 percentage point to 98.1%. The proportion getting the very top A* grade remained the same at 8.2%, with A grades down by 0.1%.

Schools minister Nick Gibb said the results showed the impact of the government's drive for "core academic subjects" with a 20% increase in maths entries since 2010. Traditional subjects such as geography and history have also seen strong growth in numbers, but computer science has seen the biggest increase.

With caps on the number of students at each university being removed, record numbers have been accepted on university courses. The Ucas university admissions service said that 409,000 places had already been confirmed, up 3% on last year.

Michael Turner, director of the Joint Council for Qualifications, pointed out "The over-riding message from this year's figures is one of stability. There have been no significant changes to the system."

"As a result thousands more pupils, from all backgrounds, are studying subjects that will secure them a place at a top university or an apprenticeship and that will help to secure well paid employment," said Mr Gibb.

Chris Keates, leader of the NASUWT teaching union, said that the results showed that the "gold standard" A-level system had been maintained, despite the pressure on schools to prepare for forthcoming changes to exams.

But this year's lifting of the cap on university places in England has seen more students than ever accepted on to courses.

Northern Ireland A-Level students achieved slightly fewer A and A* grades compared with last year, but still outperform England and Wales. The Joint Council for Qualifications said that 29.3% of Northern Irish entries achieved A or A* grades, a drop from 29.9% last year. Mathematics is also becoming a very popular subject for A-Level students in the province, with a 10.6% rise in the number of girls taking maths at A-Level in Northern Ireland.

But maths saw a fall in the number of students being awarded the top A* and A grades as did the science subjects and English.

This year's relatively stable results come before a period of major transition for the "gold standard" A-Level. First teaching for the new A-Levels in some subjects begins this year. For other subjects it will be 2016, and for Maths and Further Maths the new syllabus will be taught in September 2017 for the first time.

A-level maths now most popular subject

Pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland receive their A-level results today and they appear to have fallen slightly this year.

The Joint Council for Qualifications, issuing the results, said there has been a slight fall in A* and A grades and the overall pass rate is down for the first time in over 30 years. The percentage gaining the very highest A* grade has risen from 7.6% to 8.2%. 8.5% of boys' grades were A*, with girls' grades at 7.9%.

A-Level results this year are "broadly stable".

For the third successive year overall A* and A grades have fallen slightly (this year down from 26.3% to 26%), but exam officials are saying A-level results are broadly "stable".

For school leavers planning to go to university, there are suggestions this could be an unusually good year to apply. There are a record number of university places on offer this year - over 500,000 for the first time, which is a rise of over 30,000. Students may still get places even if they have missed their grades. The Ucas admissions service says initial figures show a 2% increase in students getting their first choice place.

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan says the government is "lifting the cap on aspiration". Universities Minister Greg Clark says the increase in the number of places is an "important source of social mobility".

There is a trend for more students to take so-called "facilitating subjects" at A-level, such as maths and physics, which can help university applications. Maths is now the most popular subject, overtaking English this year for the first time.

It is the first set of results following the Government's scrapping of January A-Level sittings. However, the fewer opportunities to take modules does not seem to have affected students' overall performance too badly.

Regarding other proposed changes, Labour's shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said he would reverse the government's plan to remove the link between AS and A-levels. This de-coupling of the two exams would limit young people's "opportunity to realise their full potential", said Mr Hunt.

Would you like to share your results story with us? Comment on this article, or email info@mathsbank.co.uk.

A-Level Results Show Slight Fall in Top Grades

More than 300,000 A-Level students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have found out their A-level and AS results today, and join the scramble for university places.

The results, published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ), show that there has been a fall in the proportion of A-levels awarded top grades for the second year in a row, after three decades of steady increases. 26.3% of all entries were given A or A* grades this year, a slight fall from 26.6% in 2012. Previously, the proportion getting top grades had risen each year since 1980.

The national pass rate rose marginally to 98.1%. This has also risen for about 30 years.

Continuing recent trends, more students are taking A-levels in maths and science and there is a continued fall in those taking languages. Maths rose by just under 3% and further maths by 4.5%.

Girls are still ahead of boys when looking at the top grades, A or A* (26.7% for girls compared with 25.9% for boys), but boys this year were more likely to get the A* grade (7.9% of boys' entries, compared with 7.4% for girls).

The university admissions body Ucas has said that 385,910 students have already been accepted by UK universities, 31,600 more than at the same point last year.

The UK government claims its reforms to make it easier for universities to take on the students that they want to recruit have sped up the process of accepting students. Under these changes, universities in England are being allowed to admit as many top-performing students (gaining ABB or more) as they want to. For students with lower results, universities are allocated a quota of undergraduates they can recruit. Last year, thousands of course places were left unfilled.

The change was introduced to allow the most popular universities to expand. It came in alongside higher tuition fees, which rose to a maximum of £9,000 a year from autumn 2012.

Students in Northern Ireland continue to perform best. 83.5% of entries here scored between an A* and a C and 30.7% were awarded the top grades of A or A*. In Wales, these figures are 75.2% and 22.9% respectively and in England 77% and 26.3%.

From 2015 the government plans to introduced major changes to A-levels. The AS-level will no longer count towards the final A-level grade and, with modules being phased out, all exams will be taken at the end of the two year course.

Congratulations to all those who gained the grades they were looking for today - and best of luck to everybody looking for a university place.

A-Level Exams Earlier, University Applications Later?

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

UCAS, the body that administers UK university admissions, has put forward proposals for changes to the admissions system. These recommendations include bringing the A-Level examinations forward and completing most of the university application process when the exam results have been released. This system, UCAS argues, would be fairer and less complex.

Currently, pupils in their final year of school must make their UCAS applications by mid-January. Universities judge each application based on predicted A-Level grades, references from teachers, personal statements and possibly an interview. The universities then award conditional offers, dependent on certain A-Level grades being gained.

Many schools, particularly private schools, give university admissions advice that can maximise the chances of successful entry. UCAS argues that this system makes it unfair for pupils who do not have such a system of support available to them. In short, as the Guardian puts it, the current system favours the rich.

An overhaul would lead to a fairer and more transparent applications process, with the actual grades gained being central to a university’s decision.

An application later in the year would also give pupils more time to discover their real interests, which subjects they are excelling in, and would like to spend further time studying. The downside to such a plan would be the timing. A-Level examinations, the marking, awarding of grades, university applications and decision-making would all need to take place in the summer term. In Northern Ireland and Scotland, this problem would be exacerbated because schools break up for their summer holiday earlier than in England and Wales.

The last Labour government attempted to bring in similar reforms of the universities applications process, without success, largely because of opposition from teaching unions. Although many teachers see some benefits to such a scheme, the amount of teaching time for the A-Level examinations would be shortened. There is also a feeling that there would be simply too much to achieve during the summer term.

What do you think? Would you be happy to delay your university application until after you have received your A-Level results? How do other countries manage university admissions? Would a compulsory gap year be one radical solution to the problem (which they once called National Service), giving pupils further time to think about their futures and time to do something useful in the workplace, while ensuring our students are more mature when entering university? Let us know your thoughts.

Results Up, Places Down

The A-Level results are out.

Students sitting a maths exam
Image from Wikipedia

First the statistics.

Once again the results have improved; this is the 29th year in a row that the overall number of passes has increased.

The percentage of A-level grades A*-E awarded has gone up very slightly, from 97.6% to 97.8%

But for the first time in 15 years there has been no increase in the total proportion getting A or A* grades. Just over 27% of entries scored these grades, with a small rise in the proportion awarded A*.

The gap seems to be closing between boys and girls. The number of A* grades for boys has gone up from 7.9% to 8.2%. For girls, the number of A* grades has fallen slightly from 8.3% to 8.2%.

More people took A-levels this year - the number of A-level grades issued is up 1.6% to 867,317.

There is good news for mathematics. Maths and the sciences have all seen significant increases in the number of entries. Maths (including Further Maths) has gone up by 7.4%. There has been a 40% increase in students taking maths over the past 5 years.

And in these subjects, the rate of improvement for boys is bigger than that for girls. The gap between boys and girls at grade A in these subjects has fallen from 0.9% to 0.3%.

Sadly, although maths and the sciences are faring well, modern foreign languages continue to decline. French and German continue their downward trend, with the number of entrants down 4.7% and 6.9% respectively

All these facts and figures do not help those who are now facing the very real scramble for places in the increasingly competitive race for university places. The increase in tuition fees, scheduled for September 2012, has been the biggest factor pushing up the number of students applying this year. Whereas many students would have previously opted for a year out while they ponder their futures, this does not make financial sense for those taking on a student loan.

A student beginning university this year will pay a maximum of £3000 per year for the duration of their course. A student beginning next September will pay up to £9000 per year.

The fact that there are few jobs available is another factor driving people towards university.

The UCAS tracking website crashed this morning due to the sheer number of visits

Michael Gove, the education secretary, has promised a through review of the A-Level system. He is reportedly interested in moving away from the current modular structure, and towards a system whereby more emphasis is placed on a single final examination.

So congratulations if you have achieved the grades you wanted. And good luck if you are still looking for a uni place.