A-level top grades see rise but inequality gap widens

A-level students are celebrating an increase in top grades this year – with almost one in 10 awarded an A* – but inequalities have widened between private and state schools, and boys and girls. Hundreds of thousands of pupils received their A-level results yesterday morning, with more than a quarter (27.8 per cent) awarded an A or A* grade – a rise of 0.6 percentage points on last year.

- MILLIE COOKE, ALICJA HAGOPIAN

Excluding the pandemic years, it is the highest proportion of A* grades awarded since they were first handed out for A-levels in 2010. But the overall pass rate – the proportion of entries graded A* to E – has fallen to 97.2 per cent this year, which is lower than last year (97.3 per cent) and the pre-pandemic year of 2019 (97.6 per cent).

The latest statistics also show that the attainment gap between independent schools and comprehensives in England has widened. Some 49.4 per cent of independent school candidates scored A or above in all subjects, compared to 22.3 per cent at comprehensive schools – a gap of 27.1 percentage points, the Ofqual figures show. Last year, the gap was 25.4 percentage points, while in 2019 it was 24.8 percentage points.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has promised to “break down these barriers to opportunity” and “improve children’s life chances regardless of their background”.

She said students across the country should be “be incredibly proud of what they have achieved” in the face of “huge disruption” in recent years as well as “inequality that goes hand in hand with young people’s backgrounds”.

Boys pulled further ahead of girls in securing the very top A* grades, with 9.5 per cent picking up an A*, compared to 9.1 per cent of girls. That gap has grown from a 0.3 percentage point margin last year. But across all grades, girls continued to outperform boys, boosted by a better performance in assessments rather than exams. Figures also show an ongoing attainment gap between north and south within England, with London pulling ahead of other regions.