Vast majority of A-level students secure first choice university places – live updates | Education

Carmen Aguilar García

Wales’ Cabinet Secretary for Education, Lynne Neagle, has said the country’s results are “what we hoped to see and are broadly similar to pre-pandemic outcomes”.

She congratulated learners across Wales who have received their A-level, AS, Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate and vocational qualification results this morning.

On a visit to Coleg Cambria in Wrexham, Neagle met students collecting their results. She said:

Today is a big day for everyone receiving their results across Wales. I want to congratulate all the students, as well as our fantastic teachers and school and college staff, for all their hard work leading up to today.

This year’s exams mark the final step to pre-pandemic arrangements. This year, for the first time since the pandemic, A-level and AS Levels exams and assessments took place with the same arrangements as pre-pandemic.

The results are what we hoped to see and are broadly similar to pre-pandemic outcomes.

Each and every one of you receiving results today should be tremendously proud of your achievements. Today is testament to your resilience and perseverance.

Whatever your plans are for the next step in your life, I wish you all ‘pob lwc’. There are many ways to continue your learning, some of you may be about to start an apprenticeship or a new job or maybe you have secured a place at your chosen university, including some of our great institutions here in Wales.

But if you need advice on what to do next, there’s plenty of information and support available to you, through your school or college as well as the Young Person’s Guarantee which offers a range of options.

I will continue to focus on doing everything I can to raise standards and ensure everyone is supported to reach their full potential.

While last year’s grades in England were back to pre-pandemic levels, that wasn’t the case in Wales and Northern Ireland, writesvthe FFT Education Datalab.

As A-levels in Northern Ireland and Wales are not regulated by Ofqual, we wouldn’t necessarily expect their approach to getting back to pre-pandemic grades to be the same as England’s, so this was not entirely unexpected.

There are also some differences in how A-Levels are structed in Wales and Northern Ireland: AS-levels remain a constituent part of A-levels in Northern Ireland and Wales too, so last year’s results contained results from exams taken the previous year, when grades were generally higher.

All that noted, this year grades in Wales and Northern Ireland have returned to levels very similar to pre-pandemic. Which means that there has been quite a sharp fall in grades compared to last year.

In Wales, the proportion of entries grade a or above has fallen from 34.0% to 29.9%, and in Northern Ireland the proportion has fallen from 37.5% to 30.3%.

You can read more of their analysis here.

Here’s advice from Dr Shelley Thompson, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience at Bournemouth University for students who have missed their grades today:

Don’t feel despondent and keep your hopes high, there are a lot of exciting opportunities for you today. You’ve been through very challenging times in your education during the pandemic so you have shown how resilient you are and will have a lot to bring to your university.

Make sure you think about what you want from university life and take the time to look for the course and location that suits you. Think about why you picked your first choice university and use that as a starting point. The right opportunity for you will be out there.

A rising tide has lifted all boats this year, with every region achieving a higher proportion of A* and A grades compared with 2023 and with 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, write the Guardian’s data journalists Pamela Duncan and Carmen Aguilar Garcia.

London registered the highest rise in those top grades, jumping by 4.4 percentage points to 31.3% of all grades year-on-year.

The West Midlands, previously among the worst performing regions in terms of top grades, recorded the second biggest increase in A* and As among the regions this year: a quarter (24.8%) of all entries resulting in an A grade or above, up 2.8 percentage points.

But the gap between the best performing region (London) and the worst-performing (East Midlands) is not only stubbornly high but at 8.8 percentage points, the highest of any year since 2019.

“It’s difficult to conjecture why that is,” Myles McGinley, director of regulation at the OCR exam board told this morning’s press briefing (if anyone can tell us how to answer it in data email [email protected]).

The most selective Russell Group universities still have lots of course available for students in clearing.

Hollie Chandler, Director of Policy at the Russell Group said: “As expected, grades have remained consistent with pre-pandemic levels and we are pleased to see that 82% of applicants that have a decision today have been placed at their first-choice university. This is up 3% on 2023, showing the confidence that universities have had in the admissions cycle this year after several years of disruption.

“It is especially encouraging to see record numbers of the most disadvantaged students being accepted on university courses. Our universities are continuing to work hard, in partnership with schools and colleges, to make sure more people than ever, from all backgrounds, have the opportunity to access higher education.

“As in previous years, many of our universities have courses available through Clearing. We encourage anyone who has missed out on their expected grades, or has changed their mind about the course they want to pursue, to contact the universities they’re interested in. Our experienced admissions teams take into account individual circumstances and are working hard to place students and help them take the next steps into further study and a successful future career”.

The gap between state and private schools has continued to widen since 2019.

A*/A grades at independent schools are up by 4.5 percentage points from 2019, to 49.4%, while at comprehensives the increase was 2.2 percentage points (up to 22.3%), and at academies only 2.5 percentage points (up to 26.5%), according to analysis from the Sutton Trust.

The share of acceptances at higher tariff universities – meaning the most selective institutions – has gone up to 42.8%, from 40.1% in of 18 year-old acceptances, the charity has found.

Its analysis also indicated that entry rates have increased for young people from areas with historically low and historically high rates of participation in higher education, but that the gap between these groups has widened slightly this year.

It is currently at 25.8pp, up from 24.5pp in 2023. This now means that other than during the pandemic (when the gap reached a high of 27.7pp), the gap is at its widest since 2013.

While female students had bigger increases in the proportion achieving the top grades since 2023 in maths, further maths and physics, male students still achieved a greater proportion of A and A* grades overall, according to analysis from the Education Policy Institute.

Conversely, although more male students entered computing, female students achieved the higher grades. Overall, there are more subjects (68 per cent) where female students achieve the higher proportion of top grades, including Stem subjects such as biology and chemistry.

The subjects most commonly entered by male students are not necessarily the ones where they achieve higher grades, and vice versa.

The number of students taking Religious Studies at A level has dipped in England and Wales by 1.5% to 15,201, prompting calls from subject leaders for a national plan to help the subject grow again at A-level.

A Level RS had previously been a success story, reaching a peak of 21,577 entries in 2015, an increase of 10,000 since 2003.

However, recent years have seen a steady decline in entries, with a lack of specialist teachers meaning fewer students who take the popular GCSE subject going on to study it at A level.

In Wales the number of students taking RE declined by 6.1% to 702. In England the number of students taking the subject was 14,499, a fall of 1.3%.

Most other Humanities subjects also saw a drop in A level entries, with History falling by 2.3% and Sociology by 6.5%. Religious Studies was a more popular option than Law and had one of the smallest drops of all the humanities subjects.

A recent analysis of the school workforce survey found that 3,544 teachers deliver RE at the 16-19 level in 2023/24, an 11% decline over the last decade. 51% of all those teaching RE mainly teach another subject, with these teachers far less likely to be expected to teach A level given the expertise required.

Sarah Lane Cawte, Chair of the Religious Education Council, said:

Students are losing out, with an ongoing lack of specialist recruitment leaving too many schools unable to offer it at A-level. A national plan would provide the funding, recruitment and resources to help the subject once again thrive at its most advanced level in all our schools, preparing students for further academic study, employment and active engagement in our society.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson is visiting Loreto Sixth Form College in Manchester today.

Meanwhile Northern Ireland’s Education Minister Paul Given is at Belfast High School.

Here are some photos of students at Luton Sixth Form college receiving their results.

Carmen Aguilar García

Most 18-year-olds accepted to their top choice university