A-levelling down

As teenagers up and down the country celebrate and commiserate their A-level results, the number of students missing out on a university place has hit the highest level in a decade.

Almost 43,000 pupils did not have a university place or offer this morning, a rise of 35 per cent on last year. For just under half, this was because they had missed their required grades.

The dip comes after exam boards shifted grade boundaries following rampant grade inflation over two years disrupted by Covid, in which pupils were assessed by their teachers, rather than exams.

The proportion of A and A* grades rose from 26 per cent in 2019 (roughly the same as the previous 10 years) to a ludicrous 45 per cent in 2021.

This lockdown-induced fudge robbed pupils of the opportunity to prove themselves academically. And because this year’s A-level students had their GCSE exams cancelled, this was, for most of them, their first time sitting a formal exam. Hats off to them.

The government’s idea this year was for results to fall roughly halfway between last year’s implausibly high grades and the pre-pandemic norm. The plan worked. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland the proportion of A-levels graded A or A* dropped to 36.4 per cent, 60,000 fewer than in 2021.

A-levels weren’t the only show in town, however. The first cohort of T-level students also got their results today, with 92 per cent passing and 2.7 per cent achieving the top grade.

The first T-level courses started in September 2020 in education and childcare, digital, and construction. The qualifications – broadly equivalent to three A-levels – offer students a mix of classroom learning and industry placements.

It reflects a growing appetite for alternatives to the ivory tower. According to a YouGov poll for the Times, 44 per cent of parents would prefer for their child to study for an apprenticeship, versus 35 per cent who favoured an academic degree.

Whatever post-school path pupils choose, the need to recalibrate the grading system underlines the damage lockdown has done to children’s education.

In December 2020, as schools closed for the second time, the children’s commissioner wrote: “The impact of missed education during Covid will affect some children sitting exams for years to come [and will] leave a chasm between those who barely missed a class and those who have been severely punished by Covid.”

My brother, a newly qualified science teacher in a state secondary school near Leeds, says more experienced colleagues are noticing a worrying trend in the new Year 7 cohorts. After two years of patchy schooling, new arrivals are presenting like Year 5s – needier, less independent, less developed socially and without the academic skills needed to access secondary school content.

It’s a scandal the government has yet to come up with a coherent plan to deal with. Fiddling with grade boundaries isn’t going to cut it.