Record fall in top grades for Generation Covid

Stricter marking has seen A-level grades fall by record levels as disappointed students faced the reality of a return to pre-pandemic guidelines.

The percentage of top grades (A*-A) was down from 35.9 per cent to 26.5 per cent. At the other end of the spectrum, an unprecedented 10.1 per cent of grade entries were awarded E or U (unclassified), compared to 6.6 per cent last year. The pass rate of A* to E grades fell to 97.3 percent this year, the lowest level since 2008. Dubbed Generation Covid, this cohort of students didn’t have formal GCSE exams which meant that some had not sat an exam since they took SATs when they were 11 years old. 

Despite the return to pre-pandemic stringency, UCAS said that 79 per cent of school leavers got into their first choice university courses, still above the 74 per cent in 2019. Nine per cent are going through clearing. 

However, the plummeting grades, which were on the cards after a return to pre-pandemic standards, are not as worrying as the regional disparities that today’s figures threw into sharp relief. London and the South East outperformed other areas with three in every 10 papers being awarded the top grade compared with the North East where only 22 per cent got an A*. The regional attainment gap has increased by three percentage points since 2019. 

While English students felt hard done by, those in Northern Ireland and Wales were not so deflated. Northern Ireland dished out top grades to 37 per cent of papers while Wales was still way above England in giving 34 per cent top marks. 

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, was eager to console English students on the back of what Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said had been a “bruising experience” for many.

In a somewhat flippant tone that backfired, Keegan told students that in 10 years it won’t matter what grades they got.

“They [employers and peers] won’t ask you anything about your A-level grades in 10 years’ time. They will ask you about other things you have done since then: what you have done in the workplace, what you did at university,” Keegan said on Sky News. 

“And then, after a period of time, they don’t even ask you what you did at university.”

Bridget Phillipson, shadow education secretary, pounced on Keegan’s words, decrying them as insensitive. “This is a nerve-racking day for young people who’ve worked incredibly hard. The last thing that they need is the secretary of state offering comments like that,” she said.

Commentary was not limited to the politicians. Jeremy Clarkson weighed in with his annual tweet, much in the same vein as Keegan: “It’s not the end of the world if your A-level results aren’t what you’d hoped for. I got a C and 2 Us and here I am today with my own brewery.”

Although himself a clever scholar, Rishi Sunak took the chance to endorse Clarkson’s message to make a point about vocational routes for students as opposed to university: “Jeremy has made a career of being the exception not the rule but he does have a good point here: results day is important, but not necessarily a deal-breaker. Whatever results you got today, there are lots of options available to you…”

It may be said that many brash TV personalities did not go to university and did just fine, but you have to go quite far back to find a Prime Minister who took the vocational route. 

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