Students in England are expected to receive A-level grades that are closer to normal for the first time since the Covid pandemic triggered school closures and exam cancellations.
The grades will more closely resemble those given out in 2019, before the pandemic, with the proportion of A* to E grades linked to national results from the GCSE exams taken by the same pupils two years ago.
While most of the students who sat A-levels this spring were affected by pandemic disruption during their early years at secondary school, they will be the first group to have gone through their exam years without major turbulence.
It comes as the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, pledged to make a priority of tackling British white working-class young people falling behind their peers in the year ahead. The government will set out its plans for the challenge in a schools white paper in the autumn, she added.
Prof Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University’s centre for education and employment research, said that 2024’s A-level grades were unexpectedly high in England, which could have echoes in this year’s outcomes.
“A-level grades have a chance to settle down this year after the volatility of Covid and its aftermath. They are likely to be close to last year’s, where top grades were a percentage point or two above pre-Covid levels. This may not sound very much but, in fact, was an extra 14,200 A*s and 21,300 A*-As,” Smithers said.
“But there is huge variation in grades between subjects, a changing pattern in entries, and movement in the subject distribution of the sexes, which could also influence the outcome.”
The proportion of top A* and As awarded soared after grades were set by school assessment in 2020 and 2021, and remained at higher levels when exams returned in 2022. But last year 9.3% of A-level entries in England gained A* grades, above pre-pandemic levels, leaving experts struggling to explain why.
Analysts at FFT Datalab research unit said there were fewer students taking A-levels this year after record numbers in 2024, as entry patterns stabilised after the bumper post-pandemic crop of students who received better GCSE grades, enabling more of them to enrol on A-level courses.
This year, career-related subjects such as business studies and economics will overtake traditional academic subjects such as history, while the sciences and maths continue to rise in popularity despite the fall in the numbers taking A-levels overall.
Just 40,900 students entered to take history, compared with 41,900 taking economics and 43,000 for physics. Maths remains the most popular A-level with 105,000 entries this year, up by more than 4% compared with 2024. English literature entries fell by 5% to below 35,000, while the numbers taking French and German continued to decline.
About 250,000 sixth-formers in England will receive their A-level results on Thursday, with others choosing to take BTecs or other standalone or vocational qualifications such as T-levels.
Students in Wales and Northern Ireland will receive their A-level results on the same day but their grades are administered separately from those in England.
Scotland published the results for its Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications last week, showing a record number receiving grades A to C in Highers.
School leavers in England hoping to go to university have received higher numbers of offers as institutions have aggressively sought to fill places after a downturn in international applications.
Universities usually offer places on undergraduate courses that are conditional on reaching certain A-level grades. But Mike Nicholson, director of recruitment, admissions and participation at the University of Cambridge, said many universities would probably be “looking very carefully” at accepting applicants who narrowly failed to achieve the required grades.
Nicholson said: “If the student, for instance, needed three As [and] gets AAB, as long as the B is not in something that’s absolutely crucial for the course, I think there’s a very strong possibility the student would find they’d be getting a place.
“If universities have the capacity to take near-miss students I think they’ll be very keen to take them this year because those students are already in the system, they’ve already committed, they’ve possibly already even applied for accommodation.
Phillipson said it was a “national disgrace” that so many young people were “written off” and did not get what they needed in the education system to achieve and thrive after leaving school.
She added her focus would be turning around the “stark” attainment gap and outcomes between white working-class children and their peers.
Fewer than a fifth (18.6%) of white British pupils eligible for free school meals achieved at least a grade 5 – which is considered a “strong pass” – in their English and maths GCSEs in 2023-24, compared with 45.9% of all state school pupils in England, according to Department for Education (DfE) data.
Phillipson said: “They’re not well-positioned to carry on with studies, to get an apprenticeship, to go on to university. That is why the schools white paper we will be publishing in the autumn will set out an ambitious vision for how we can tackle this generational challenge of what many young people experience.
“(It) is a national disgrace that so many young people are written off and don’t get what they need to achieve and thrive.”