21st August 2019 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The proportion of students receiving an A* or A at A Level fell to its lowest level since 2007 when the results were revealed on Thursday last week. In a report on the BBC, the number of students awarded an A or higher was 25.5%, only narrowly ahead of 2007’s figure of 25.3%. The overall pass rate remained the same, however, at 97.6%.
For the first time more girls were entered for the three sciences, biology, chemistry and physics, than boys, with girls making up 50.3% of the entries. This follows efforts to encourage girls to take science subjects, but many more boys still studied physics; over 30,000 compared to fewer than 9,000 girls.
Other significant changes in subjects included more entries for Spanish than for French, for the first time, and also a decline in the study of English of 7.8% attributed to the new courses which the Association of School and College Leaders claim are “sucking the joy” out of taking the subject. There was a significant increase in the number of students studying politics, nearly a 10% increase which might be explained by Trump’s election and the Brexit referendum both of which took place around the time when students were choosing their A Levels.
Obviously the results were followed by the award of university places. 408,960 students had a place at university after getting their grades which is around 1% lower than last year, but the number looking for a place through clearing rose slightly to 126,170.