Tens of thousands of teenagers have missed out after a record year-on-year fall in A-level grades following ministers’ pledge to return the system to normal after the pandemic.
Some 73,000 fewer A*s and As were awarded this year compared with 2022, as exam boards sought to tackle years of grade inflation during Covid.
Hundreds of thousands of pupils across England, Wales and Northern Ireland received results for the first official exams they had sat — two years after they were given teacher-assessed grades for GCSEs.
Overall, there were 32,000 more top grades awarded than in 2019 but there were big discrepancies in results between countries and regions.
