Students saw the biggest ever drop in top A-Level grades on Thursday after taking exams for the first time for three years.
Top grades are almost one fifth lower than last year and teenagers now face a scramble to secure university places in one of the most fiercely competitive clearing rounds yet.
Results published on Thursday show that 36.4 per cent of A-Levels were awarded an A or A* – a drop of 8.4 percentage points compared to last year when grades were decided by teacher assessment and reached unprecedented levels.
But, this year’s grades are still higher than in 2019- the last year that students took exams.
