Pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their GCSE, BTec Tech Awards and other Level 2 results, with GCSE pass rate being similar to 2024, after years of flux during the Covid pandemic.
Last year, it fell for a third year running, with students also being warned that they could face more competition for places at sixth form colleges this year. Bill Watkin, head of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said there were more 16-year-olds in the population and sixth form colleges had grown in popularity.
He also said that some had managed to increase capacity and would have spare places, but added that others were "almost certainly going to have to turn some young people away because they are oversubscribed". Professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, Lee Elliot Major, said that competition to get into top sixth forms would be fiercer than ever, adding that fears over VAT being added to private school fees may drive more families to seek out places in the state sector.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders' union, said that there was a wide range of other options for teenagers, such as school sixth forms and further education colleges. About 170,000 students got results for BTec Tech Awards, BTec Firsts and BTec Level 2 Technical courses, while about 110,000 received results for Cambridge Nationals.
The pass rate for National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher exams in Scotland rose across the board this month, whilst top A-level results rose again last week – with 28.3% of all grades across England, Wales and Northern Ireland marked at A* or A. Most pupils who just got their results were in Year 6 when the first Covid lockdown was announced in March 2020 and started secondary school learning in "bubbles".
