How the A-level Class of 2024 could possibly be the ‘smartest’ yr ever

The Class of 2024 was hailed yesterday as the ‘smartest’ group of school leavers ever after scoring top A-level results.

The proportion of A grades rose to almost one in ten (9.3 per cent) after an increase of around 4,600 extra top marks, or 0.4 percentage points, official figures show.

In addition, entries given at least an A grade rose to well over one in four, at 27.8 per cent, after an increase of around 10,300 extra grades, or 0.6 percentage points.

Aside from the pandemic years of 2020-22, when marking was artificially generous, these are the highest levels on record – and have led to a bonanza of university places, with acceptances on to courses at a record high for non-Covid times.

Some 243,650 18-year-olds were accepted on to higher education courses yesterday – over 44,000 more than at the same point in 2019.

The boost to grades means cash-strapped universities are hoovering up students – and their tuition fees. Vivienne Stern, head of the umbrella group Universities UK, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘Most applicants are going to find a place and the majority will get their first choice.’

Discounting the Covid years, the proportion getting As is the highest since the grade was introduced in 2010, while the number of those getting at least an A is the highest on record.

The results are significantly higher than they were under New Labour, which was criticised while in government for dumbing down standards and for grade inflation.

Modelling by the education consultancy dataHE estimates the proportion of pupils getting AAB or better will have increased to 34.4 per cent, or 64,000, from 33.8 per cent last year, or 62,000.

This is a record for non-Covid times, and means more pupils will have achieved the key top grades demanded by elite universities. The proportion missing out on getting predicted grades of AAB or better is likely to be similar to last year at 57,000, it believes.

Meanwhile, analysis by the exam regulator Ofqual shows a total of 4,135 pupils in England alone scored three A grades, up from 3,820 last year and 2,785 in 2019.

Yesterday, Ofqual insisted marking standards were back to normal and the rise was within the ‘normal bounds of variation’.

Chief Regulator Ian Bauckham said: ‘It’s likely that the most significant factor will be a change in the prior attainment, or ability, if you like, of the cohort. It’s likely that the majority of the change is due to precisely that.’

Asked whether this year’s A-level pupils were the ‘smartest cohort on record’, he said: ‘There is no grade inflation this year. Standards have been maintained from 2023. Any change is largely due to the ability of the cohort.’

However, Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said: ‘The A-level results this year are a big surprise. The policy was to restore pre- pandemic standards, which implied they would go down.

‘Ofqual was given the task in 2010 of bringing inflation under control, which it did brilliantly.

‘But this year it seems to have lost it and allowed the highest ever number of top grades to be awarded outside the Covid years.

‘I don’t think Ofqual can claim it’s the best performance ever.’

Chris McGovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said attributing a rise in grades to high ability was ‘not a believable explanation for grade inflation’, adding: ‘Young people want to do well in their A-levels, but they also want to know the truth. Exam boards compete to be easier and the grade boundaries can be set at any level desired.’

But the educationalist Barnaby Lenon, who was formerly the head of elite Harrow School in north-west London, said: ‘This cohort did well in their GCSEs and have been well prepared for their A levels. I am happy to accept that the small improvement in A-level grades is reasonable in these circumstances.’

The Department for Education said 75.7 per cent of applicants aged 18 in England were accepted by their first-choice university, up from 71.6 per cent in 2023 and 74.5 per cent in 2019. Across all applicants, a record 82 per cent bagged their first-choice course, up from 79 per cent in 2023.

The grade profile of those applying this year has ‘shifted up a bit’ on 2023, according to Mark Corver, managing director of dataHE, giving universities ‘the confidence to take students in’.

Schools said even sixth formers who dropped an A-level grade were being accepted by the Russell Group of leading universities.

At the start of the day yesterday, 30,000 courses were available through clearing – the process that enables students without the offer of a university place to be accepted on under-filled courses. Chris Ramsey, headmaster of Whitgift School, an independent in Croydon, south London, where 62 per cent of entries were graded A or A, said: ‘Students who slipped slightly are being accepted by very good universities, and I believe that is being generally experienced.’

Another head teacher of a sixth-form at a private school in the South East said: ‘We are definitely seeing universities drop grades. It is back to the old days really, with the London School of Economics, Oxbridge and Durham not shifting, but others shifting – and the lower-tariff universities shifting more.’

Fierce competition to get ‘bums on seats’ means lower-ranking institutions are missing out on candidates as higher-tariff universities lock them in. Data from Ucas, which runs the clearing system, shows the most selective universities had accepted 160,710 applicants as results were released, up 7.9 per cent year on year.

Recruitment at the least selective universities was down to 129,290, a fall of 1.8 per cent year on year. Their intake is down 15.9 per cent since 2016. A record number of disadvantaged pupils were accepted on to courses – 27,600, up seven per cent on last year. The only demographic to secure fewer university places was white boys – down from 69,300 in 2023 to 69,090.

England’s exam marking is said to be back to pre-pandemic standards for the second year running. For Wales and Northern Ireland, this is the first year in which standards are back to normal.

The cohort who received their results yesterday were in Year 9 when Covid shut schools, and they were the first to sit GCSE exams after they were cancelled for two years in a row.