GCSE results day for Cumbria pupils
Many students are now considering their next steps
GCSE students across North Yorkshire are picking up their results today.
Many will be considering their next steps, which can include going to sixth form or college.
Grades nationally are expected to return to pre-pandemic levels.
Students "more fragile"
Meanwhile we are hearing how more students have been applying for special exam access arrangements since the pandemic as they are anxious about being assessed in a crowded exam hall, education leaders have suggested.
Young people and their parents have a greater awareness of the support they can ask for from schools and colleges to help them cope with exams, headteachers' unions have said.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA), said the cohort of students receiving their exam results this summer were "more fragile" in terms of socialisation and "less comfortable in big groups".
He said schools and colleges were having to make "difficult decisions" about whether to grant a growing number of requests from students who want to sit their exams in smaller rooms away from the main exam hall.
"It's a post-Covid phenomenon. Not only are these young people making these requests, but they are coming to the college with a note from parents, or a note from parents and the GP, supporting the request."
When asked what had led to the rise, Mr Watkin said: "I think generally it is anxiety. Anxiety arising from being in an odd situation for an extended period of time, but also anxiety arising from having missed some learning, anxiety arising from just being uncomfortable in crowded environments."
In England, exams regulator Ofqual said it expected this year's GCSE results to be "broadly similar" to last year, when grades were restored to pre-pandemic levels.
It comes after Covid-19 led to an increase in top GCSE grades in 2020 and 2021, with results based on teacher assessments instead of exams.