Students should be "proud" as they wake up to GCSE results

Teenagers are waking up to their GCSE results in a year when grading is expected to be restored to pre-pandemic levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Hundreds of thousands of pupils are receiving grades to help them progress on to sixth form, college or training.

After facing disruption to their education caused by the pandemic and strikes, Deputy Head of The Deanery in Wigan, Anthea Friend, is urging all students collecting their results to take pride in what they have archived.

Anthea said: "They should be really really proud in all of the efforts that they have made, and parents should be proud as well and give them support, encouragement and help them along the way to their next steps.

"They should think about not only have they achived their GCSEs through their schooling but all the other things they've achived as well.

"A lot of pupils have had had been sporting successes, they might have been members of a club or a leader in something, or have been a head boy or head girl.

"All of those things makes them the person they are, not just their GCSE grades.

"They're not just a number they are a person and that's what they should remember."

Students could face more competition for sixth form and college places this year due a rising number of 16-year-olds in the population, leaders in the education sector have suggested.

Capacity issues in some areas of the country amid rising demand could mean some colleges will not have space to take on students, the chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC) has warned.

Last year, more than one in five (22%) UK GCSE entries was awarded a top grade, compared with 26.3% in 2022.

But it was higher than in 2019 - the last year that summer exams were taken before Covid-19 - when 20.8% UK GCSE entries in England, Wales and Northern Ireland were awarded a 7/A or above.

In England, exams regulator Ofqual has said it expects this year's national results to be "broadly similar" to last summer, when grades were brought back in line with pre-pandemic levels.

In Wales and Northern Ireland, exam regulators are aiming to return to pre-pandemic grading this summer - a year later than in England.

The move comes after Covid-19 led to an increase in top GCSE and A-level grades in 2020 and 2021, with results based on teacher assessments instead of exams.

But last week, the proportion of A-level entries awarded top grades surpassed pre-pandemic highs.

Many of the pupils who are receiving their GCSE results were in Year 7 when schools closed due to the pandemic. The cohort faced disruption to their schooling in the first years of their secondary education.

Leaders in the education sector have warned that the cohort of young people receiving their GCSE results have had to overcome a series of challenges in their secondary schooling following the pandemic.

Sarah Hannafin, head of policy at the NAHT school leaders' union, said: "The students who are getting their results have had a rough ride.

"Year 7 is always a big year for young people making that transition from primary to secondary and obviously their first couple of years in secondary school were really disrupted with lockdowns and remote learning and all the things that came with it.

"They went through Covid and we've then had the cost-of-living crisis and all of the problems that have come with that. They've had some real challenges in their secondary school career."

More students have been applying to sit their exams in smaller rooms away from the main exam hall since Covid-19 due to anxiety, it has been suggested.

Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: "The levels of anxiety exhibited by students in the run-in to these exams - in what was the end of Year 11 for them - was heightened much more than we have ever seen before."

In Wales High School in Rotherham - where Mr Di'Iasio used to be headteacher - more students sat their GCSEs outside the main exam hall than in the exam hall for the first time this year.

He said: "This is post-pandemic. It's certainly growing, it's certainly a trend that I am seeing across lots of schools."