Exam Results

In 2020 and 2021, grades were awarded by centre-assessed grades (CAGs) and teacher-assessed grades (TAGs) respectively, due to the disruption caused by the Covid pandemic. These different forms of assessment meant that grades were higher than in normal (pre-pandemic) exam years. Last summer, 2022, there was a transition to grades that were set at roughly a midpoint between the 2019 and 2021 results.

Now, in 2023, the government and Ofqual have announced that grades awarded nationally are expected to be similar to the 2019 (pre-pandemic) profile. Even if the quality standard of exams is lower than in 2019, they have put protections in place to ensure that grades awarded are not lower. In other words, candidates have the same chance of getting a 9, or a 7, as they would have done in 2019. This means that national results today will be lower than they were in the previous three years, and individual schools are expecting to see this same pattern.

The class of 2023 achieved the following grades:

A LEVEL

• 87% of the cohort achieved A*- B grades, compared to 77% in 2019 (the last normal public exam series pre-pandemic and therefore the most meaningful year of comparison)
• 65% of all this year’s grades are A* and A grades (compared to 45% in 2019)
• 42% of girls achieved A*s and As across all their subjects
• 72% have secured places at their first-choice university
• Students have gone on to study: Sociology at Durham, Law at Cambridge, PPE at Warwick, French and Russian at Oxford, Chemistry at Imperial and Modern Languages at Birmingham
• 10 students have secured places on Medical degrees

GCSE & IGCSE (overall)

• 35% of all grades awarded were grade 9s
• 63% of students achieved grades 9-8
• 84% of grades awarded 9-7
• 96% of grades awarded 9-6

All results are accurate as of 14 September 2023.