A-Level Results Day 2017 has hit headlines recently with another annual array of interesting facts and figures. Statements such as ‘Boys outperform Girls for first time in almost two decades’ and ‘Proportion of top marks awarded at A-Level rise’ were some of the many declarations made on August 17th, the day of the big reveal.
For the first time in 6 years the majority of subjects witnessed a rise in grades A*- A of 26.3%, up just half a percent over the previous year’s results. This was not reflected, however, in the performance of subjects such as English Language and Literature, where average performance levels decreased by 3% since last year.
Similarly, university acceptance levels decreased by 2% in comparison to last year’s high levels yet, despite this, 2017 has had the second highest number of university acceptances recorded. Overall, 416,310 students are set to be attending university in September.
Regarding the current trends on popular subjects, Mathematics still remains the most favoured A-Level subject choice, with 11.5% of all A-Level students choosing to study the course. History, on the other hand, has dropped to fifth place from fourth, with Chemistry taking its place.
The biggest headline to hit the tabloids, however, was that boys outperformed girls for the first time in 17 years. Despite girls still outdoing their male peers in creative subjects such as Drama and Art and Design, the percentage of the top A* and A grades for boys was 35.4% compared to 33.9% in girls.
- By Gemma Beckingham
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemma-beckingham-421738140/
