Those sitting A-levels in England this year were probably prepared for the fact that grades would fall closer to pre-pandemic levels.

What few saw coming was a sharp increase in E grades (the lowest pass grade) and in incomplete entries, which together made up more than one in 10 entries in England for the first time since at least 2010.

What other trends emerged this year?

Students eschew art for business and economics

Last year there was a rise in the popularity of sociology and psychology among England’s 2022 cohort. This year, it is the turn of business and economics.

Having pushed geography out of the top 10 last year, economics leapfrogged physics to become England’s ninth-favourite subject. Meanwhile, more students took business studies than arts and design subjects, with more than 40,000 entries for business studies this year.

England’s top 10 subjects by popularity, 2017 to 2023

Psychology and sociology also gained, albeit not as handsomely, with entries up by 2.4% and 5.2% respectively.

Biology had 4.1% more entries while chemistry gained 4.8% more students, leaving them secure in second and third place. But their sister subject, physics, dropped by 2.5%. Classical studies grew by more than 20% to 5,801 students, and computing grew 16.5% this year.

Auf wiedersehen Deutsch

Although the number of A-level entries are up overall compared with last year, some subjects have seen large drops, with modern languages particularly affected.

The total number of combined entries across French, Spanish and German fell by 12.8% compared with last year.

Entries had held steady since 2018 and throughout the pandemic, but this year’s figures mark a record low.

Foreign-language entries are at their lowest level since at least 2010 Boys close the gender gap

Girls outperformed boys when it came to the very top grades in England again this year, but only marginally.

In pre-pandemic 2019 the A-levels were exam-based results, with boys and girls almost neck-and-neck in terms of A* and A grades (25.2% v 25.1%). But the chaos of 2020, when students’ original algorithm-based results had to be overturned and replaced with teacher-assessed grades, changed this. Because girls tend to do better on coursework than boys, the gender gap widened to 3.1 points that year.

Male and female students were almost on par for A* and A grades in England in 2023

In 2021 the A-levels were teacher-assessed from the get-go and the gap widened even further: 46.4% of girls’ entries resulted in an A* or A compared with 41.7% of boys, almost a 5-point gap.

Last year the A-levels reverted to exam-based for the first time post-pandemic but grade boundaries were set higher, leading to reduced grades and a shrinking gap of 2.2 points in favour of girls.

This year the gap is practically nonexistent, so do not be surprised if boys outdo girls next year for the first time since 2019.

Private schools hold on to their pandemic advantage

Private and grammar schools saw the largest drop in top grades compared with last year. However, it has not made up for the disproportionate boost in grades at those types of centres over the pandemic.

Close to half of independent school entries (47.4%) received an A or A* – down 10.6 percentage points from last year. But that was still up 2.6 points on 2019, a larger gain than any other type of school or college over the same period.

Among selective schools, 39% of entries resulted in an A grade or better, down 12 points on 2022, but up 2 points on 2019.

The gap between private and state schools in England closed but private pupils are still far ahead

Academies’ top grades saw more modest growth, up 1.4 points from 2019, while marks at free schools increased by just 0.5 points.

Further education colleges have lost out over the period of grade disruption – As and A*s were down 2.3 percentage points compared with the last pre-pandemic cycle.

A postcode lottery

There is still a large disparity between regions when it comes to students getting top grades in England.

Figures show an 8.3 point gap between entries getting A* and A grades in the south-east of England compared with the north-east. This is up from 5.3 points in 2019 – but marks an improvement on the 8.7 point gap in 2022.

Yorkshire and north-east England were the only areas where top grades were down compared with 2019

Efforts to return to pre-pandemic grading have meant that a smaller proportion of exam entries in the north-east and Yorkshire and the Humber received a top grade this year than they did in 2019. However, there has been an increase in every other region compared with pre-pandemic levels.