GCSE results 2015: English & maths improve while A* grades drop

Nearly 700,000 young people will be picking up their GCSE exam results today. Every year brings changes and headlines, so what’s new in 2015?

Firstly, good passes have increased (marginally) on last year. Across all subjects, nearly seven out of 10 (68.8%) entries were awarded grades A*-C, which is an increase of 0.2% on 2014.

However, there was a very slight decline in the top grades. A brainy 21.2% of students earned themselves an A* or A, and 6.6% got an A* – both a one percentage point drop on 2014’s results.

In terms of cities, London, Gloucester, Cambridge and York lead England in the numbers of pupils achieving more than five A*-C grades, including maths and English,

However in the UK as a whole, it’s Northern Ireland that leads the pack: the number of students who obtained A*-C grades rose by almost 1% this year. Overall, 78.7% of pupils in Northern Ireland bagged themselves the top four grades, compared with the England and Wales result of 69%.

To top it off, more Northern Irish students than ever before achieved the A* grade, at 28.6%.