A Level Students Applauded For Their Results
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By Laurence Cawley in General Published: Thursday, 20 August 09 - 05:34 PM (GMT) Last Updated: Thursday, 20 August 09 - 06:34 PM (GMT) |
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This year's results saw a big rise in the number of candidates sitting maths, further maths and physics and the continued popularity of English, history and geography.
Dr Mike Creswell, director general of the exam board AQA, said: "Congratulations, on behalf of everyone at AQA, to each and every one of our hard working students receiving their results.
"We understand how busy the exam season is for everyone involved – from the teachers and parents supporting the students, to the examiners marking the papers. This collective effort deserves congratulations all round on results days, but none deserve it more than the students themselves."
Dr Jim Sinclair, Director, Joint Council for Qualifications, commenting on the publication of the GCE results, said: “These are excellent results. They are the outcome of the hard work of students and teachers, who deserve to be congratulated.
“It is particularly good to report improved uptake and outcomes for mathematics and science.”
Greg Watson, exam board OCR's chief executive, said: "Exams time at this time of year is always a challenging period for everyone involved - students, teachers, examiners and exam boards alike! We sincerely hope that outcomes of all the effort and hard work put in by students will hold them in good stead for the future, whatever path they choose."
Schools minister Iain Wright said: “These are excellent results and reflect the hard work of both students and their teachers and the support of parents.
“Critics who belittle better results and infer that the only way to measure a successful education system is by young people failing A levels are insulting the hard work of students and teachers and the great support that parents give their children during these difficult qualifications."
“These results yet again explode the myth that so-called ‘traditional’ subjects are in decline – the biggest increases are in Maths, Further Maths and Economics with entries also up in English, Physics, History, Chemistry and Geography.
"Taken together these subjects saw a rise of more than 16,500 entries – a figure that is 87 per cent of the overall rise of over 19,000."
Today’s results show:
• an overall 2.3 per cent increase in individual entries at A level (846,977 up from 827,737 last year) – meaning there has been a 20.8% rise in A level entries since 2002. There was a 4.4% rise in AS level entries this year (1,177,347 up from 1,128,150);
• overall pass rates at both A level and AS level have remained broadly steady, with 97.5 per cent obtaining grades A-E at A level this year (97.2 per cent in 2008) and 88.1 per cent obtaining grades A-E at AS level (88.2 per cent in 2008);
• a rise in the proportion of A grades at A level from 25.9 per cent to 26.7 per cent this year with the proportion getting A-grades at AS level rising from 18.7 per cent to 19.5 per cent;
• a big 12.2 per cent rise in numbers taking mathematics A levels – up to 72,475 from 64,593 last year. It means there has been a 20.6% rise since 2007. Further maths was also up 15.2 per cent to 10,473 entries from 9,091 last year
• Maths and Further Maths saw the highest proportion of A-grade candidates
• Physics A level saw an above average 4.8% rise to 29,436 entries from 28,096 last year and chemistry A level saw a 2 per cent rise from 42,491 from 41,680;
• English remains the most popular A level – with 91,815 entries or 10.8 per cent of all candidates. It was followed by mathematics (8.6 per cent of candidates) and biology (6.6 per cent);
• the biggest overall year-on-year increases in A level entrants were in further mathematics (15.2 per cent); economics (13.2 per cent); mathematics (12.2 per cent);
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