A Level Outcomes 2023: Grades up on 2019, UAE students call out exam boards for creating anxiety

The A Level Results are out, and it’s no surprise that grades are down significantly compared to last year, with the percentage of top A* grades awarded plummeting from 14.5% in 2022 down to 8.6% in 2023, according to UK-based analytics provided by exam-board-regulator Ofqual.  

However, despite pessimistic predictions about plunging performance, A Level outcomes for 2023 are marginally better than in 2019 – the pre-pandemic year that it is most meaningful to compare with this year’s results.

The nervousness about grade deflation – which exam boards warned would deliberately happen to correct the grade inflation seen due to the teacher-assessed grades awarded during the pandemic – led to the UCAS website crashing earlier today, as millions of anxious students logged on to check whether their results had come through yet.

Nevertheless, while results are slightly higher than those seen in 2019, the dip compared to the previous few years has left many students without a university place, with a reported 19,000 people scrambling to find a spot through Clearing.

Find out everything you need to know about UCAS Clearing here.

A Level Grade Outcomes over the Years

This table above is based on information provided by Ofqual, and relates to the percentage of all students in England who received A Level grades across all subjects. 

Not all bad news

Although the headlines were filled with doom, 2023’s A Level outcomes are not as bad as many feared. The return to pre-pandemic grading means it is most meaningful to compare this year’s results with 2019 – the last year that summer exams were taken before the pandemic. And the number of top A* grades has actually risen by almost 1% this year compared to 2019: up to 8.6% in 2023 compared to 7.7% in 2019.

It’s the same story with the other top grades: there is a modest jump in the percentage of A grades and above being awarded (up to 26.5% in 2023 compared to 25.2% in 2019) and in the number of B grades and above being awarded (to 52.7% in 2023 compared to 51.1% in 2019).

However, there is a minor drop in the number of C grades, D grades and E grades and above this year when compared to 2019, making the overall difference between 2023 and 2019 a minor improvement of 0.7%.

It is also worth noting that the total number of candidates sitting for A Level exams this year has gone up quite significantly by just over 8% – from 736735 in 2019 to 797350 in 2023 – illustrating the minor baby boom of the mid 2000s and exacerbating the competition for university places.

The news is even more positive in the UAE, where many schools are celebrating outstanding results that in some cases exceed not only 2019’s results, but even 2022’s. This was the case for GEMS Cambridge International School (CIS)’s Cambridge International board A Kevel results, which says it bucked the international trend for lower marks with a 5 per cent rise in CIS students receiving an A* to B grade. CIS entered 203 candidates for the Cambridge A-levels, taking 491 subjects of which just under a third resulted in either an A* or A grade.

Cambridge International School

There have been lots of happy faces across the emirates, with the whole GEMS network, as well as schools such as Safa Community School, The English College, the UAE-based Brighton Colleges and many others all reporting stellar results and positive outcomes for students’ university places.

Safa Community School A Level Results Day 2023

However, this does not cancel out the anxiety that the forewarnings about low grades caused many young people. Mubarak AlKhyeli, Brighton College Al Ain’s Head Boy, achieved impressive A, B and C grades in his exams, which were enough to get him into his preferred course.

Mubarak AlKhyeli, Head Boy of Brighton College Al Ain, lets a younger boy wear his graduation cap. Mubarak says that the warnings about lower grades let to anxiety for him and his peers

But Mubarak told SchoolsCompared that the pessimistic predictions were not helpful:  

“I have no shame in saying that I was really nervous after I had sat my exam if I’m being honest.

“It was a treacherous almost two months of just waiting, as I knew that everything had been done on my part and it was out of my hands now there was nothing I could do other than wait.

“The warnings about lower grades just mounted even more pressure and anxiety on me and many other students.

“I think news like that just tends to make us all pessimists and we start expecting the worst possible outcome.”

Stay tuned to our LIVE feed of A Level results coverage, reporting on UAE A Level results throughout the day.

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