There's A* Man...

How A Level results differ by gender and other insights in to the exam result data collected by the ISC Research & Intelligence team in August. While most consider August to be a time for enjoying the hot weather, teenagers expecting results, staff in schools and the Research and Intelligence team at ISC could be forgiven for sweating that little bit more as the final two weeks of the month roll around. For the second year running, there was an overall drop in the number of pupils achieving top grades, although the overall pass rate continued to rise.

The data collected from ISC schools showed that more than half of A Level entries were awarded either an A* or A grade and the proportion of entries achieving an A* remains unchanged at 18% despite the fall nationally. An A Level entry from a girl at an independent school is more likely to win an A, though boys are more likely to achieve three or more As. Let’s delve beyond these stats and take a more detailed look at the data to see how well entries from ISC pupils perform, explore the differences in performance between girls and boys and also highlight the variety of Year 13 exams offered by ISC schools.

Please note, the data used in this blog post has been taken a week after the initial press release and so will include additional schools and take in to account re-marks and so will not exactly match the press release

Breakdown of grade distribution and how it compares nationally

This year’s A Level exam results from 35,574 candidates at 498 ISC schools show that 18% of entries from ISC pupils were awarded the grade A, unchanged from last year. This compares to a national average of 7.6% (7.9% in 2012). The proportion of entries from ISC pupils achieving an A or A grade was 51%; nationally 26.3% of entries were awarded at least an A. The graph below shows how well the entries taken by pupils at ISC schools perform.