GCSE grades improve on last year

Embargoed to 0001 Thursday August 20
Undated file photo of students sitting an exam. Almost seven in 10 GCSEs could be awarded at least a C grade this year, amid increases in students taking alternative international courses and fewer being entered for exams early, it has been suggested. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Thursday August 20, 2015. Rises in schools opting for international GCSEs, particularly in key subjects like English, could have an impact on this year's grades, according to Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham University. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland are today waking up to their long-awaited GCSE results. See PA story EDUCATION GCSE. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire — Embargoed to 0001 Thursday August 20 Undated file photo of students sitting an exam. Almost seven in 10 GCSEs could be awarded at least a C grade this year, amid increases in students taking alternative international courses and fewer being entered for exams early, it has been suggested. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Issue date: Thursday August 20, 2015. Rises in schools opting for international GCSEs, particularly in key subjects like English, could have an impact on this year's grades, according to Professor Alan Smithers of Buckingham University. Hundreds of thousands of teenagers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland are today waking up to their long-awaited GCSE results. See PA story EDUCATION GCSE. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire

The proportion of entries awarded A* - C grades has risen by 0.7 percentage points this year to 78.7%.

Entries achieving A* - A have improved 0.4 percentage points to 28.6%, and the number of entries achieving the top A* grade now sits at 9%, a slight rise of 0.1 percentage points on 2014.

This year performance in Mathematics improved with 66.6% of entries awarded A* - C, up 0.4 percentage points on 2014. Performance in English also improved with A* - C grades now representing 75.8% of entries in the subject, a considerable rise of 2.8 percentage points.

Boys have made a notable contribution to this year’s rise in performance with the percentage of male entries achieving A* - C rising a full percentage point in 2015 to 75.1%.

However, girls are still well ahead in GCSE performance with 82.2% of all female entries gaining the A* - C grades, up 0.5 percentage points on last year.

The total number of entries in GCSE examinations in Northern Ireland has fallen by 0.8% to 171,325. This is in line with an overall drop in the student cohort.

In 2015 the proportion of entries in STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) has grown by 3%. This figure is being driven by Mathematics (up 3.3%) and ICT (up 6.3%). There were also rises in the percentage of the overall entry taking Biology, Chemistry and Physics.

Overall, entries for languages fell in 2015, with the exception of Spanish which rose by 7%. There were also falls in entries for languages across the three countries.