As and A*s and 8s and 9s… Who will gain top GCSE results today?

Thursday 24 August 2017

After a summer-long wait, hundreds of anxious teenagers will today receive their GCSE results – the first year in which a new grading system has been introduced for Maths and English.

Last year saw Jersey beat the UK with 77% of the island’s schoolchildren securing grades A* to C, and 28% A* and A grades compared with just 20.3% in England.

Girls came out top of the class, with Jersey College for Girls celebrating their highest marks in the school’s history, while Beaulieu had 100% success with girls getting five or more GCSEs, including Maths and English.

Pictured: JCG girls celebrate with their results.

This year, however, students won’t only be watching out for a flush of A grades, but 7s, 8s and 9s in English Language, English Literature and Mathematics – the first three subjects to introduce a new marking system.

They come as part of assessment reforms pushed through by former UK Education Minister Michael Gove in a bid to make GCSEs more challenging.

Those three subjects saw students focus on final exams taken at the end of the course, rather than a series of modules as is usually the case.

Pictured: The Department of Education explains the grading reforms. 

They will be marked from 1 to 9. Grade 4 will indicate a standard C pass mark, while 7 and 8 are A and A* respectively. Only a fraction of Britain’s very top students with near-perfect results will secure the coveted 9.

Over the years, more exams will adopt the new style of marking.

The results come off the back of a strong batch of A Level results last week. The overall pass rate for Jersey was 99.5%, which is in line with 2016, and above the 97.9% pass rate for England.