Results: subject by subject | Sarah Ebner's School Gate blog

Increasing numbers of teenagers believe that three good A levels are no longer a passport to a university degree and are opting to take four or more subjects in an attempt to stand out from the growing crowd getting three A grades.

A-level results published yesterday showed that more than 11 per cent of teenagers now get three A grades, increasing parental and school pressure on the most able students to go the extra mile with an extra A level to impress university admissions officers.

This year's record crop of A-level results showed that the pass rate has exceeded 97 per cent for the first time, with the percentage of pupils achieving A grades up to nearly 26 per cent.

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The results, published yesterday by the Joint Council for Qualifications, representing exam boards, also show that while the number of A-level candidates this year remains stable at around 317,000, the number of A levels taken has risen by more than 22,000. The number of candidates studying further mathematics, usually taken as a fourth A level to accompany maths, rose by 15.5 per cent with more than 9,000 entries.

Howard Loh, a pupil at Abingdon School, Oxfordshire, yesterday celebrated seven A grades. Similar tales abounded throughout the country. Tom Morley and Clarence Frank, pupils at City of London School, got six grade As each, as did Jenny Crowhurst, a pupil at Sutton High School in southwest London.

University admissions officials said last night that they were seeing a steady increase in the number of candidates with four or more A levels, excluding general studies. But many questioned the wisdom of such a move.

Wendy Piatt, director-general of the elite Russell Group of research- intensive universities, said: “In many cases all candidates have three As - and increasingly four As.”

Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge, said that taking four subjects was a growing trend, given that three As was now virtually a minimum requirement.

“Some talented pupils do more than three A levels because they enjoy the work and the challenge. But you can see how some pupils might think that doing more might make them stand out from those with three As.

“In fact they might be disadvantaging themselves by taking the edge off their overall performance by doing so much,” he said.

Dr Parks said that he hoped the introduction of the new top A* grade from 2010 would reverse the trend and persuade more students to take three because the key discriminator will be quality rather than quantity.

Angela Milln, head of admissions at Bristol, said that growing numbers of pupils with four A levels were applying to the university, which attracts a record 12 applications per place (rising to 40 for drama places).

“Some do it just to stretch themselves,” she said. “But I'm sure there are those who think that offering something extra will give them extra credit with universities. It won't.”

Richard Cairns, head of Brighton College, said: “Increasingly pupils have opted for four or five as a way of distinguishing themselves from other candidates. Sixty per cent of our pupils do four A levels for this reason.

“My own feeling is that pupils should not be encouraged to do too many A levels because it eats into time that should be devoted to all those other important aspects of an education such as sport, public speaking and the performing arts.”

He agreed that the A*, to be introduced next month for testing in 2010 as part of a package of reforms to make A levels harder, would ease the pressure on students.

Yesterday's record results meant that more pupils than ever met their university offers, but this also led to renewed concerns that the exams were getting easier. For the first time the exam board released a regional breakdown, examining pass rates and the proportion of students getting A grades in various areas of the country.

It showed that the greatest improvements in the past six years have been in the South East, and the North East appears to be lagging behind.

Between 2002 and 2008, the number of A grades in the South East rose 6.1 per cent, while in the North East there was an improvement of 2.1 per cent.

Mike Cresswell, director-general of the AQA exam board, said that the figures suggested a worrying “long-standing historical pattern” with causes beyond what went on in school.

The results showed signs of a revival in traditional subjects, such as sciences and languages.

The number of maths candidates rose from 60,093 last year to 64,593 this year. There are more candidates doing mathematics than at any time in the past. Entries rose by 2.7 per cent in biology, 3.5 per cent in chemistry and by 2.3per cent in physics, although numbers are still down on what they were in the early 2000s.

Fears that languages would undergo a slump in popularity proved unfounded as the number of candidates taking A levels in French rose to its highest level since 1993. Spanish entries were the highest they had ever been at 7,055.

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