A-level results are out this morning – here’s your handy Schools Week round up of the key trends. All findings are for students in England, unless stated. Here’s what we know… 1. Top grades rise again The number of grades issued at grades A and A* has increased slightly, from 28.2 per cent in 2025 to 28.7 per cent this year. This represents a rise of almost 1.8 per cent. This figure stood at 25.2 per cent in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic. This means the gap between top grades pre- and post-covid has expanded again. The number of C and above grades also rose by 1.8 per cent since last year, up to 79.1 per cent. Last year the figure was 77.7 per cent, and in pre-pandemic 2019 this was 75.5 per cent. 2. Large increase in A* grades But the number of pupils achieving A* grades has increased by almost 3.2 per cent. The overall figure stands at 9.7 per cent, up from 9.4 per cent last year. This is still far down from the figures seen during the pandemic, which peaked at 19.1 per cent in 2021. In 2019 the proportion of A* grades stood at 7.7 per cent. 3. Regional attainment gap widens again The gap between the highest and lowest-performing regions has widened again this year. At A and above, there is now a 9.6 percentage point gap. compared to 7.3 per cent in pre-pandemic 2019. This year, the north east and East Midlands ranked lowest. The proportion of top A-level grades in both regions was 23.1 per cent. This compares to 32.7 per cent in London and 31.5 per cent in the south east. Both of these areas also saw the largest rises of 0.6 and 0.3 percentage points respectively. Yorkshire and the Humber also saw a 0.3 percentage point rise, to 25.6 per cent. 4. Gap between boys and girls’ attainment widens Boys overtook girls in the proportion of top grades (A and above) last year, for the first time since 2019. The trend continued this year, with 29.1 per cent of grades issued to boys at A and above, compared to 28.3 per cent for girls. This means the gap between boys’ and girls’ attainment has widened, from 0.4 percentage points last year to 0.8 this year. A* grades made up 10.2 per cent of those issued to boys, compared to 9.2 per cent for girls. 5. Spike in economics entries Economics is now one of the five most popular A-level subjects, with 43,121 entries. It jumped from tenth most popular in 2025 to fifth this year. Ofqual’s data for England shows around 70 per cent of entries were from boys. While economics has seen a large jump in entries, the rest of the top five remains the same. Maths again had the highest number of entries this year, at 95,044, followed by psychology (95,044), biology (60,978) and chemistry (53,605). Economics replaces business studies, which saw a rise in uptake last year, and is now the seventh most popular subject, at 40,485 entries. Politics and law have also become more popular, with rises of 11.9 and 10.5 per cent respectively. English Literature saw the largest drop in entries, with 11 per cent fewer than last year. 6. Private and grammar schools top the tables Ofqual data breaking results down by school type show that as usual, pupils in private and grammar schools outperform those in other settings. Almost 49 per cent of grades issued to private school pupils were an A or above, compared to around 43 per cent for grammar schools. The proportion of top grades was 27 per cent at free schools, 25.6 per cent for sixth form colleges, 23.5 per cent for academies, 23 per cent for council-maintained schools and 22 per cent for secondary moderns.