There could be widespread disappointment when envelopes containing GCSE results are opened later this week, an education expert has warned.
The number of pupils getting the top grades is expected to fall this year because of changes to post-pandemic marking.
A shift back to traditional grading will see more students failing outright after two years of disruption to education.
There could be 230,000 fewer top marks in the UK when compared with 2021, Professor Alan Smithers of the University of Buckingham predicted.
The director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research said a similar pattern as was evident with last week’s A-Level results will likely be repeated.
Grades for 18-year-olds fell back from pre-pandemic highs but remained above 2019 levels.
A second year of cancelled exams replaced by teacher-determined grades saw record levels of top exam marks handed out last year.
Overall, 28.9% of UK GCSE entries were awarded one of the best grades, up by 2.7 percentage points on 2020.
In 2019, when exams were last held, only a fifth (20.8%) of entries achieved at least a 7 or an A grade.
Prof Smithers warned changes to the exam process this year will mean disappointment for many.
He said: ‘In 2022, we can reasonably expect to see a drop in top grades, with many more failing to reach the pass level (C/4).
‘In England, the biggest percentage fall will be at Grade 9s and many more will fall below Grade 4.
‘We can take the A-level results as pointers. At A-level, the top grades were cut, but not as far as the government was wanting, I suspect because high marks were scored in the easier exams and lower grades for higher marks is going to be difficult to defend on appeal.’
He said he expects girls to remain ‘a long way ahead of boys with only a small narrowing of the gap from the return to exams’.
In the latest A-level results, girls continued to outperform boys overall, although the gap grew smaller.
The proportion of girls who got A or above was 2.2 percentage points higher than boys this year, compared with a 4.8 percentage points difference last year.
Figures covering GCSE entries from students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) on Thursday.
While traditional A*-G grades are used in Northern Ireland and Wales, in England these have been replaced in with a 9-1 system, where 9 is the highest.
A 4 is broadly equivalent to a C grade, and a 7 is broadly equivalent to an A.
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