Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GIRL POWER A* increase & new grades begin
Gender gap widens for GCSES
GCSE results in Northern Ireland have continued to improve – with girls widening the performance gap from boys.
The overall percentage of students obtaining the top A* grade rose by 0.7 percentage points to 10%, while those obtaining grades A* to C increased by 0.4 points to 79.5%.
More than 30,000 students sat GCSES this year and CCEA exam board chief Justin Edwards offered his congratulations to pupils.
He said: “The results this year reflect the hard work of young people and the support they receive from teachers across Northern Ireland.
“Whilst we are entering a period of change in the way GCSES are graded across the UK, it is reassuring to note that Northern Ireland candidates continue to achieve high outcomes in comparison to England and Wales.”
In English, the percentage of entries achieving A*-C grades increased by 1.8 points to 79.6%.
In maths, A*-C grades rose by 1.5 points to 66.4% of entries, returning to 2015 levels (66.6%) after a dip last year. A small number of students (around 3%) in Northern Ireland received results in numerical format this year, with 9 being the highest mark and 1 the lowest.
The new scale applies to English literature and maths qualifications offered by some English exam boards. Their performance has been incorporated into the overall performance figures.
In terms of the gender breakdown, boys and girls recorded improved results on last year, but girls’ rate of improvement was more marked.
A total of 83.5% of girls gained a grade C or above – up 0.6 points on last year. Boys improved by 0.1 points to 75.4%
The gap between female and male performance widened by 0.5 points to stand at 8.1%
There were fewer GCSE entries this year – down by 3.2% from 161,975 to 156,806
The Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects grew by 0.5 points, accounting for almost a third (32.2%) of entries
The increase was driven by growth in subjects such as computing (up 21.4 points) and physics (2.5 points gain), and There were decreases in overall entries in biology (down 4.1 points) and chemistry (down 4 points).
Gaining top marks yesterday was Victoria College pupil Sarah Hand who had dreamt she would notch up 10 A*s – then awoke to find her dream had come true.
The 16-year-old, who hopes to become a reconstructive plastic surgeon, said: “I was surprised by English Literature and French. I was really nervous about those results, but the others I was confident about. It’s weird, before results you get results dreams where you dream what it’s going to be like and there are different results in each dream.
“And I had one like that (10 A*s) and it was today, so it was really surreal. So it is literally a dream come.”
Due to the power-sharing crisis at Stormont there is no education minister in post to congratulate the students. That task was left to a spokesman for the Department of Education.
He said: “Performance of local students in school examinations – A-levels, GCSES, and their equivalents – remains strong and is a tribute to the efforts of students, teachers, parents and carers.
“These results can be relied upon by colleges and universities, by trainers and employers, as confirmation of the attainment of our young people.
“It is also important to remember education is about so much more than exams. The calibre of our young people, their personal qualities and attributes, are not to be summed up just by their exam results.”