Our education specialist Amber Allott talks through the biggest trends as young people across the country find out their A-Level results.
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00:00Today is A-Level Results Day, where hundreds of thousands of students across England, Wales,
00:05and Northern Ireland will finally be able to find out how they did in what's probably their
00:08last set of secondary school exams. And overall it's been pretty good news, so the number of
00:14top grades, or A-stars, handed out this year has increased to nearly 900,000 total, about 2% higher
00:21than last year. Now, the story's a little different when you widen the scope to include all passing
00:25grades, all the way down to E, but the amount it's fallen is so minuscule that it's pretty
00:31much in line with just normal fluctuations. For many students, the end goal of A-Levels
00:36was obviously getting into their dream university, and more than 400,000 students have already been
00:41accepted into a course. UCAS has confirmed four out of five of them managed to get into their
00:46first choice too, so, you know, a hearty congratulations all around. We've seen a few
00:52other interesting trends emerge, including some subjects like Maths and Physics, which have had
00:57big spikes in popularity this year. The number of students sitting their Maths A-Level has increased
01:02almost 20%, which is a huge amount. Unfortunately, there has also been some bad news, so the gaps in
01:09the numbers of most and least disadvantaged students getting into university, and the gaps
01:15between London and regions like the East Midlands and the Northeast, have both widened, which is
01:20something that the government says it's looking, thankfully, to take urgent action on.