GCSE results: How the nation’s students performed

Figures have been released which reveal how pupils across the nation performed in their GCSEs.
Exam time: How did you get on?Exam time: How did you get on?
Exam time: How did you get on?

Here are the statistics which show how the North West has compared to other regions.

In the North West 68.6% of students taking GCSEs were awarded A*-C grades, that’s a 0,3% increase on 2014 but just below the UK average of 69%.

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In London, Northern Ireland and the South East of England more than 70% of students received high grades, with Yorkshire/Humber and East Midlands returning the fewest numbers of students taking high grades with 65.3% and 65.6% respectively.

Across the UK as a whole 21.2% of GCSE students earned the very highest grades (A*-A) that compares to 19.7% of students in the North West, a figure that has dropped 0.1% on last year, Northern Ireland produced the highest number of students earning A*-A grades, with 28.6%, while the lowest number of A*-A grades came from students in the North East and Yorkshire/Humber, where only 17.6% earned top marks.

And here are the main figures in this year’s GCSE results:

- There were 5,277,604 entrants for the exams, up 1% on 2014’s total.

- Candidates receiving a C grade or above risen for the second year in a row. The number of entrants scoring between A* and C was 69%, up from 68.8% in 2014.

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- The overall pass rate rose slightly. The number of candidates receiving A*-G was 98.6%, up 0.1 percentage points on last year. The rise follows two years of small declines, from the peak of 99% in 2012.

- A total of 6.6% of entrants received an A*, down 0.1 points on last year. This continues a downward trend since a peak of 7.8% in 2011.

- There was a similar fall in candidates receiving grades A*-A, falling 0.1 points to 21.2%.

- Just under two thirds of English candidates received grade C or above (65.4%), a jump of 3.7 percentage points on 2014.

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- Maths showed a smaller increase, with 63.3% of candidates getting grade C or above - a rise of 0.9 points.

- Computing saw the biggest jump in entrants, rising by 111% on last year.

- Humanities saw the biggest fall in candidates, dropping by 22%.

- Languages (French, German and Spanish) saw a combined fall in entrants of 5.7%. German saw the biggest drop of the three, down 9.8%. Candidates for French fell by 6.2%, while Spanish was down 2.4%.

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- The gap between boys and girls receiving grade C and above has narrowed, from 8.8 percentage points in 2014 to 8.4 in 2015. This is because the number of boys getting C and above has risen from 64.3% to 64.7%. The figure for girls is unchanged at 73.1%.