A-level students in the North were celebrating today after another top of the class performance by the region’s teenagers.
Pupils again significantly outperformed their counterparts in England and Wales, with 34.5 per cent achieving the top A grade, compared to the national average of 26.7 per cent.
For the first time in more than 10 years, the proportion of As obtained by local students dropped, from 35.4 per cent in 2008. But with a record number of entries - 31,374, up 4.5 per cent on last year — the actual number of A grades issued rose by 197 to 10,824.
An impressive 98.4 per cent notched grade A to E compared to the national rate of 97.5 per cent.
In Northern Ireland, 84.6 per cent achieved grades A to C — an increase of 0.2 per centon last year.
Meanwhile, girls appear to be pulling away from boys, with 36.1 per cent notching A grades. This was 3.7 per cent more than the 32.4 per cent A rate among boys — with the performance gap widening by 1.2 per cent from last year.
Biology was the most popular subject, followed by maths and English.