UK coronavirus: top GCSE grades surge to record high in England – live news | World news

It may well be GCSE day today but the fallout from the A-level grading fiasco continues.

The Welsh exams regulator says its “best estimate” is that 41.3% students will now get A* to A, compared with 29.9% when results were released on 13 August and 27% in 2019.

Qualifications Wales also said that in the estimated revised AS-level results in Wales, 29.9% of students received an A-grade – compared with 22.2% last week and 20.3% in 2019.

But grades could get higher still, said a spokesperson for Qualification Wales:

These figures do not account for cases where the AS grade will be awarded to learners at A-level where it is higher than the Centre Assessment Grade or the calculated grade. Final revised results in Wales will therefore be higher than the figures in this analysis.

The announcement follows the decision of the Welsh government to scrap moderation and rely on teacher assessments.

Younger people should not feel invincible as coronavirus restrictions are lifted, a World Health Organization (WHO) official has said. Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, told a press briefing he was “very concerned” that under-24s were regularly appearing among new cases.

Young people are at the forefront of the Covid-19 response and they have a very powerful message to convey through their behaviour and their communication.

Low risk does not mean no risk, no one is invincible and if you do not die from Covid it may stick to your body like a tornado with a long tail. While young people are less likely to die than older people they can still be very seriously affected: this virus affects organs throughout the body.

Ignoring double science (which has the unfair advantage of a double count as it is classed as two exams), English overtook maths as the most popular subject this year followed by English literature, history and geography.

Pamela Duncan and Tobi Thomas report that the total number of people taking GCSEs rose by 2.3% this year and many subjects had increased participation. There were exceptions though, for example religious studies which, although still the seventh most popular subject, had a decrease of almost 2% in the number of students taking the course.

Just 2,792 students took engineering in 2020 (down 1.8%) but those who did take the course were rewarded. More than a quarter of those who took the subject (26.5%) were awarded a grade 7 or above this year, in comparison to just 11.4% of the grades awarded in 2019.

Statistics has the highest increase in total candidates this year in comparison with all subjects (up by just under 10%), with Spanish also faring well (up 8%).

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, who has been on holiday during the exams crisis, has congratulated GCSE students.

I know the last few months have been tough and this isn’t how you imagined you would be finishing year 11, but you can be proud of how you helped to keep the virus under control.

You have literally saved lives through staying at home and keeping distance from others. Thank you for protecting yourselves, your families and your communities this year. And once again – congratulations and well done.

The parent of one BTec student has said the decision to withhold final grades has left his son feeling like a “second-class student”.

Hundreds of thousands of his peers are still waiting for their final grades after the exam board told schools and colleges not to release the results to pupils on Thursday. Caleb Taylor, 19, is waiting for the results of his level three BTec in computing and business.

His father, Richard, said he has been unable to enrol at his college in Gwent for next year without knowing his final grades.

I think it’s a disgrace. He feels like he is a second-class student, and BTecs are seen as less important than A-levels because they have been sorted out last. Technical qualifications shouldn’t be seen as less-than.

My son is really anxious because he doesn’t know what he will be doing next year. He plans to go to university but it is a good thing he didn’t want to go this year because he would have missed out on his space. There has just been no communication, we just don’t know what is going on.

The overall NHS sickness absence rate for England was 6.2% during the peak period of coronavirus in April; the highest monthly rate in more than a decade.

New data from NHS Digital, published on Thursday, shows that London reported the highest sickness absence rate at 7.2% while the south-west reported the lowest at 4.5%.

The figures show that every region of England except the south-west reported their highest sickness absence rates since April 2009.

Ambulance trusts had the highest sickness absence rate at 7.3% followed by acute trusts, which provide services such as A&E departments, at 6.5%.

The government must put an end to the “incompetence” around the issuing of the BTec results, according to the National Education Union’s co-general secretary. Hundreds of thousands of BTec students are still waiting for their final grades after the exam board told schools and colleges not to release the results to pupils on Thursday. Mary Bousted said:

Teachers know their students better than any model or algorithm and it will be a relief to many that the grades they receive are now a fairer reflection of their achievements.

To add to the GCSE and A-level fiasco, the decision by Pearson not to issue BTec results at the 11th hour compounds the upsetting and chaotic experience for students.

Government must put an end to this incompetence and work quickly to ensure every young person gets the grades they deserve to move on to the next stages of their lives.