These A-level students pulled off something remarkable. But close up the results tell a troubling story

Being 18 isn’t easy at the best of times. But this cohort of school leavers have encountered more turbulent times than most, which is why today’s A-level results are such a pleasant surprise – even to those of us in education. These students have had their most crucial school years overshadowed by Covid, catastrophic cuts and a cost of living crisis so devastating that countless families have been plunged into destitution. Under these conditions, it’s nothing short of remarkable that more than a quarter of this year’s grades in England were A* or A and that 76% of 18-year-olds have been accepted into their first choice of university.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, we should not take these results as sign of an education system that is rapidly improving, or a state that has gone above and beyond for our young people. These students have had their childhoods defined by austerity-era destruction and are entering adulthood under a new government that seems as committed to harsh economic policies as the last. Their achievement today is in spite of politicians and their decisions. It is testimony to the hard work of overstretched and underpaid teachers, schools plugging gaps where the state has failed and a generation of young people who are taking academic success more seriously than ever because they see it as their only route to prosperity in a country on its knees.
Dig a little deeper into today’s results, however, and a more sobering picture emerges. Not all students this year had the same opportunity for success. You’ll have probably heard that more poor students will be going to university than in previous years, but this ignores the fact that there are more spaces for domestic students overall this year, as numbers of international students fall. In reality, the gap between the richest and poorest young people is bigger than it has ever been (apart from during the pandemic) and class divisions and regional disparities are growing. In London, the nation’s highest-performing area (and a place where schools have far more resources, and students more opportunities on their doorstep) 31.3% of all grades were marked A* or A. However, in the East Midlands, the lowest-performing region, where my own experiences of teaching there opened my eyes to just how scarce opportunities and funding are, it was 22.5%. Likewise, the gap between the private and state sector has widened. In fee-paying schools, nearly half of all grades were A or A* compared with around a quarter of those in academies or comprehensives.
It is not difficult to locate the reason for this widening chasm between the nation’s richest and poorest children. Teachers in deprived areas such as me know that students who are grappling with insecure housing, homelessness or destitution are simply unable to perform as well as their peers – no matter what we do. Hungry, overburdened and stressed children have significant barriers to their educational attainment that the state has not only failed to act upon but has itself created through slashed funding and benefit caps. The education secretary Bridget Phillipson has previously vowed to tackle “baked-in inequality” in the system, but the fact is that Labour’s upholding of policies such as the two-child benefit cap only promise to further embed the very inequalities that produce results like these.
As usual, where the state fails, schools, teachers and families step in to boost the chances of individual students. Many of today’s success stories are testament to the sheer commitment of those supporting children to achieve against the odds. I have seen families fork out money they barely had to secure extra tuition for their children because the post-Covid catchup provision promised by the government was so inadequate. Teachers across the country, my colleagues and I included, have worked countless hours of unpaid overtime to make sure pupils had all they needed to succeed in exams. Most schools use already stretched budgets to make sure the poorest students can attend open days at faraway universities or provide breakfast for pupils before exams so they don’t sit them hungry. I have watched my students get to school hours before lessons start and leave later than some teachers just to study in the library because poor-quality, cramped housing means they have nowhere to work at home. The average classroom teacher has become a social worker, child psychologist and food bank rolled into one – all while trying to get their students through exams. However admirable and worthy of respect that may be, today’s figures show that this is not enough. Teachers, no matter how much effort they put in, simply can’t tackle the deep-rooted inequalities rife in the education system that have been cemented by successive governments.
A-level results day is always one of highs and lows, celebrations and disappointments. But as we commend those who have achieved against the odds today, it is imperative we don’t lose sight of the uphill struggle ahead. This new Labour government’s motto was “change” – and now it needs to prove itself. Promising to tackle disparities and then further entrenching them with a continuation of austerity economics will do nothing to make the UK a fairer country for a generation of children who deserve better and who have already faced more upheaval than most. As a teacher, I know just how hard my colleagues are working. We are doing everything in our power to level the playing field. Now it’s the government’s turn to step up. Words alone are simply not good enough. True change must come.