Reformed A Levels were awarded for the first time in 19 more subjects this summer bringing the total number of reformed subjects to 44. But how is this impacting on results trends?

Overall results in England were slightly lower at grade A and above compared to last year (25.2% in 2019 compared with 26.2% in 2018). Generally pass rates were stable from the previous year.

The number of 18-year-olds taking A Levels has decreased slightly but not as much as the decrease in the cohort size suggesting that proportionally, more 18-year-olds took A Levels this year. Total A Level entries in England in 2019 were 737k (compared to 746k in 2018).

Despite a decrease in entries by 5.9%, Maths remained the most popular A Level subject with a total of 91,895 entries. Biology, Psychology and Chemistry were the next most popular subjects. Entries for the sciences continued to increase (20.9% of all A Levels) with female entries for the first time overtaking males. Subjects increasing in popularity included Political Studies (up 9.8% to 19,729), Sociology (up 9% to 38,015) and Computing (up 8.1% to 11,124).

English decreased in popularity with entries for English Language down by 21.8% (to 14,114) and English Language and Literature down 15.3% (to 8,197).

The average number of A Levels taken per student was 2.66. This follows the trend for fewer 18-year-olds taking four or five A Levels.

As expected, the decline in AS Level entries continued following the de-coupling of the AS from the A Level, with total entries declining by 50% to 114k. 40,880 students took at least one AS Level in 2019 compared with 270,500 in 2016. Entries for the Extended Project Qualification were also down by 3.9% to 38,852.

Whilst A Level reform is largely complete, a number of lesser taught languages will be first examined in 2020.

For further exploration of results trends, Ofqual's analytics tool includes an interactive map of England showing A Level results in different subjects by grade and county.

Statistics covering the whole of the UK by subject, grade and gender are available on the JCQ website.