Northern Ireland

A-level results: Has a line now been drawn under the Covid-19 impact on our education system?

This summer marks a total return to pre-pandemic grading for the first time since 2019

Pacemaker Press 15-08-2024: About 26,000 students in Northern Ireland have received their A-level and AS results on Thursday. There has been a fall in the number of A-level entries in Northern Ireland awarded top A* and A grades in 2024. That was widely expected as grades returned to pre-pandemic levels. Grosvenor Grammar School students receiving A-level and AS results. Picture By: Arthur Allison/Pacemaker Press.
Students at Grosvenor Grammar School in Belfast receiving A-level and AS results on Thursday. PICTURE: ARTHUR ALLISON/PACEMAKER PRESS
By Suzanne McGonagle

Has a line now well and truly been drawn under the coronavirus impact on our education system?

Exam regulators say this year’s A-level results finally complete the “journey to pre-pandemic outcomes” for education in Northern Ireland.

This summer marks a total return to pre-pandemic grading for the first time since 2019 with the Covid-19 approach that put more weight on teachers’ own assessment of their pupils totally ditched.

Francesca Morgan, who lost her mother to cancer weeks before sitting her A-levels, is going to Cambridge after achieving straight A*s
This year marked a total return to pre-pandemic grading for the first time since 2019. PICTURE: DAVID JONES/PA

Results were bumped up during the pandemic, when many pupils were forced to study from home, which led to a rise in the number of students receiving top A-level grades in 2020 and 2021.

Yet those who received their results on Thursday have also had their education disrupted.

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This cohort of A-level students were in Year 10 when schools were suddenly closed due to the pandemic.

They probably do not remember much about pre-pandemic examination times.

Yet, they were the first year group of pupils to sit GCSE exams in 2022 after they were cancelled for two consecutive years.

They have had to overcome the challenges that the pandemic thrust onto education, but received no modifications or compensation within their A-level exam experience.

Should they have received some sort of allowance for the challenges they too faced?

While some would say yes, a line has to eventually be drawn on the period of time that impacted our young people so heavily.

Year 14 student Shane Bunting, who was awarded two As and a C in his A-levels, holds two inflatable As in celebration at his college, Hazelwood Integrated in Newtownabbey, Belfast
Year 14 student Shane Bunting, who was awarded two As and a C in his A-levels, pictured at Hazelwood Integrated College in Newtownabbey. PICTURE: LIAM MCBURNEY/PA

Completing the transition from the mitigations put in place during the coronavirus pandemic was vital, mainly because our education system has to be able to get back to full normality.

But also, what is significant, is that this cohort of pupils have been given the opportunity to receive and, most importantly, enjoy the full school experience in what could potentially have been their last two years of full-time education.