North Yorkshire’s schools and colleges have shown strong improvements in GCSE and A-level examination results. GCSE scores place the county first in Yorkshire and the Humber and rising to 14th of 150 local education authorities nationally for key results. The county is also among the top 20 per cent of authorities for results in A-levels and their equivalent.
Provisional figures published today by the Department for Education show that North Yorkshire has bucked national trends in GCSE, improving their five A*-C pass rate including English and Maths from 63.2 per cent to 65 per cent in 2011/12 against a national decline to 58.6 per cent from 59 per cent the previous year.
North Yorkshire’s GCSE pass rate in Maths has increased from 70.4 per cent to 75.9 per cent, placing it 11th nationally compared to 21st last year and in English it has risen to 17th in the local authority tables compared to 28th last year. The English pass rate fell by two per cent from 73.2 per cent to 71.2 per cent largely due to changes made to the grade boundaries between January and June; however this compares to a national fall of 2.8 per cent.
For post-16 students North Yorkshire ranks among the top 20 per cent of authorities for performance in A-level and its equivalent qualifications across all key measures.
County Councillor Arthur Barker, North Yorkshire’s executive member for schools said:
Our young people and school staff work extremely hard to reach these very high standards and we must congratulate everybody on their GCSE and A-level results. These results are a testament to the very strong partnership between schools and the local authority and to North Yorkshire’s commitment to ensuring that all students can meet their full potential and that our schools continue to offer excellence and a broad, balanced and appropriate curriculum.
However, we must not forget that significant numbers of our pupils received unexpectedly disappointing results in English at GCSE due to changes that were made to grade boundaries and we remain concerned for those who have not been able to access their choice of training or college places as a result.
