A-levels results day and university clearing – as it happened

With the envelopes or emails now long opened, some students now blissfully drunk, others wrestling with the clearing system and yet more planning the decor for their student accommodation and wondering if they can really send dirty laundry home to their mum in the post* it’s time to end this live coverage.

The summary from earlier is pretty much as things stand. Otherwise, I’ll close by giving a renewed congratulations to those who achieved what they hoped, and commiserations and best wishes to those who didn’t.

*Someone in my halls of residence in my first year at university occasionally did that. Not, not me.

We have one final data-based vine, from Ami and Elena. Features a guest appearance from some Post-It notes.

Richard Adams has penned a new lead story on results day, leading on the rise in popularity of certain subjects against others:

Maths has become the most popular A-level, overtaking English for the first time, as more students seem to opt for subjects that they believe will secure them top jobs.

The number of students who sat maths rose by 0.9%, while those who took further maths was up 1.5%. Entries for English fell 4.6% – a drop blamed on the GCSE debacle that left thousands of teenagers with lower grades than expected in 2012.

Meanwhile, the proportion of students who achieved the highest grade – A* – shot up by nearly 8% compared with last year, but the proportion of students achieving all other grades slightly fell.

Some 8.2% of exam entries were awarded an A* – a rise of 0.6 percentage points compared with 2013 and the highest rate since the grade was first introduced in 2010. The proportion achieving A* to E dropped from 98.1% to 98%.

Experts attributed the increased popularity of harder subjects such as chemistry – which surpassed history as the fifth most popular subject – as in part an after-effect of the scrapping of end of January exams. Without these, teachers and pupils can focus more closely on the crucial summer exam season.

“Students are having more time to focus and are spending less time on revision, we think that will have had an impact,” said Andrew Hall, head of the AQA exam board. “And maybe those students who were comfortably getting A, with that extra time a few more might have stretched to get an A*.”

Yet another data/Vine/A-levels mashup from the creative duo of Ami Sedghi and Elena Cresci.

The Office for Fair Access, or Offa, says this results day has seen an 8% increase in the number of disadvantaged students getting into university. Its director, Les Ebdon, said:

This initial analysis from Ucas shows that more students from disadvantaged backgrounds are getting a place at university than ever before, which is fantastic news.

The figures from Ucas show that the gap in participation between the most and least advantaged young people is narrowing. Many more students from disadvantaged backgrounds will now benefit from the life-changing opportunities that higher education can offer.

I will be interested in further analysis in due course, particularly to see whether more students are winning places at highly selective universities, where the participation gap remains much too high.

A reminder that Guardian Witness is still gathering your A-level tales. I’ll temporarily lift our ban on stories about brainy twins and on posed, arms-aloft photos, to link to one such tale, that of Anuja and Shailja Chalishazar, who achieved identical results and will now both study medicine at Cardiff university.

The Press Association has been studying the Ucas clearing website, and found that about one in 20 courses with stated vacancies were for Russell Group universities:

In total, 19 of the universities were advertising spaces on courses, but were only offering them to students whose grades were over a certain threshold.

Altogether there were 359 universities and colleges offering spaces through clearing, with more than 3,600 courses on offer for students in England between them.

My colleague, Steven Morris, spent the morning watching the triumphs and tantrums among A-level students in Bristol. Here’s a taster:

It all got too much for one young man when he opened the envelope containing his A-level results at North Bristol Post 16 Centre. He had not got the results he expected and, distraught, the teenager removed his glasses and stamped on them.

“The stakes are very high,” said Sarah Baker, headteacher of Redland Green, one of two schools that operate the centre. “Sometimes people do panic. There’s a lot of expectation and hope; if things don’t go to plan there is disappointment. But we work with the students – we contact Ucas or the university and often they still have a place.”

Which, happily, was exactly what happened with this young man. Despite not quite making the grades he had aimed for, he still got his place and is off to study archaeology at university. Baker was delighted. “I really love this occasion. We see the outcome of all the work our students have done with us. It’s great to see them ready to take their next steps.”

There were a lot of smiles and tears at the post-16 centre. Lots of hugs and kisses too – some congratulatory, others consoling. Ibrahim Bashir received congratulations after getting an A* and two As. He will take a gap year before studying medicine at the University of Bristol. “It’s a relief more than anything,” he said.

Ibrahim had checked the Ucas website before going to collect his results, so knew he had got into Bristol before finding out his grades. “That took the pressure of opening the envelope off a bit,” he said.

Jon Ball, who arrived on his motorcycle, had chosen not to look at the Ucas site beforehand. “It felt like I was more in control opening an envelope than logging on a site and waiting for it to load up,” he said. He needn’t have worried: he got As in biology, chemistry and maths and will go to nearby Bath University to study biomedical science.

Not all liked the idea of learning their results in front of teachers and friends. Some grabbed their envelopes and scuttled away to the privacy of their home or car. One girl said she wanted to open the envelope with her family. “They have helped me so much throughout my career. I’m going to find out how I’ve done with them.”

Here’s something for the dreary moaners who insist A-levels were immeasurably more difficult in their day. George Arnett on the Data Blog has put together a test based on science questions from this year’s papers. I got 2 out of 9, but my A-levels were English, history, economics and general studies, so I was guessing.

My colleague, Elena Cresci, was wondering why Sheffield Hallam university appeared to be trending on Twitter. She seems to have an answer.

Here’s another great individual tale, from PA’s Tom Wilkinson:

A student who did not write a word of his A-level exam answers was celebrating three A grades today.

Aidan Clancy, who is severely dyslexic and has dyspraxia, used a headset and a laptop with voice recognition software when he sat the classics, economics and history papers.

The Ripon Grammar School pupil, from Ripley, North Yorkshire, was in a separate room from his friends who were writing away in the exam hall, while he spoke into the laptop which cannot access the internet.

The 18-year-old said: “The technology allows me to put down on paper what’s in my head. I tried to take my AS exams last year in the normal way because it had worked OK for my GCSEs.

“But A-levels are a big step up. After the AS exams, which included three in one day totalling five hours and 47 minutes, my hand was aching really badly, I was exhausted and I really under-performed. I chose my subjects because I’m interested in them.
I had the dilemma of choosing short answer subjects instead but they’re not what I enjoy.

“The possibility of speaking answers to a scribe was mentioned, but I thought it would be really difficult to be able to go back over what they’d written. We thought there must be a solution using technology.

We found out about the voice recognition software and I re-sat my ASs using it and did so much better. I’m nowhere near as tired after an exam and no longer get the headaches.

A quick check of the competition shows several other papers are blatantly breaching the “no leaping students” rule. Hopefully the ban can be incorporated into law before next year.

Ami and Elena have produced another in their series of data-based vines, featuring a return for the popular animated envelope-based format.

We have a winner in the annual contest for most unlikely attempt to cash in on A-levels day.

A theme park, which I won’t name, persuaded some teenage unfortunates to open the crucial envelopes on a rollercoaster, for reasons I doubt if even their PR agency could explain credibly. They also boast having secured the services for the day of “the UK’s leading psychologist”, a bold claim which you can only hope deeply embarrasses the psychologist in question.

On a more traditional data note, George Arnett on our Data Blog has done a full analysis of the 2014 results, with more colourful charts than you could shake a stick at.

Another flashy data-vine-tweet thingy from Ami Sedghi and Elena Cresci.

Earlier, I mentioned that we’re putting together a table of results sent in by schools and colleges. Anyway, it’s here now, and can be sorted according to local authority, area etc.

My talented colleagues Ami Sedghi and Elena Cresci have been crunching some of the numbers as data-based vines, thereby creating the most 2014 A-levels coverage you’ll find.

The cut-out pics come from a PA photo by Niall Carson.

Are you facing the prospect of clearing? If so, well, you’re (partly) in luck – my colleagues on Guardian Students have a live Q&A on the clearing process with a panel of experts. It starts in, oh, about five minutes.

This summary of today’s results from Ann Mroz, editor of the Times Educational Supplement, has an interesting view:

These results are truly a reflection of the commitment of teachers, heads and school staff in the face of near-constant meddling by governments of all hues in the exams system.

Despite predictions that the latest changes to the way exams are organised would lead to unstable national results today, early indications suggest that this has not proven to be the case.

This is no small achievement by schools. Teachers and school leaders must be congratulated for rolling with the punches – after all, the cohort of students who picked up their results this morning were faced with changes to the exams they were undertaking AFTER they’d started the programmes of study.

This, however, should not be seen as a green light for further meddling and uncertainty. As the Girls’ Day Schools Trust’s Kevin Stannard pointed out yesterday, many questions still remain about 2015’s A-level reforms and this is leading to yet more instability. These must be resolved urgently.

This morning’s results should be seen as a big win for the teaching profession – and not for the government. Congratulations.

Here’s some more details on the gender breakdown of the national results, again from PA:

Boys are getting more top grades than girls for the third year running, with 8.5% of boys’ entries attaining an A*.

In comparison, 7.9% of girls achieved the highest mark, although they outperform boys in all other grades.

Girls were awarded more As, with 26.2% of all their entries awarded A*-A grades, compared with 25.7% of boys’ entries.

The gap between the genders was even more noticeable when looking at A*-B grades, with 54.2% of girls’ exams achieving that level compared with 50.4% of boys’ papers, while the divide was greater still for A*-C grades, with a difference of 4.9 percentage points as 78.9% attained at least a C compared with 74% of boys.

But the results show that the gap is closing in between boys and girls. While last year there was a 0.8 difference in percentage points between them in A*-A grades, this year it has reduced to 0.5, while for A*-B grades it has dropped from a difference of 4.3 percentage points last year to 3.8.

As is the usual trend, there is a huge gulf between the sexes in the subjects chosen, with four in five (78.9%) physics entries being boys, a slight increase on last year. Far more boys are also choosing maths, with 61.3% of entries, although this is slightly down on last year.

But the gender gap closes for biology, with 58.9% of entries being girls. Subjects such as English, psychology, art and design, law, sociology, religious studies and performing arts were more popular with girls, while boys dominate physical education, political studies, further maths, ICT, computing and economics.

I like this PA photo of students in Rochdale passing on the good (or bad) news to loved ones. Elsewhere, it’s amazing the prevalence of pictures of brainy twins. All the non-academic twins are presumably locked away in classrooms for the day.

We had news from Northern Ireland earlier. Here’s the A-level picture from Wales, via PA:

The percentage of Welsh students getting the highest grades at A-levels has risen for the first time in five years.

The number of those who gained A* grades is up from 6% in 2013 to 6.7% - the highest since the grade was introduced in 2010.

However, the proportion of students achieving A* to E grades fell slightly from 97.6% to 97.5%.

Nevertheless, Wales’ Education Minister Huw Lewis said Welsh students had “done us proud”.

Joining students collecting results at Gower College, Swansea, Mr Lewis said: “I was very pleased to see the progress our students are making in achieving the higher grades, particularly in key subjects such as physics, history and chemistry which all showed improved A* and A pass rates compared to last year.

There are responses to A-level day landing in my inbox at a rate of around two a minute. Here’s a selection:

John Cridland, CBI director-general:

Genuine concern over grade inflation in recent years means we should not beat ourselves up if grades and overall passes don’t go up each and every year.

What’s more important is that we have an education system which fully prepares young people for life outside the school and college gates, with the skills and character to do well in life and to get an opportunity to show what they can do.

Congratulations to all students on their hard work this year.

Wendy Piatt, director general of the Russell Group of universities”

We congratulate all A-level students on their hard work and well-deserved grades. We wish them all the best in their future studies and careers.

This can be a nerve-wracking time and it is inevitable some students will miss their offer or do better than expected. The important thing is to stay calm - all our universities have people on hand to help and UCAS can be contacted on 0371 468 0468 or via their website. Some of our universities may have more places to offer to students who have done better than expected, or for highly-qualified students who have narrowly missed out on their first choice.

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK:

Congratulations to all students receiving their results today and to those who have secured their place at university this autumn. Students should be proud of what they have achieved and those who have chosen to go to university can look forward to the life-changing opportunities that a university course offers.

For the first time, numbers of students accepted to university or college to study a degree could top 500,000 by the end of the cycle.

Steven Morris has moved on to Redland Green School in Bristol, where he spoke to the headteacher, Sarah Baker.

The Department for Education has put out this slightly peevish-sounding statement about the very small drop in the overall pass rate:

This is an insignificant drop of just 0.1 of a per cent in the pass rate from A* to E. We are never going to get a pass rate of 100% and we should not expect one. An exam which no one fails would not be worth much. This figure indicates stability much more than change.

Here’s a very heartwarming individual success story, from the Press Association:

An aspiring doctor who fled strife-torn Iraq to the UK at the age of six wants to “give back” to the country after she achieved four A* A-level grades.

Rochdale Sixth Form College student Hana Barzinji, 18, will now go on to study medicine at the University of Manchester where she is determined to repay Britain for taking in her and her family.

In 2000 her father, Hiwa, 43, and mother Tka, 42, decided their native Kurdish region of northern Iraq was too volatile to bring up their children...

The family are now settled in Norden, Rochdale, with Mr Barzinji currently studying for a computing degree at Bolton University while Mrs Barzinji works as a teaching assistant at a local primary school.

Hana, who has two younger brothers, Taman, 16, an engineering student at Bury College, and nine-year-old Ara, is the first member of her family to go to university.

She said: “I spoke to my mum after I opened my results and she was ecstatic. It will make them proud but it is a great feeling of satisfaction for myself predominately.
“I am really grateful to this country for providing the opportunity.

“Hopefully I can contribute back by becoming a doctor. This is my chance to give back.”

A trawl through the photo wires reveals that students up and down the country are still being instructed by photographer to leap into the air. Other common themes include hugs, tears, and beaming/sobbing students on the phone to their parents.

So well done to my colleague, Christopher Thomond, for finding something different. And I think we can all agree it’s different.

Further to the comments from the National Union of Students earlier about AS-levels, my colleague Jade Azim sends news that the NUS has now launched an official Save The AS Level campaign, complete with #SaveTheAS hashtag.

Here’s the NUS’s full statement.

Here’s something you might now know: under data protection laws students are entitled to see the comments made by the examiners on their exam papers.

The Information Commissioner’s Office are publicising this, and have full details here.

You’re allowed this under the regulations which permit you to request information held about you by any organisation. Exams boards are allowed up to 40 days to answer, so it might not help for clearing, but could nonetheless assist if you’re planning a resit or an appeal, the office notes.

We want your stories and pictures!

You have a choice, too. GuardianWitness are seeking your A-level stories and photos, or our communities team have another option:

If you use Instagram, share your images and thoughts with the community team using #AlevelsGDN Tell us: 1. How you feel about your results 2. What hopes do you have for the future - do your A-levels matter? We’ll use a selection of the best in a piece on the Guardian website

Here’s some more photos from Steven Morris at North Bristol Post 16 Centre.

Here’s what he saw there:

Among the earlycomers who will be celebrating was Ibrahim Bashir who got an A* and two As and will go on to study medicine at Bristol University. “It’s a relief more than anything,” he said.

A traumatic moment when one young man opened his envelope to find that he had not got the results he expected. He removed his glasses, put them on the floor and stamped on them.

Staff took him off to a side room to comfort him - when they checked they found out he had got on to the course he wanted to anyway.

Different tactics by students. Some had checked and knew overnight they had got into their preferred unis. Some waited and had the frisson of opening the envelope and finding out what their immediate future held. Others chose to grab their envelopes and head for home to open them in privacy.

Many of those who had not achieved the grades they wanted remained impressively calm. Such as Yasmin Worsley, who did not get the grades she needed for a course in international relations and Spanish. “I’ll keep trying. I will get to university,” she said.

My colleague, Steven Morris, has been spending the morning at North Bristol Post-16 Centre, seeing the joy and despair. This student, John Ball, is happy.

Three of the big teaching unions have had their say on today’s results. Not unexpectedly – and with some justification – part of their view is that the success is also down to the efforts of teachers.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said:

Congratulations must go to young people and their teachers who have worked so hard to deliver yet another excellent set of results.

It is clear that standards have been maintained across the board and credit for that must go to teachers who have, yet again, pulled out all the stops to ensure that young people are supported to achieve their best.

They have achieved these results against a backdrop of savage cuts to pay and funding and attacks on their professionalism and working conditions. In addition, they have been preparing for reforms to the curriculum and qualifications that have been rushed through at breakneck speed.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of National Association of Headteachers:

“Each year is characterised by unique challenges and Ofqual’s policy in recent years of being open in anticipating such challenges is welcomed by NAHT.

2014 was the first year without the opportunity for January resits, therefore reducing the opportunities for taking and re-taking elements of qualifications. This explains much of the variation experienced by some students and their schools. This year’s outcomes are testimony to the effective partnership between students and teachers.

Whether this will be sufficient to withstand the impact of the government’s ill-conceived and too-hastily implemented reform programme in years to come remains to be seen.

Brian Lightman, from the Association of School and College Leaders:

Today is a real good news story. It shows how hard students and teachers have worked in the face of changes to exams to achieve results that are as high as ever. We warmly congratulate students and their teachers on everything they have achieved this year.

A 0.6 per cent increase in the number of A* grades is understandable. More universities are asking for A* grades. Students and teachers know this and have worked very hard to reach the demanding standards of this top grade. They deserve to be congratulated.

A decrease of 0.1 per cent in the overall pass rate represents about 800 entries. It is not a significant shift. This is a stable picture of exams year on year.

It’s notable how many emails I’m receiving from PR agencies employed by private schools to trumpet their A-level success. Much of this is not especially newsworthy. But one message stands out. Sheffield High School, a private school despite the name, is publicising the somewhat jaw-dropping achievements of one Clare Rees Zimmerman.

She learned this morning she has passed five A-levels at A*, meaning she now has a combined total of nine A-levels, eight at A* passes and one at a mere A. Oh yes, and 13 A* passes at GCSE.

She has also reached Grade 8 in violin, viola and piano – with distinction – among many, many other achievements.

The school says she’s joined a folk music-based commune in the Peak District and is learning to juggle going to to Cambridge to study natural sciences.

Hats off to Clare. In fact to everyone.

Nicky Morgan, the new education secretary, has spoken. Here’s her take on today’s results:

I’m delighted to see more students, especially young women, studying maths and sciences and teachers having more time to push pupils to achieve the very top grades. This will help them secure the top jobs, regardless of their background, and secure a brighter future.

Students in Northern Ireland have, again, done very well. My colleague, Henry McDonald, sends this:

Northern Ireland has once again outperformed the rest of the UK in terms of A-level results.

Almost 30% of pupils gained either A* or A grades in the region this year. The Joint Council for Qualifications noted there had been a slight increase in the number A* grades to 7.3% of students - a jump of almost 1 % compared to 2013.

The percentage achieving grades A*-C was 83.7%, and 98% achieved at least a grade E. Girls in Northern Ireland are still outperformed boys in achieving the top grades. The most popular subject for boys in the region was maths while for girls it was biology.

Overall 32,000 students in Northern Ireland were getting their A-level results today with 24,000 logged onto a system that allowed them to check how they did on line from 7am this morning.

Michael Gove might be watching results day from afar, but he’ll be pleased at this news: the first sixth form free school in England has announced a very strong set of A-levels.

The London Academy of Excellence, set up two years ago in Stratford, east London, with a view to getting more students from disadvantaged backgrounds into top universities, says 57 of its first cohort got places at Russell Group universities, with four going to Oxford or Cambridge. In 2010, only three students from the entire borough of Newham won Oxbridge spots.

It is the first set of national exam results from a free school. My colleague, Richard Adams, profiled the school here.

One of the LAE’s success stories gained three A* grades to get a place studying modern languages at Oxford. He is, the school says, fluent in French and Spanish, learned Italian and taught himself Portuguese, in which he conducted his university interview.

We have a new quote from the universities minister, Greg Clark. Today is, he said, “a real red letter day for everyone”. Well, probably not everyone feels that way right now, but I know what he means. Here’s what he said:

I think it is great news. The fact we have got record numbers of people going to university is a great day for the students, who worked very hard to get in, and a good day for the country as we want to see people realising their potential.

It’s a record number of people placed on results day and as the weeks ahead progress it is looking likely the 500,000 barrier will be broken.

That is tremendous news. One of the things the government did this year was to increase the student number cap by 30,000, with a view to removing it next year. That’s because we want to remove the cap on aspiration and we want every young person, who can benefit from higher education, to be able to do so. That’s good for them and that’s good for the country.

On the specifics of language A-levels, the British Council has sent this from their schools adviser, Vicky Gough:

While the percentage of foreign language A-levels is similar to last year, the fact is we’ve still hit another low - with a 7.4% drop in the number of French exams. More than 10,000 fewer language exams were taken this year than at the end of the 90s.

With such a low base, stability sadly isn’t good enough - the UK needs far more young people to learn languages to a high standard in order to stay competitive on the world stage, and to become the language teachers of the future. Understanding another language is key to understanding another culture - and that’s increasingly crucial for life and work.

My colleague Rebecca Ratcliffe has sent this on the breakdown of subjects taken for A-level this year:

Entries to traditional subjects at A-level have risen as students opt for qualifications favoured by top universities.

The number of students sitting biology, chemistry and physics (up 2% combined), maths (0.9%), further maths (1.5%) and religious studies (3.7%) – all identified by the Russell Group as subjects favoured by university admissions tutors – is up on last year.

Maths overtook English for the first time in over a decade to become the most popular subject, after the number of students taking English fell 4.6% - a drop blamed on 2012’s GCSE debacle that left thousands of teenagers with lower grades than expected. Entries to chemistry have also risen significantly, making it the fifth most popular subject.

“Students are looking are looking hard and saying - what subjects are going to me into university?” said Andrew Hall, chief executive of the AQA exam board.

A switch to high-stakes, end-of-year exams – a system thought to disadvantage girls – has not led to a dip in their performance, according to Hall, who says “the stereotype hasn’t played through”. But exam chiefs admit they still haven’t tackled the gender gaps in the number of students sitting arts and science subjects.

“It’s a complex issue and we still haven’t cracked it,” said Lesley Davies, director of quality and standards at the Pearson exam board. “There’s no one answer, but we do have to look at the careers advice that is being given to young people and we need to look at role models in the different industries.”

A quick note: we are also, as the modern parlance goes, crowdsourcing A-level results, and will do the same for GCSEs next week. Here’s what the people involved have to say:

We’re once again inviting schools to let us know how their students have got on and we’ll be publishing the results in table form later this morning. If you’re a teacher or other member of school staff, you can help us compile the database by answering a few quick questions.

Right, it’s 9.30am and the embargo is lifted on the national picture for A-level results. Here’s what Richard Adams has learned. In brief, there’s more very top grades but a slight decline for other grades:

Pupils sitting A-levels in England were awarded a higher proportion of the highest grade of A* this year but all other grades saw a slight decline, including the first fall in the proportion being awarded A* to E grades for 32 years.

Exam board officials attributed the improvement in A* to it becoming a “key grade for the highest performing students” looking to get into top universities, with both teachers and pupils making deliberate efforts to reach it, helped by the end to exams being taken in January, allowing more teaching time.

Some 8.2% of exam entries were awarded the top A* grade, a rise of 0.6 percentage points compared with 2013. But all other grades saw slightly lower proportions awarded, including a 0.3 percentage point decline in the number of A* and A awards combined – the third year in a row it has fallen – and a half-percentage-point drop in the overall rate of entries awarded A* to B grades.

The figures also showed that more students opted to take the “facilitating” subjects increasingly demanded by universities, such as sciences and maths, and fewer chose the likes of general studies and political science.

A statement from the Joint Council for Qualifications – the group of exam boards that administer A-levels – said the fall was partly caused by changes in exam timing, with the January sitting being ended, giving schools less flexibility and preventing students from taking re-sits.

This year’s A-level results come after a fall in the top grades awarded in 2012 and 2013, with the government and exam regulator Ofqual seeking to bear down on accusations of “grade inflation”, and reforms that changed the structure of courses.

In 2013, 26.3% of A-level papers were given A or A* grades, while the total number of A*-E grades rose by a sliver to 98.1% – the 31st year in a row that the proportion had increased. In 2012, 26.6% of entries were awarded the two top A grades. The last time the A grades were awarded in greater amounts was 2011, when 27% of entries received As.

In both 2012 and 2013 boys slightly outperformed girls in the proportion of A* grades awarded, by slim margins. The data in 2014 showed little change in the pattern of results by male and female students, despite the shift towards linear exams thought by some to favour boys.

Some of today’s students learned their good or bad news slightly earlier than expected, after Nottingham Trent university emailed some applicants earlier than planned to offer places. Richard Adams writes:

Parents told the Guardian that one student received an email from Nottingham Trent’s admissions office on Wednesday telling him: “Sorry you didn’t get your predicted A-level grades. But we can still offer you a place.” It was first indication that the student’s results would not be as good as he had hoped.

Parents who rang Nottingham Trent to find out what had happened were said to have been told by staff there that the university had received “quite a few calls” about the emails.

A Nottingham Trent university spokesman said: “A small number of emails were unfortunately sent to applicants who have exceeded or slightly missed their required grades. The issue was identified and resolved very quickly. The emails, which did not disclose any results, were to offer applicants a place on a similar but alternative course.”

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which covers higher education among its broad remit, has sent out this somewhat anonymous statement from the universities minister, Greg Clarke:

I’d like to congratulate the hundreds of thousands of students who have worked so hard to get the A-levels they need to win a place at university.

Higher education is one of the most important sources of social mobility and I welcome the growth in the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The lifelong benefits of higher education are significant. Graduates are much more likely to be employed than non-graduates, they also earn on average significantly more over their lifetime.

“This year we increased the number of higher education places to enable more students to access higher education and next year publicly-funded universities can choose to recruit as many students as are capable of benefiting from higher education. Lifting this cap on aspiration allows more young people to fulfil their ambition and their potential.

On the subject of photos, can I make a quick administrative note? The idea of illustrating A-levels results day by having a group of your school’s more blonde, more attractive female students jump in the air is, of course, a very tired cliche. In fact it’s such a cliche that even mentioning it – let alone mocking it with ironic pastiche photos – is similarly a cliche. So from now one we won’t even mention it. Not even in the comments, if you don’t mind.

Here’s an early example of the imminent flood of photos showing students having received the news. At least she looks happy.

For those who have failed to get the grades needed to begin the university course they hoped and now face the tension of clearing, Ucas has these words of reassurance:

Clearing is an important route into university – Around one in 10 people starting university last year got their place through clearing.

Clearing has changed. Over 13,000 courses recruited someone through clearing last year – that number has increased by a quarter in just two years.

Almost all of our universities and colleges use clearing for some of their courses.

If clearing isn’t right for you now there’s always next year. Around half of 18 year olds who didn’t get in to university after missing their offers apply again next year. And around 90% of them get in second time.

A good point from Twitter - it’s not just students suffering today.

Before the flood of data begins I’ll allow myself a very brief reminisce about that day in August [year obscured by sudden cough] when I received my results, newly returned from a month of Inter Rail-ing through Europe so with a tan just about deep enough to hide my green pallor of nerves.

I learned through the then-ubiquitous route of going to my school to be informed in person, meaning I had to contain my terror while standing in a corridor for about 20 minutes as fellow pupils walked out clutching envelopes, some in tears, some punching the air with joy, others just numb.

The news was delivered one by one in a small office by the school’s head of chemistry, even if – like me – you hadn’t studied the subject, on the seeming basis he was a reassuring, avuncular figure. Anyway, he looked even more stunned than me when my results came in – they were way in excess of the low grades predicted on the basis of my frankly lazy two years in the sixth form at Poynton County High.

I’d been lucky: at the time A-levels were based solely on a small number of written exams. It seemed I was able to learn enough key facts at short notice to produce hastily-written written work that gave the plausible if largely false impression that I knew what I was talking about. Who could have guessed a career in journalism awaited?

On that note, good luck to everyone at the sharp end of results day today.

A-levels results day brings back vivid memories for many people. Owen Jones, whose recollections of the day in question are considerably more contemporary than mine, has written this lovely piece about the sense of being at a crossroads. Here’s a snippet.

In hindsight, A-level results day conjures up the ultimate sense of standing on the cusp. For me, sixth form was wonderful but, like purgatory, a period of transition. You have been liberated from a high school authoritarianism – imposed by both the institution and fellow pupils: deviation from conformity is rarely encouraged by early adolescents. Sixth form is often a time of being free to carve out your own identity, caring less about the judgment of others, but growing bored with the restrictions imposed by parental authority. In hindsight, both the excitement and fear of A-level day had much to do with the knowledge that a new era of independence was about to dawn.

The emotional impact starts with the journey in – likely, you realise with mixed feelings, to be the last time you make it. The childhood friends you somehow took for granted would always be there: those you downed your first shot with, kissed and shared your first drunken fumble with, played football with every Saturday in the park. The embraces – and first tears – begin before the first envelopes are opened.

One of the big political footballs of today will be the eventual fate of Michael Gove’s plans to change A-levels, particularly the notion of scrapping AS-levels.

On Monday, Tristram Hunt, the shadow education secretary, announced Labour would put on hold Gove’s plans to make A-levels more exam-based, and keep AS-levels.

Now, of course, Gove himself is gone. This morning the National Union of Students called on his replacement, Nicky Morgan, to keep AS-levels as they are, saying the changes were deeply unpopular with young people.

The NUS begin their message by “congratulating students receiving their A-level results”. You can see what they mean, but not everyone will be in the mood for congratulations.

In terms of the national picture we will know a whole lot more at 9.30am, when the figures on overall grades are released to the public. My colleagues Richard Adams and Rebecca Ratcliffe are currently locked away with lots of other journalists in a darkened room, poring over the news.

In the interim, Richard’s curtain raiser to today’s events is up on the wesbite. Here’s a taster:

Around 300,000 students will discover their A-levels results on Thursday amid predictions of a fall in top grades, changing exam conditions, and tougher subjects.

The nerves of sixth formers and their families have also been stretched by exam regulator Ofqual’s suggestions of greater “volatility” in this year’s results.

Experts say that after two years of falls in the number of the highest A and A* grades being awarded, a third consecutive year is expected.

Overall the total number of students entering for A-levels is lower than previous years, because of a fall in the number of 17 and 18 year olds within the population as a whole.

Tina Issacs, head of educational assessment at the University of London’s Institute of Education and a former head of 14-19-years regulation at Ofqual, said, however, that she didn’t accept the well-publicised predictions of volatility.

“I am expecting the outcome to be relatively calm. For A-levels, yes there have been changes but I think people have over-interpreted the word volatility. It might have been a better idea if Ofqual had used a less emotive word,” Issacs said.

“There will be changes, there’s no question about that. But because Ofqual has been using a technique known as ‘comparable outomes’ for the last few years, so that theoretically all things being equal, a student who would have got an A last year would be getting an A grade this year.”

Ofqual achieves comparable outcomes through complex calculations based on “prior attainment” of a year-group, taking previous key stage and GCSE results to gauge the relative ability of each year’s cohort of students and allowing it to adjust individual subject grade boundaries in response.

If an overall year group is thought to be less able than previous years – as this year’s is thought to be – then moving grade boundaries can avoid over-achievement by an otherwise average student.

In the first piece of actual news this morning, the universities entrance organisation Ucas has announced that a record number of students are heading to university, with almost 400,000 accepted on to degree courses so far.

Ucas data showed that as of midnight, 396,990 students had been accepted onto courses at UK universities, up 3% on last year. Of those, 352,590 have a place on their first choice of course, up 2% on 2013. For the first time, it added, the eventual total could exceed half a million.

It’s A-level results day.

Around 300,000 students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will, for the most part, by now know the verdict for their A and AS levels. It’s an annual news event but remains perennially fascinating in two major strands.

Firstly there’s the personal fates. A-levels for many people are one of those life-shifting forks in the road, which can decide where you live, what you do, who you spend time with, for years or even decades to comes.

Then, of course, we have the overall picture – have grades gone up or down; what are the implications for univesity entries; how will politicians, teachers and parents react to the changing trends.

So if you’ve already received your results, I hope it went as planned. Either way, we’ll be here all day with news, reaction and those personal stories. On that latter subject, Guardian Witness is keen to hear your A-level stories.