The proportion of GCSE entries awarded top grades has fallen from last year but is higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, national figures show.Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their GCSE exam results on Thursday in a year when grades were expected to return to pre-pandemic levels in all three nations.

The proportion of GCSE entries awarded top grades has fallen from last year but is higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, national figures show.Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their GCSE exam results on Thursday in a year when grades were expected to return to pre-pandemic levels in all three nations.