A Level results day 2021: Live updates as expert warns of bias against Black pupils

An aspiring Welsh football star is one step closer to achieving her dream of playing professionally after securing top grades and landing a place with Manchester City.

Maria Francis-Jones, 18, has been selected to join City’s female football academy, where she will receive professional training while completing a degree in sport and exercise science at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Wales international Maria – who competed in the Euro qualifiers last year in Norway and is set to play at the World Cup qualifiers later this year – will play for Man City’s under 23s academy and is aiming to win a professional contract with the team by the end of 2021.

Maria, from Llanidloes in Powys, moved to Nantgarw by herself in 2019 aged 16 to join The Football Association of Wales’ (FAW) Elite Female Football Academy at Coleg y Cymoedd.

Over the last two years, her place at the academy has seen her combine daily football coaching sessions with full time study – completing a Btec sport course.

“Moving away at 16 was daunting and I was worried that I would miss home, but joining the academy was really exciting and I knew it could open up a lot of doors for me,” he said.

“I was already having to travel to South Wales twice a week to train with the FAW anyway so it made sense for me to take the next step and move over full time.

“Football has definitely been a passion of mine for as long as I can remember and I’ve always wanted to become a professional footballer.

“I love the game and couldn’t ever imagine having a ‘normal job’.

“Joining Coleg y Cymoedd and the Elite Football Academy really helped me pursue my dream. It’s enabled me to get professional training and opened up so many opportunities including playing for Wales which has been incredible.”

Unplanned gap years, test re-sits, and and long waits for university after results disappointment all took their toll, reports Zoe Tidman:

A record number of students are to study nursing at university after a surge in interest in NHS jobs following the Covid pandemic.

Latest data shows there has been an 8 per cent jump in accepted applications for nursing this year with a total of 26,730 nurses due to start training in the coming months.

This is the highest number of students accepted onto three-year nursing courses in any year during the past decade, and comes as ministers aim to boost nurse staffing levels in hospitals.

The Independent’s health correspondent Shaun Lintern reports:

A record number of Scottish students have been given places at Scottish universities, new figures show.

The statistics, published by education body Ucas on the day students received confirmation of their results, show 31,070 students from Scotland are staying in the country for university.

Since 2012, the figure has steadily increased from 22,220, and jumping by 10% from 28,240 since last year.

The figures also show an increase in pupils from the poorest areas going to universities with 4,700 being admitted – 300 more than last year.

However, Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) statistics released on Tuesday found that the attainment gap between the richest and poorest school pupils increased this year, compared with last.

The difference between the richest and poorest children who gained between an A and a C in the Highers grew to 7.9% from 6.5% last year.

However, both figures are substantially less than the 16.9% before the pandemic struck.

Teacher-assessed grades are seen as a more ‘holistic’ approach to grading. So will they stay forever, asks Matt Mathers:

A teenager who lost two grandparents to cancer is on the path to helping others with the disease after her straight A* grades have seen her accepted to study nuclear medicine.

Leah Morgan, 18, achieved top A-level grades in mathematics, biology, chemistry and physics and will now take up her place at Swansea University where she will learn to work with radiation therapy.

Leah, from Bedwas, is one of a handful of learners in Wales to be awarded an NHS Bursary. This will see her tuition fees paid by NHS Wales and the Welsh Government. On completion of her degree she is guaranteed a job in nuclear medicine .

She decided against applying for a place at Oxford due to her commitment to helping other people with cancer.

“I’d developed a love of science through school, and for the last few years I’ve wanted to work in a field that deals with cancer,” Leah said.

“My two grandparents had cancer which opened my eyes to it, before they unfortunately died.

“There’s only two places in the UK that do my course, so it’s a really niche subject. I thought about Oxford, but it wouldn’t be for the specific course I wanted to do. Nuclear medicine is really tailored to me.”

On the course she will learn to work with radiation therapy to treat cancer patients, as well as those suffering from neurological conditions.

Gavin Williamson has dropped a threat to force universities to refund tuition fees if they fail to restore face-to-face teaching, after a regulator said it had no such power.

The education secretary vowed to back the Office for Students in pursuing universities “that aren’t delivering enough for students” – after some said remote learning will continue this autumn.

But the regulator made clear it has no remit over the level of fees charged and the Department for Education (DfE) admitted there is no plan to change the law to beef up its powers.

The Independent’s deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports:

Students at Taunton School celebrating top A-level grades have told how the Covid-19 pandemic meant they could immerse themselves in their studies.

The independent school, in the Somerset town, is more than 150 years old and has around 1,000 pupils from nursery age to sixth form.

Martha Mileham, 18, from Taunton, achieved A grades in chemistry, biology and business studies, and is now heading to the University of Plymouth to study dentistry.

“I think the pandemic benefited me in my academia because it just allowed me to not have many distractions, because that was all you could do,” she said.

“It definitely made it weird applying for university though, it was strange having to do all my interviews on Zoom.

“One thing that worried me was that I knew a lot of people deferred from last year so it might make it a bit more competitive to get in.”

Ollie Halliday, 18, from Taunton, achieved A* grades in history, economics and psychology.

He is working as a legal assistant at a law firm and plans to apply to Oxford University to study history next year.

“I think the pandemic has almost played to my strength. I’m quite an independent learner so I didn’t have issues with motivation. It wasn’t easy not seeing my friends though so it was swings and roundabouts.”

Students who want to study medicine will be offered £10,000 if they choose to move medical schools amid capacity constraints, UK medical schools have said.

The Medical Schools Council (MSC), which represents 44 heads of medical schools across the UK, is assisting the Department of Education (DfE) with a “brokerage programme” after more university applicants met the terms of their offers than forecast.

Under this scheme for oversubscribed schools, students that need to move medical schools will receive a payment of £10,000 “for the inconvenience”.

The method for distributing this funding will be confirmed “in due course”, according to the MSC.

The organisation had previously warned that some schools may struggle to increase the number of students they admit as they are limited by specialist facilities, despite additional Government funding.

The DfE announced last week that medicine and dentistry schools in England will receive extra funding to expand courses this year, following a rise in applications.

Figures released on Tuesday show that the proportion of A-level entries awarded an A grade or higher has risen to an all-time high.

In total, 8,560 students from England have been accepted on to medicine and dentistry courses. This is up 23% from 6,960 on results day 2020, according to Ucas figures published on A-level results day.

Additional reporting by PA

A charity has raised concerns that the coronavirus crisis has widened the gap between independent and state schools after it was revealed that just over 70 percent of all A-level entries from private schools in England were awarded an A grade or higher this year.

Analysis of entries by exams regulator Ofqual found that 70.1 per cent of pupils at fee-paying schools achieved the top grades, compared with 44 per cent in 2019, when exams last took place, and 60.8 per cent last year.

Some 41.9 percent of students at academies achieved A or A* grades this year, a 5.7 percentage point increase from last year, while for comprehensives it was 39.3 per cent, a 6.2 percentage point rise.

The Sutton Trust’s founder and chairman Sir Peter Lampl said: “Since March 2020, our research has consistently shown how much harder state schools – particularly those in less affluent areas – have been hit by the pandemic.

“The pandemic has compounded existing inequalities and today’s results are a reflection of that.

“We’re seeing growing gaps between independent and state schools at the top grades. This poses an immediate challenge for university admissions.

“While it’s encouraging to see more students from less affluent areas going to university this year, it’s of real concern that the gap between those from less affluent areas and those from well-off areas has grown.

“Given that disrupted learning has affected lower income youngsters more, we urge universities to give additional consideration to disadvantaged students.”