Pupils achieve record GCSE results

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Overall 20.7% of grades were at A+ or A, an increase of 1.2 percentage points on last year.

More than 65.7% were at grades A+ to C, up from 63.3% last year. The rises come despite the number of entries dipping to a five-year low.

There were more than 5.6 million entries this summer compared with 5.8 million in 2007.

The Joint Council for Qualifications, who released the national GCSE results, said this was due to a decrease in the number of 16-year-olds and evidence of pupils being entered early for GCSE English and maths.

There was a massive slump in the numbers of pupils taking information technology - with entries down by more than 14,000.

Modern languages also took another hit, with French and German both suffering drops in entries. French was down by 6.8% on last year while German fell by 5.4%.

There was also movement in science entries, which officials put down to changes to the science curriculum. This year the science double award has been abolished and replaced by two separate qualifications, science and additional science.

The results showed that fewer candidates were taking additional science than previously took the double award. But there were increased entries in the separate sciences, with biology up by 35.3%, chemistry up 29.4% and physics up 29.1%.

Jim Sinclair, director of the JCQ, said: "Once again, we have seen a welcome increase in results at GCSE despite the lowest entry for five years. This is evidence of the hard work of the students and the continued dedication of their teachers. The core subjects at GCSE continue to dominate and still account for almost half of the full course entry."