The Region's Grades Fell. Southend A-level Results Rose.

The Southend A-level results published on Thursday 13 August are the strongest any year group at Southend High School for Girls has ever produced, and the headline figure is blunt: half of every grade the school entered came back as an A* or an A. The selective grammar has called the set record-breaking. On its own numbers, that holds up.

Drop one grade band and the picture gets wider. Seventy-seven per cent of entries landed at A* to B. Sixty-seven students averaged an A* or an A across three or four subjects — not one strong paper each, but a top-grade average sustained across a full timetable. That last number is the one that separates a good year from a record one.

It matters more this summer than it would in most, because the region around Southend moved the other way. Nationally, the share of top grades edged up again. Across the East of England, it slipped. A school posting its best figures ever in a year its own region lost ground is doing something the regional average actively hides.

Half of Every Grade Was an A or an A*

Set the school's 50 per cent against the national picture and the gap is stark. Across the UK, 28.7 per cent of A-level grades were an A or A*, up from 28.2 per cent last year, according to Schools Week. A* alone accounted for 9.7 per cent. The Southend cohort roughly doubled the national top-grade rate, and did it while entries nationally grew 2.4 per cent to 349,917 students.

The overall pass rate — A* to E — held flat at 97.5 per cent, which is the number that rarely moves and rarely makes news. Everything interesting in A-level data happens at the top of the scale, and that is precisely where this year group pulled away.

Why the Southend A-level Results Stand Out

Regional variation was unusually wide. London schools returned 32.7 per cent at A or above; the East Midlands and North East both sat at 23.1 per cent — a spread of 9.6 percentage points. The East of England, which covers Southend-on-Sea, was one of the regions that fell rather than rose. Against that backdrop, a local record is genuinely against the grain.

One honest caveat: this is a selective grammar with an entrance test, so comparing it to an all-schools national average is not like for like. Grammars almost always sit well above the mean. The fair comparison is with its own past — and by that measure it has still moved forward. There's a second wrinkle, too. Nationally, boys outperformed girls at the top grades for the first time since the pandemic. A girls' grammar setting a record in that particular summer is worth noting.

Where This Year Group Is Heading

Destinations tell you more about a results day than percentages do, because they show what the grades actually bought. This cohort's offers stretch from Russell Group law and medicine to a degree apprenticeship in policing.

Two Cambridge Places and a Law Offer From LSE

Hannah Sugden takes an A* and two As in art, English literature and geography to Murray Edwards College, Cambridge, to read English. Dylan Hudson-Crane goes to St John's College, Cambridge, for theology, religion and philosophy. Poppy Mangan cleared three A*s in history, politics and economics and heads to the London School of Economics to study law. St Andrews, UCL, Bristol, Manchester and King's College London also feature.

The Student Who Did It All a Year Early

Verity van Berkum took biology, chemistry, maths and computer science, finished the lot a year ahead of her year group, and came away with four As. She's off to the University of Surrey to train as a vet — one of the hardest courses in the country to get onto, taken by someone who compressed the run-up into less time than everyone around her.

One Leaver Skipped University Altogether

Eliza Duff isn't going to university. She's taking a police degree apprenticeship based in Chelmsford, earning while she qualifies. In a school where the default route is a competitive campus offer, that's a deliberate choice, and increasingly a common one across Essex as apprenticeship places expand.

The Record It Had to Beat Was Its Own

The school last claimed a best-ever set in 2022, when it also hit 50 per cent at A*–A and 47 students collected three or more A*/A grades. The two measures aren't identical — this year counts students averaging A* or A across three or four subjects, a slightly different test — but the direction is clear. The share of top grades stayed put; the number of students reaching that level rose.

What to Do If Your Results Didn't Land

Getting into a firm choice got harder this year. Just 78.3 per cent of England's 18-year-olds secured their first-choice university place, down from 81.5 per cent in 2025, while insurance-choice placements rose from 11.6 to 13.6 per cent. If you missed by a grade, call the admissions office directly before accepting anything — near-misses are often waved through once a course sees its final intake numbers.

Anyone weighing a remark should move quickly, as appeal windows close within weeks and universities won't hold a place indefinitely. And if you're a parent looking at Southend's grammar admissions on the back of this, watch next January's performance tables: they'll show whether this cohort was a peak or the start of a trend.