By Gabriel Princewill-
London’s record performance in this year’s A-level results reflects more than just examination success. It reflects years of school improvement, strong educational aspirations, effective teaching and access to a wider range of opportunities helping to create an environment in which high achievement has become increasingly embedded.
The capital recorded the highest proportion of A and A* grades in England, with 32.7% of A-level entries achieving one of the two top grades, up from 32.1% in 2025. By comparison, only 23.1% of entries in both the North East and East Midlands received an A or A*.
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The resulting 9.6 percentage-point gap is the largest recorded between London and either region since the current grading system was introduced in 2010. Such leap in performance calls for a useful analysis of why this has happened.
The figures provide a clear indication of London’s continuing educational advantage, but they do not mean that London students are simply more intelligent or more hardworking than pupils elsewhere.
Nor do they demonstrate that teachers in the capital are uniformly better. Although any environment can easily be influenced by a stronger emphasis on commitment, focus, and motivation. A few teachers or headteachers in many schools can influence outcomes . The difference is more likely to reflect a combination of factors that have developed over many years.
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One of the most important is the transformation of London’s schools over the past two decades. The London Challenge, introduced in the early 2000s, placed considerable emphasis on school leadership, collaboration between schools, sharing effective practice and improving teaching. The programme has been widely associated with the capital’s improvement in educational performance.
That legacy may still be influencing results today. Strong leadership can establish high expectations across a school, ensure that struggling pupils receive additional support and encourage teachers to share effective approaches. When those practices become part of a school’s culture, they can continue to influence results long after individual programmes or leaders have changed.
Teaching quality is therefore likely to be part of the explanation, although it is difficult to separate it from the wider environment in which teachers work. London has a large and diverse labour market, a concentration of universities and a substantial pool of graduates and education professionals.
It has also benefited from teacher-recruitment initiatives such as Teach First. None of this means that teachers outside London are less committed or less capable.
Rather, the capital’s concentration of educational institutions and employment opportunities can make it easier for schools to recruit from a large pool of potential staff, while successful schools may also develop reputations that help them attract experienced teachers. London has consistently recorded strong GCSE outcomes, meaning that many pupils enter post-16 education with higher levels of prior attainment. A-level results are therefore partly influenced by what students bring with them when they begin their courses.
This is where family expectations and educational aspirations become important. London is home to large communities in which university education and professional careers are highly visible. Many families place a strong emphasis on academic achievement and progression to higher education. Academics say that Parents who are familiar with universities and professional careers may also be better positioned to help their children navigate subject choices, applications, and the wider education system. Many times, the environment in each school contributes to how students respond to the training they are given about focus and dedication. Commitment can also be shaped by circumstances. A young person surrounded by classmates who are planning to attend university, taught by teachers who expect high grades, and supported by parents who see academic qualifications as essential, may be more likely to develop similarly ambitious goals.
Researchers say the environment can create a cycle in which high expectations reinforce high performance. London’s educational infrastructure may add another advantage. The capital has a dense concentration of schools, sixth-form colleges and specialist institutions, giving students a wide choice of subjects and educational pathways. Authour and law lecturer from the University of Kent, told The Eye Of Media.Com:
”High-achieving pupils can often find institutions that cater specifically to their academic interests and ambitions. Competition between schools and colleges may also encourage institutions to focus heavily on attainment, although this comes with a risk of treating examination results as the only measure of educational success. Some children who come from academically high achieving primary schools who have been stretched and motivated by hardworking and ambitious teachers, will already be very driven by the time they begin secondary school, and have successfully completed GCSE exams. Such students , especially if concentrated in the same areas, will likely have an edge over children with lower academic experience by the time they are completing their A level exams. Their level of focus and confidence is better trained than those without that experience, unless they have a similar experience of equivalent weight. The discipline and commitment of many primary and secondary schools in London has been changing for a while now, even though there is still a way to go for this to be uniform in all schools. Many schools in London, also have the added influence of students from other countries who are used to a stringent regime of educational development. This contributes to the overall rate of performance of students in London, a high percentage of whom take their A levels seriously, and try and give it all it takes’
Composition Of Student Population
The composition of the student population is another factor that needs to be considered. London is one of the most diverse parts of the country, and research into the capital’s educational performance has identified strong aspirations among some ethnic minority and migrant communities as one possible contributor to higher attainment.
Ethnic minority students who make it to the GCSE year without expulsion, often come from highly ambitious backgrounds that include educated parents. Migrants amongst them recently coming from oversees, are also often used to a very rigorous high stakes education system.A high percentage of them produce good GCSE results, and are naturally aiming for university.
Statistics show that London pupils with a first language other than English actually had a slightly higher average Attainment 8 score in 2024/25 than pupils whose first language was English: 51.2 compared with 50.3
Asian pupils in London had the highest average Attainment 8 score among the main ethnic groups, at 56.2, while Black pupils averaged 4
But demographic differences alone cannot explain the figures. London’s population also includes significant levels of poverty and deprivation, demonstrating that the capital’s educational success cannot simply be attributed to being wealthier than other regions. However, there are more schools in London that assert discipline in their students, better networking and consultation to raise standards of teaching and imparting of enthusiasm in students, more London students with a stronger foundation in their GCSE’s pursuing A levels than in other regionsThe difference between London and other parts of England is also not a straightforward north-south divide. The South East recorded 31.5% of entries at A or A*, placing it just behind London, while the South West recorded 27.2%. Yet some southern areas performed far below the national average.
Guildford, for example, recorded A or above in around half of its A-level entries, while Richmond in London reached 49%. In contrast, just 7% of entries in Harlow achieved A or above, while Test Valley in Hampshire recorded 10%. These differences demonstrate that location alone cannot determine educational outcomes. School quality, local deprivation, prior attainment, family circumstances and access to educational opportunities all play a role.There is also an important limitation in using A-level results to assess teaching quality. The proportion of students receiving A or A* grades measures attainment, not necessarily the progress pupils have made. Which is why a sixth form whose students arrive with exceptionally strong GCSE results will naturally have a different starting point from one serving pupils with lower prior attainment. A school can therefore make substantial progress with its pupils without producing the same proportion of top grades as a school whose students begin with much higher attainment.
This distinction is particularly important when comparing regions. The 9.6 percentage-point gap shows where top grades are being achieved, but it does not, by itself, reveal how much of that difference is attributable to teachers, students, families, schools or wider socioeconomic conditions. The evidence instead points towards a cumulative effect. Strong teaching can improve attainment and raise expectations. High expectations can encourage greater effort. Ambitious families can reinforce those expectations too, and strong results can enhance a school’s reputation, helping it attract pupils and teachers. A successful school culture can then become increasingly established.
Over time, these factors can reinforce one another and produce a significant regional difference. London’s performance should therefore not be reduced to the idea that its students work harder or its teachers are simply better. Its advantage appears to have been built through a combination of educational reform, school leadership, teaching, parental expectations, student aspirations, prior attainment and access to opportunities. The record gap with the North East and East Midlands makes the issue increasingly difficult to ignore. The challenge for policymakers is not simply to encourage pupils outside London to work harder, but to understand which conditions have enabled the capital to sustain higher attainment and which of those conditions can realistically be strengthened elsewhere.This year’s results show that educational inequality is no longer adequately described as a simple divide between north and south. London is increasingly becoming an outlier, with its schools and students pulling further ahead of much of the country.The task now is to ensure that a young person’s chances of achieving the highest grades are determined less by their postcode and more by the quality of education, support and opportunities available to them.
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