people say grade inflation, but i actually think it's more accurate than the previous years, because it wasn't like teachers just picked a letter and said, "oh, yeah, this is what this person got." we sat countless class tests under the exam conditions. pass rates this year are down on 2020 but are up on previous years, while the percentage of pupils achieving a grades reached a record high. in 2019, less than a third of higher candidates were awarded an a grade. there was a huge leap last year, while this year almost half received the top grade. this is a credible set of results. young people should feel proud of what they've achieved, so i think young people and the wider system will have confidence in the results that they received today. today's results were always going to be heavily scrutinised — the chaos of last year's algorithm—based results, followed by the scrapping of exams part way through this year. and opposition parties have today raised concerns about the widening attainment gap between the most