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Post-16 Results 2025: A-Level Politics bucks the trend with potential for growth overall
It was wonderful celebrating the success of our young people (and their teachers) over the last few weeks as the Scottish Highers, International Baccalaureate and A level results rolled in. It’s thrilling to see so many take up their long-desired places at university and start their higher education journeys.
It was interesting to see that our friends at the British Academy have refreshed their SHAPE Observatory with a new School Indicators dashboard. This dashboard includes over twenty years’ of data on:
- GCSE and A level in England, Northern Ireland, and Wales
- National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications in Scotland.
Looking specifically at A levels, the British Academy found that the SHAPE disciplines (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) now make up 58.6% of all A level entries. However, only Economics and Politics saw an increase in uptake, with other subjects sadly seeing a decline in entries.
I would definitely encourage you to have a play with the dashboard tool. Some interesting findings for A level Government & Politics/Politics (known as Political Studies in the observatory itself) in England, Northern Ireland and Wales include:
- Overall entries back up to 22.2K and continuing the overall upward trend in the figures since 2004
- As a % of the overall entries, 2.51% of all A level entrants took ‘Politics’ – the second highest figure since it peaked at 2.55% in 2023. (To put this in context, Geography had 3.89% of all entries (34k) and Economics 4.83% (43k)
- Interestingly in terms of the national breakdown the proportion of entries in NI was 5.77%.
- The trend for more female students to male taking A level Politics has continued for 2025 – 51.53 vs 48.47%
This is compared to Economics and Geography entrants being 70% and 53% male, respectively. Sociology A level entrants were 76% female.
In Scotland ‘Political studies’ is a feature of Modern Studies at higher and advance higher level and Politics at higher level. The British Academy’s analysis showed that:
- 1% of entrants took Politics at Higher level (some 2105 students) who were two-thirds female. This subject is trending upwards in popularity.
- The numbers taking Modern Studies are trending downwards with 4.41% (8900) entrants in 2025 (again two-thirds female) and 3.23% (925 entrants) taking the advanced higher qualification (75% female).
We know that these qualifications are popular among those who continue their political studies at university (and provide other important life skills and career opportunities for our young people too) so how can we support schools, colleges, and teachers to offer these subjects and attract even more students?
What to do now….
If you are interested in working with us on this, please contact us at communications@psa.ac.uk.
You can also support this goal and support your own development by becoming a PSA member, our student membership is £10 and our Schools membership (for school teachers) is only £25.
Do take a look at: