A level England: analysis of Alps 2025 customer benchmarks - August 2025
2025 A Level Results in England
This article presents an overview of the findings from the A level Alps customer benchmarks for England. It provides an outline of the national attainment picture before presenting a summary of the Alps provider Minimum Expected Grades, and Quality Indicator shifts for 2025.
It concludes with an overview of the recommendations for benchmark selection for analysing your 2025 results for A level, and for target setting and tracking across 2025/26.
The article is relevant for colleagues in England, Jersey and those International schools and colleges analysing results against the English national dataset.
National Attainment for A level
Following the release of this years A-level examination results we have analysed the data released by the Joint Council of Qualifications and Ofqual alongside the data uploaded to Alps by our schools and colleges to help provide you with the key information that we think will be useful at this stage.
Ofqual said last year that results achieved in 2023 will now be the “baseline” for future grading standards. The percentage of different grades was slightly higher this year that it has been in 2023 and 2024. In a press briefing, Ofqual chief inspector Sir Ian Bauckham said the grading standard “remains the same year-on-year” and said the uptick in grades was “very small”.
Overall A level Attainment Profile - England
Results for attainment showing gaps between 2019 and 2025, and between 2024 and 2025.
The key points:
Compared with 2019,
- the percentage A* is 1.7% higher
- the percentage A*-A is 3.0% higher
- the percentage A*-B is 3.9% higher
Compared with 2024,
- the percentage A* is 0.1% higher
- the percentage A*-A is 0.6% higher
- the percentage A*-B is 1.4% higher
A level Subject Attainment
At a subject level results follow a varied pattern.
Analysis of A* grades below indicates that in subjects such as mathematics outcomes are similar from 2019 through to 2024 and 2025. In other subjects there was a greater increase in A* percentages. Similar trends are observed at A*-A and A*-B.
Therefore colleagues should view subject attainment on an individual basis.
Value-added analysis for A level 2025
The 2025 results see the return towards a pre-pandemic average prior attainment baseline for Key Stage 5 students, although it remains slightly higher than in 2019.
Using the data submitted to Alps since results day, we have carried out a thorough analysis of the dataset and present our findings below.
The table above shows that the average prior attainment GCSE score for this summer's cohort of 6.23 is lower than the 2024 cohort, but still higher than the 2019 value of 6.11. This means that if we were to represent the value-added profile diagrammatically over the past few years, we would see the following pattern.
The starting point has fluctuated over the past few years, but the outcome end point has also fluctuated. The arrow shows the relative size of the value-added progress journey.
At the beginning of the 2024/25 academic year, we advised that the 2019 national dataset represented the most beneficial benchmark on which to base your target setting and tracking priorities. The value-added progress journey in 2025 was likely to be more similar to that of the value-added picture in 2019 than that of 2024.
On Results Day, 14 August 2025, the default benchmark for KS5 was therefore the DfE 2019 dataset. The sections that follow will dissect the A level data submitted to Alps since A level Results Day and present recommendations for the use of benchmarks both for analysis of 2025 outcomes and for the tracking and monitoring of students in Years 12 and 13 for the 2025/26 Academic Year.
How did our Alps Customer benchmark 2024 compare to the 2024 DfE national dataset?
Following the release of the 2024 DfE national data earlier this year, we carried out a comparison of the Alps Customer Benchmarks for 2024 with the 2024 DfE national set. We set out the detail of our findings in this article https://support.alps.education/portal/en/kb/articles/a-level-england-analysis-of-2024-dfe-national-dataset-march-2025
In summary
- There was no difference in the average QI score across Alps schools and colleges when switching from the Alps Customer benchmark for 2024 to the 2024 DfE national benchmark.
- Therefore, 94% of Alps schools and colleges saw QI shifts of 0.01 or less
- The impact on QI grades was that three quarters of schools and colleges saw no change in QI grade.
The screenshot below shows the percentage of Alps schools and colleges within each DfE progress band when set against the 2024 Alps Customer benchmark and the 2024 DfE national benchmark.
Our conclusions was that the 2024 Alps Customer benchmark gave a robust representation of the 2024 DfE national picture, and allowed leaders to make judgement calls on improvement priorities in the weeks and months following 2024 Results Day.
Alps Customer Benchmarks 2025: MEPs and MEGs
The diagram below shows the Alps prior attainment bands for A level from 1 to 11 and the proportion of students in each band. It compares the 2019 DfE national dataset, the 2024 DfE national dataset and the latest Alps Customer dataset from 2025.
There remains a slightly higher proportion of students in the top two bands compared to the DfE 2019 dataset, but this is lower than the DfE 2024 proportions. This links to the prior attainment table above.
In terms of Minimum Expected Points, the diagram below compares the target points required at the 75th percentile across Alps bands.
Across all prior attainment bands, the Minimum Expected Points required at the 75th percentile for the Alps Customer benchmark mirror those of DfE 2019 and are higher than those of the 2024 DfE dataset.
Tabulated, the picture looks as follows for the 2025 Alps Customer benchmark to DfE 2019:
And if we consider 2025 Alps Customer benchmark against the 2024 DfE dataset:
Alps Customer Benchmarks 2025: MEPs and MEGs: Implications
The tables below compare the Quality Indicator grades of the schools and colleges in the three benchmarks sets
The proportion of Alps schools and colleges in each grading category, red, black, blue for the Quality Indicator highlights the fact that the DfE 2019 national benchmark better represents the 2025 value-added picture than the DfE 2024 national benchmark.
Conclusion and recommendations for analysis
Analysis of Results 2025
- The value-added profile generated from the 2025 Alps Customer Benchmark is more similar to the value-added profile produced from the 2019 DfE national dataset then the 2024 DfE national dataset.
- The 2019 DfE national dataset does appear to be slightly more exacting than the 2025 Alps Customer benchmark. Using the DfE 2019 to measure analysis would potentially produce a more cautious overall grading than might ultimately be the case when the 2025 DfE national dataset becomes available.
- Based on figures in this analysis, using the 2024 DfE national benchmark for results analysis will lead to an overestimation of performance.
- In 2024, the value-added produced from the Alps customer benchmark was very much in line with the final DfE national value-added picture.
- Therefore, at this point in time, we recommend using the 2025 Alps Customer benchmark set for your 2025 A level examination analysis.
Note that the benchmarks will be updated following the release of the 2025 DfE national dataset early in 2026.
Target setting and tracking of Year 12 and 13 in 2025/26
Your incoming Year 13 and 12
students will have similar prior attainment profiles:
- As GCSE results were brought back close to 2019 standards in 2024 & 2025 and will be in 2026 & 2027, value-added based on 2019 national benchmarks will give a fair assessment of progress for both Y12 and Y13 towards results in 2026 & 2027.
- Our Alps Customer benchmark should also give you a fair assessment of progress for both Y12 and Y13 towards results in 2026 & 2027, as our Customer benchmark produced similar outcomes in 2024 as the national.
- You may have been tracking your Year 13 students against target grades based on MEGs using the 2019 national benchmark at the start of Year 12 in September 2024. You will probably have tracked their progress during their Year 12 using the 2019 national benchmark and may feel this is the most suitable benchmark.
- Note that at A Level, the MEGs are almost identical
across both benchmarks.
- The target points that generate the MEGs
for A Level are slightly lower for PA Bands 1-7 using the Alps 2025 benchmark.
- The target points that generate the MEGs
for A Level are slightly higher for PA Bands 8-11 using the Alps 2025
benchmark.
- Again, generally, the
analysis between the two benchmarks, DfE 2019 and Alps Customer 2025 should
broadly tell a similar value-added story.
Summary
The grid below highlights the 2025 Alps Customer benchmark as recommended for target setting and monitoring for cohorts in 2025/26 academic year, due to the fact that the 2019 DfE dataset may be more exacting.
However, we recognise that colleagues may want to continue to use the full national dataset from which to set targets and track, and therefore we feel there are equally as strong arguments to using the 2019 DfE national dataset for this purpose.
Summary of Benchmarks
The grid
below shows which benchmark is being used for the 'National benchmark set' and
the 'Alps Benchmark' toggles in Connect and Summit across the last 5
years.
As
you can see, we recommend that for A level results analysis we recommend you toggle your benchmark to the
2025 Alps Benchmark set.
Important note: The benchmark set on the 'Alps Benchmark' toggle (2) is populated with the Customer benchmark for A level ONLY. All vocational qualifications at KS5 is based on the 2024 DfE national dataset. More information on decisions around Applied Generals can be found:
For more information on switching your benchmarks read article: https://support.alps.education/portal/en/kb/articles/recommendations-for-benchmark-selection
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