Top grades awarded to this year’s GCSE students will fall, with more pupils failing and a slight narrowing of the girls’ lead over boys, an education expert has suggested.

In line with the move back towards pre-pandemic grading, there could be some 230,000 fewer top grades in the UK compared with 2021, but 230,000 more than 2019, Professor Alan Smithers predicted.

The director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham said the pattern was likely to be similar to the change seen in A-level results on Thursday, when grades fell from pandemic highs, but remained above 2019 levels.

Last year, the proportion of GCSE entries awarded top grades surged to an all-time high after exams were cancelled for the second year in a row due to Covid-19 and students were instead given results determined by their teachers.

Overall, 28.9% of UK GCSE entries were awarded one of the top grades, up by 2.7 percentage points on 2020.

In 2019, when exams were last held, only a fifth (20.8%) of entries achieved at least a 7 or an A grade.

Prof Smithers said this year, which is expected to see grades moved back to around halfway between those of 2021 and 2019, will mean disappointment for many.

He said: “In 2022, we can reasonably expect to see a drop in top grades, with many more failing to reach the pass level (C/4).

“In England, the biggest percentage fall will be at Grade 9s and many more will fall below Grade 4.

“We can take the A-level results as pointers. At A-level, the top grades were cut, but not as far as the Government was wanting, I suspect because high marks were scored in the easier exams and lower grades for higher marks is going to be difficult to defend on appeal.”

He said he expects girls to remain “a long way ahead of boys with only a small narrowing of the gap from the return to exams”.

In the latest A-level results, girls continued to outperform boys overall, although the gap grew smaller.

The proportion of girls who got A or above was 2.2 percentage points higher than boys this year, compared with a 4.8 percentage points difference last year.

Girls have been a lot further ahead at GCSE than at A-level, so I would not expect to see a significant impact on GCSEs, especially with the modified exams

As with A-levels, extra help was provided for GCSE students with the return to exams, including more generous grading, advance information on topics, formulae and equation sheets for GCSE maths, physics and combined science exams.

Prof Smithers said: “Girls have been a lot further ahead at GCSE than at A-level, so I would not expect to see a significant impact on GCSEs, especially with the modified exams.”

Figures covering GCSE entries from students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) on Thursday.

While traditional A*-G grades are used in Northern Ireland and Wales, in England these have been replaced in with a 9-1 system, where 9 is the highest.

A 4 is broadly equivalent to a C grade, and a 7 is broadly equivalent to an A.