By Mike Baker BBC education correspondent

So we have had another bout of August madness. It must be something to do with the combination of exam results and the summer heat. The media just seem to lose their usual sense of perspective.

Take this from one of our more serious newspapers - the GCSE results "saw the pass rate plunge to its lowest level for more than a decade".

My goodness, thinks the poor reader, that must be serious. Time for another state of emergency in our schools.

So what exactly did this "plunge" involve. The pass rate at A* to G grades fell from 97.9% to 97.6%. That is a dramatic fall of all of 0.3 of one percentage point.

A stock market fall of that size would barely merit a mention. But with exam results they were shouting "hold the front page".

We were also told that this was the "lowest pass rate for over a decade". Strictly speaking, I suppose this was true.

Major change?

However, this is not saying much. Since the first set of GCSE results in 1988 the A* - G pass rate has fluctuated within a range from 96.6% to 98.7%.

The annual change has moved up, down and sideways. In eight years it has risen slightly, in three it has remained the same and in four it has gone down.

So was a 0.3 of a percentage point such a major change this year? Did it justify the banner headlines? I doubt it.

Moreover, the results that were published this week were, as always, merely "provisional" figures.

The final figures will not change hugely but they do usually vary by as much as 0.5 of a percentage point. In other words, it is quite possible that this year's "plunge" in the pass rate will turn out to be an increase once the re-marks, appeals and corrections are taken into account.

The pass rate has fluctuated since GCSEs were introduced

So why all the fuss? Regrettably it has become an annual charade. Exam results day is now a fixed event in the media calendar. Newsdesks expect a story, usually a front-page lead. It is very difficult for education correspondents to fail to deliver.

Of course, the journalists could have focused on the pass rate at A* - C. A few did. It had risen, although once again the change was tiny.

But, just a week earlier, the media had run the story of the increase in A-level pass-rates. Another story about rising pass rates would have been dull and predictable. So the consensus this time was to focus on the fall in the A* - G pass rate instead.

In a way this was perverse. Although anything above a G grade is technically a 'pass', the government and the media have always in the past focused on grade C and above in targets and league tables.

The other problem with putting so much emphasis on the summer results is that they give neither a final nor a complete picture.

The results only tell us what proportion of exam entries achieved a certain grade. They do not match results to individuals.

More rational world

So we cannot tell from the summer results what proportion of the age group achieved five or more good passes at C or above. Nor can we tell from these figures just how many 16-year-olds failed even to enter for an exam or how many achieved no passes at all.

We have to wait until much later in the year for this comprehensive breakdown of the results. In a more rational world we would not report the exam results until we had this fuller picture.

But August is the cruellest month for news. Although this year it has been busier than most, it is still a time when newsdesks are desperate for stories.

So that is why you should always treat the annual summer examination stories with more than the usual caution.

A fall of 0.3 of a percentage point in the pass-rate is not crisis. It is statistically almost insignificant. If it was part of a trend that had showed over several years that would be different. It was not.

Mature exam

The most that you can say is that just over 2% of GCSE entries fail to get a pass grade. Put that way, it is somehow less shocking.

This is not to deny that there are serious issues to be raised about examination standards. Nor do I subscribe to the often-stated view that the media should focus on the good news not just the bad. It is the media's role to highlight where problems exist and where action is needed.

The broader truth, I believe, is that the GCSE is now a mature examination. It has been around for 16 years. In its early years there was a steady improvement in pass-rates at all levels.

This was partly due to teachers becoming more used to the requirements of the exam. Now that the exam is as old as the students who take it, it is hardly surprising that the results have reached something of a plateau.

From now on we can probably expect slight fluctuations up and down, rather than longer-term trends. So each year we will need even more caution in interpreting a one-year change.

One slightly exasperated teacher told me this week that they were "damned if they did (achieve a higher pass-rate) and damned if they didn't".

I could only sympathise.