For the first time girls are outperforming boys in the A-level exams.

In this year's results - which students get on Thursday - there has again been a general rise in achievement, continuing an 18-year improvement.

The Joint Council for General Qualifications, the umbrella body for exam boards in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, insists that standards are being maintained.

The number of exam entries also went up slightly, even though there has been a drop in the number of 18 year olds.

And there is evidence that the curriculum is already getting broader, with a marked increase in the numbers taking AS-levels but no corresponding decrease in those taking A-levels.

Click below for complete subject-by-subject tables of all the results at:

• A-level
• AS-level
• Advanced GNVQ

For the first time the joint council has published its breakdown of the results by gender, highlighting the girls' performance.

Most A-level entries were from female candidates - 54% against 46% from males.

The number of girls awarded A grades was 18.1%, up from 17.4%. The figure for boys was 17.5%, unchanged from last year.

Girls were also awarded more Bs and Cs - 19.9% and 21.8% respectively, compared to 18.2% and 20.6% of boys.

But boys got more of the lower passes, at D and E - 18.7% and 13.1% respectively, against 18.3% and 12% for females.

More opt for computing

The number of A grades rose from 17.5% to 17.8%. The proportion of all pass grades was up by just over half of one percentage point, to 89.1%.

The overall number of exams sat rose slightly - by 1,298 to 784,990. This total is larger than the total in the tables because they are broken down by gender and several thousand candidates did not give their gender on their papers.

The figures also confirm the rising popularity of subjects such as computing, information technology (IT), psychology and sociology.

At A-level, computing/IT entries were up 11.4%, at AS-level they were up by a quarter, and the Advanced GNVQ in IT had 8.4% more candidates.

There has been a continuing fall in the number of entries for modern languages and for sciences - although biology and chemistry are still in the "top five" most popular subjects, below general studies, English and maths.

Click here to see the "popularity" table.

Supplementary exams more popular

AS-levels, up in popularity this year by 9.6%, are set to become much more important in sixth forms from this September.

As part of the new curriculum, first year sixth formers will be expected to do four or five one-year AS-level subjects, narrowing their choice in the second year when they choose which courses to do for A-level.

But there was a drop of 11.8% in the numbers of entries for Advanced GNVQs, being made more rigorous and re-named Vocational A-levels from this year.

But it is believed students are taking other vocationally-oriented exams such as BTECs - being promoted heavily this summer by one of the main English exam boards, Edexcel.

This year's rise in the number of A grades continues an unbroken run of improvement stretching back to 1990.

Since then, the proportion of entries achieving A grades has risen from 11.6% to 17.8%.

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