Responding to this morning's exam results for GCSEs and vocational technical qualifications (VTQs), Dr Graham Gault, director of school leaders' union, NAHT Northern Ireland, said:

“We warmly congratulate students as they receive their results across a wide range of qualifications.

"These results are testament to young people’s resilience following the pandemic and the hard work of themselves and of all school and college staff.

“These achievements should be celebrated and in no way diminished by the government’s decision to move back to pre-pandemic grading, which was always going to impact overall results.

"The student cohort, the context and the approach to grading has been different every year since 2019 so these results are in no way comparable with previous years.”