It’s crunch time for the Isle of Man’s 800 GCSE and iGCSE exam students.

Today (Thursday) sees the formal release of their results. However, many already know how their performed in some of their exams, as a number of iGCSE results were released earlier to pupils this month.

But GCSE results are released today and the Department of Education and Children is expected to give an overview and analysis this afternoon. Today will also see a difference in presentation from the way in which students in England get their results.

The Isle of Man is sticking with A* to G grades, but English pupils are set to be graded one to nine, with nine as the highest grade. Wales is sticking mainly with A*G, while in Northern Ireland there will be a new C* grade introduced on it’s A* to G scale. Pupils in Scotland sit Standard Grades instead of GCSEs.

The relevant exam boards offered the Isle of Man a choice of which grading scale to use and it opted to stick with the original formula.

School improvement adviser Joel Smith said: ’There have been considerable changes to the UK grading system this year. There will be turbulence in the UK, no doubt.’

This year may be the last in which the results are spread across more than one date here. As more subjects in the island move over to the International GCSE, following a decision made in 2014, the DEC is considering whether to move to a single results day.

About 40 subjects were covered in the exams sat in this year. As well as the growth in the number of iGCSEs sat, it is the first year in which pupils will receive results from courses such as practical cookery and the PC Passport offered by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA).

These national qualifications involve an ’applied learning’ approach and carry a similar weighting to GCSEs.

The total number of full-course entries was about 7,500, with some additional short course undertaken.

The DEC says that results for the Isle of Man are not directly comparable with those in the UK, where results include mature pupils and students in colleges and independent schools.

In the island, the results data will relate solely to key stage four pupils in secondary schools.

The majority of pupils are expected to continue to further education, either in schools with A-levels or at University College Isle of Man.

In 2016, nearly 55%of pupils joined sixth forms, while more than 30 per cent have enrolled each year at UCM, with about 7% entering employment at 16.

l Tuesday’s Isle of Man Examiner will include coverage, including pupils’ results.