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Across the country 20.7 per cent of grades were at A* or A, an increase of 1.2 percentage points on last year.

More than 65.7 per cent of grades were at A* to C, up from 63.3 per cent last year.

Secondary schools across Yorkshire on a Government hitlist for raising standards will also discover today whether they have reached a target for getting pupils to achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths.

The Government expects all schools to get at least 30 per cent of students to reach this benchmark by 2011. Last year's GCSE results saw 638 secondary schools, including 82 in Yorkshire, failing to make the grade.

This summer Ministers launched the National Challenge initiative which gave these schools just 50 days to draw up plans showing how they intended to transform results or risk being closed and replaced by a new academy or trust school.

David Youg Community Academy was one of the schools on this list but today staff and pupils were celebrating after 33 per cent of students reached the benchmark.

Elsewhere Myers Grove School in Sheffield has passed the 30 per cent mark but at least five more schools in the city have failed to meet the Government target.

Yorkshire's best performing schools have celebrated record success today. Ermysted Grammar School saw 100 per cent of its pupils get seven good GCSE passes and 71 per cent of marks result in grade As.

The Skipton school's headteacher Tom Ashworth said: "We have enjoyed our best results for a while in terms of the number of A* and A grades. We are exceptionally pleased." St Aidan's CE High School in Harrogate saw its best ever results with more than 90 per cent of students achieving five A* to C including English and maths.

Nationally, there was a massive slump in the numbers of pupils taking information technology - with entries down by more than 14,000.

Modern languages also took another hit, with French and German both suffering drops in entries. French was down by 6.8% on last year while German fell by 5.4%.

There was also movement in science entries, which officials put down to changes to the science curriculum.

This year the science double award has been abolished and replaced by two separate qualifications, science and additional science.

Today's results showed that fewer candidates were taking additional science than previously took the double award.

But there were increased entries in the separate sciences, with biology up by 35.3%, chemistry up 29.4% and physics up 29.1%.

There were also small improvements in English and maths results this year.

The overall pass rate for the proportion of teenagers scoring at least a grade G rose by 0.4 percentage points this year to 98.4%.

Jim Sinclair, director of the Joint Council for Qualifications, said: "Once again, we have seen a welcome increase in results at GCSE despite the lowest entry for five years. This is evidence of the hard work of the students and the continued dedication of their teachers.

"The core subjects at GCSE continue to dominate and still account for almost half of the full course entry."

Dr Mike Cresswell, director general of the exam board AQA, said the reason for the fall in exam candidates was partly due to a drop in the number of 16-year-olds across the country.

But he said students seemed to be focusing on fewer GCSEs which could also explain rising grades.

"Some young people are focusing their efforts on fewer GCSEs. That has been a trend that has been happening since 2003."

He said the average number of GCSEs taken per student had fallen from just over eight in 2003 to just under eight this year.

Another contributing factor was an increase in the number of students who took English and maths exams early, in November, and are not included in today's figures.

Dr Cresswell said the fall in candidates taking French and German suggested those languages were losing popularity, compared with Spanish, which has seen entries rise.

But he added that grades in French and German were increasing which suggested a select group of "motivated and talented" students were choosing those courses.

Changes to science exams have increased the number taking single science which looks at biology, chemistry and physics in less depth than studying them singularly.

Dr Cresswell said the number completing additional science. Which replaces double science, had dropped, but pass rates improved, again suggesting those who took the exams were better suited to the subject.

The North East, which showed the smallest increase in A-level results last week, had reason to celebrate today.

A regional breakdown showed the region had the greatest improvement in C grades, of 11.3%.

It also had the second biggest improvement in A grades, 5.3%. Only London saw a greater increase, 5.5%.

Tabuilated results will appear in the Yorkshire Post from Friday.

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