Teenagers across the UK are waking up to their GCSE results, amid concerns that the exams are failing to prepare pupils for the future.
Experts have predicted another bumper crop of results, with a possible two thirds of entries achieving at least a C grade.
Last year 65.7% of exam entries were awarded at least a C and more than a fifth (20.7%) were given an A* or A grade.
Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said the proportion of entries scoring a top grade could be nearer 22% this year.
But as pupils prepared to begin their celebrations, one union leader warned that GCSEs were still "selling students short".
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), said many pupils would have achieved good grades at the expense of learning skills which would help them in the future.
She said: "In our exam-obsessed system students are taught to pass tests, rather than encouraged to learn skills.
"Our exam system is particularly ill-suited to helping young people develop their creativity, initiative, team-working, problem-solving and reasoning skills which they need in work and to continue in higher education."
The unrelenting focus on exams was failing the two fifths of young people who do not pass five GCSEs, she said.
"They continue to be spat out of an education system which has no room to develop their skills and talents and so completely fails to meet their needs."
