Students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received their GCSE results last week. Anxious teachers, students, relatives and friends took to Twitter to express fear, joy, disappointment and frustration as the proportion of top grades fell for the second consecutive year.

Could you make a difficulty inflation index by making the same students sit exams from multiple years - in some subjects? #GCSE

@NoelForrest

Why couldn’t I have taken my #GCSE’s last year? missed 3 a’s, 3 b’s and c’s because of the tougher boundaries lol

@thespecklet

My school actually forgot it was results day and we all had to wait a good couple of hours for our results. #lol #gcse

@Marisa_Loraine

My sister actually has a brain lol who knew??????? #gcse

@zoeeemay.