Top sets- girl or boy heavy?

[Hakluyt]

I've just been chatting to ds and his friend. The friend goes to a grammar, ds to a high school (aka secondary modern).

Ds says that the top sets in his school are almost all girls- friend says that at the grammar the classes are roughly 50:50.

Which got me thinking. Both schools are roughly 50:50 so does that mean that the "bright children do well wherever they go" applies to girls more than boys? Or what else might it mean?

[fiftyval]

It could be a reflection of fewer grammar places being available for girls as many grammars are single sex and there is a bias towards more boys schools than girls historically.

[Hakluyt]

That doesn't apply in our area- the number of places is, once again, theoretically 50:50.

[MumTryingHerBest]

Hakluyt Ds says that the top sets in his school are almost all girls is this the same throughout the entire school? The reason I ask this is because my DD has 20 boys and 10 girls in her class (whereas the school overall has a much more equal balance of boys and girls). I would imagine that factor alone would influence the balance.

Is it the same for all lessons? In my DSs class there are more boys in the top group for maths than girls. However, there are more girls in the top group for English.

[Hakluyt]

I asked him specifically about maths and science, and he said they were very girl heavy too. And from what I can see, now my eyes are opened to it, it does seem to be the same across the school. More girls than boys getting 5 a*-c, more girls getting academic prizes...........

[DeWee]

Dd1 says for maths more boys, for English more girls. (in both top sets, arranges across half the year-big comprehensive)

Although from next year they're trialing teaching them in single sex groups. Which I am not happy about because dd1 had been working in maths separately with 3 boys.
The top boys set now has only boys from the top sets, the girls top set has girls from the third set. On the basis this is meant to be encouraging the top girls I am

[MrsZiegler]

dd1 & I were talking about this recently. She's at a comp - top sets - her maths group is 20 boys & 6 girls, in English it is 24 girls & 6 boys. Science & humanities are more even but there are more girls in the top MFL sets.

I can't compare to grammars because all the selective schools locally are single sex. I do know that the school brought in separate achievement awards for girls & boys because the girls were winning most of the academic ones in ks3. I think that by ks4 the difference is less marked though.

[Hakluyt]

Interesting. Are there any more high school parents on here?

[Hakluyt]

And ds went on a g&t MFL trip recently- 10 girls, 2 boys!

[lljkk]

hmm... DC are at 2 different comps & mostly in top sets. I get the impression that their top set subjects are pretty mixed but when GCSE programme starts a huge gender divide opens; stats, iMedia & CompSci are all boy heavy.

[lljkk]

... and I am expecting history & MFL to be girl heavy for GCSE.

[HmmAnOxfordComma]

Ds is at a non-selective independent. The top sets are slightly boy heavy, the bottom sets are very boy heavy. The middle sets are nearly all girls...

But if you look at a single cohort's CATS results, boys will almost always take more of the top and bottom slots with the girls clustered around the middle.

I used to work at a state grammar. Top sets equal for maths/English/science but girl heavy for MFL. Bottom set for English varied from year group to year group - one year the bottom yr 8 set was all boys, the next year 50:50.

I now work in a high achieving comp in a comp area and the top sets (and the G & T list) are very mixed, I think, but interestingly, at KS3 prize giving, the number of girls receiving prizes outweighed boys by about 5:1, so I believe that says a lot about the perceived or actual EFFORT made by the sexes.

[Hakluyt]

This is interesting. So anecdotally,and based on the tiny sample offered by this thread, grammars,comprehensives and other non selectives fit the profile I would expect- top sets 50:50 generally but in science/maths boy heavy, in arts girl heavy.

In a school where the top 23% has been selected out, top sets in general and in all subjects are girl heavy. I've had a look at the figures for our school and it's not just ds's year, it's across the school (I'm a governor, so I have quite detailed figures at my fingertips!). I wonder why this is? I'd love to know whether it's just our school. I hadn't noticed before, because the group of 4 that ds works and competes with consists of 2 boys and 2 girls. But it turns out that the two boys concerned are the only boys in several of the top groups!

[TheWordFactory]

Hak at the school where I'm a governor, our top sets are boy heavy, and conversely so are our bottom sets.

The number of DC with SEN is also boy heavy.

[MumTryingHerBest]

Hakluyt this might be of interest to you:
www.education.com/reference/article/gender-academic-achievement/

[Hakluyt]

What sort of school, Word? You're not going to sink my emerging theory with inconvenient facts are you?

[Emmylou717]

In the top sets I taught last year (Maths) one year 7 was 50:50 the other had an excess of boys. The Year 10 top set had more girls than boys.

Don't forget it will also depend on the make up of the year group. Our new year 7 starting in September has about 60 more boys than girls.

[Emmylou717]

Im in a state school by the way! and yes the bottom sets are also mostly boy heavy.

[peanutbutterandoreos]

DD's school has around 20 boys and 10 girls in each class. The top sets for maths, science and English are all split in this ratio. I guess the results are skewed though because of the higher percentage of boys.

[TheWordFactory]

Comprehensive Hak ... but it has its own challenges. Area of high deprivation and the majoirty of pupils come from a racial/cultural background that has traditionally not valued education for its girls.

So it may not be very indicative of what it happening countrywide IYSWIM ...

[HmmAnOxfordComma]

Just lost a really long post, which basically said:

In the grammar area, parents of clever and/or geeky boys were a lot more concerned about their sons getting in than the clever girls' parents. I'm not sure if that was to do with the worry that the boys needed the grammar environment to do well or, more likely, their concerns about bullying and being picked on for being clever at the sec moderns. As the parent of an uber geek myself, I do think social worries for clever boy children are not unfounded. Clever boys tend to be MORE geeky than clever girls. And they read a lot more too!

[HmmAnOxfordComma]

Sorry totally wrong to say "unfounded ". I don't know if clever boys are picked on in the sec mod that paired up with this grammar.

I meant more understandable.

[Hakluyt]

So we still have my secondary modern as the only school with uniformly girl heavy top sets.

If only there were some more secondary modern parents to provide more data. But this is Mumsnet, after all!

[HmmAnOxfordComma]

I don't know any because we live in the comp part of the county - I travelled to work in a grammar. If I was still there I could have grilled the kids who had siblings at the sec mods!

I would also like to know if in less sought-after comps, those in less desirable areas, those with poor discipline or anti-bullying measures, boys still feature less heavily in top sets.

I suspect so. But have no evidence.

[Clavinova]

I think you are right op - this report from 2003 concludes that comprehensive schools and secondary moderns are better for girls;
//www.bristol.ac.uk/cmpo/publications/papers/2003/wp63.pdf
Measuring Pupil Attainment in English Secondary Schools Atkinson and Wilson 2003.
I think peer pressure is the reason - boys can be "too cool for school".

[BoneyBackJefferson]

Clavinova
"I think peer pressure is the reason - boys can be "too cool for school"."

nice generalisation.