AIBU to be annoyed that the BBC and other news outlets are saying that boys outperformed girls at A level when it simply isn’t true?

Yes and I completely take your point, it's important to have the data to ensure that delivery is as good as it can be for the whole school population. It just makes me cross when the media jumps on it to turn the whole data point collection into a pointless battle.of the sexes.

@TheMousePipes for those in education sector it is important to discuss the gaps, quite significant in some areas between the sexes. It is also important to look at demographic differences and also for children with SEND etc. Some of our children are let down by the system

814,335 A-levels taken by 313,190 students in 137 different subjects.
Number of 18yo in England is approx 680,000 (330k Female, 350k Male)

54% of candidates are female.

So 169,123 females sat A levels this year vs 144,067 males. There are more boys than girls so 51% of all girls sit A levels but only 41% of boys. We know that know that there's a class and race divide in academic performance as well so poor white boys lag behind all other groups. That is what the regional data is telling us as well, the NE is very white and working class.

I know it's exam day and it's August so the media like a silly story but selecting a single statistic that implies the exact opposite of the true situation is either incredibly stupid or wilfully deceptive. Because if we assume that the 41% of boys that sat A levels were the brightest, most supported 41% then the percentage of them that got A star and A should have been much higher relative to the percentage of girls that sat A levels.

@miffmufferedmoof many boys do that anyway, doesn’t matter what metric they are looking at!

I am old, when I was at school it was very much talked about that boys did better than girls. But in those days I think it was mainly because it was all about STEM subjects, boys were encouraged to do A-levels and go to uni (especially studying STEM subjects) and the boys who ended up with no qualifications at all were ignored.

When I became a school governor it was an eye opener to see the actual picture and how many boys were outperformed by girls. Many initiatives that worked to increase performance of the boys also worked to help the girls so the gap never narrowed

I find it frankly fucking bizarre that anyone gives a shit about the correlation between genitalia and attainment.
They worked hard, they did well. ALL our kids deserve a big bear hug of pride for their attainment- not pitting them against each other in some sort of bizarre battle of the sexes.
So the media can get in the bin with their stupid statistics of division.
Well done everyone.

Exactly.

Ignore the siences just teach them to walk without dragging their knuckles as they stumble about. They are after all simply going to grow up to be rapist thugs.

Gospel according to mumsnet

To me it's just the usual headline seeking on results day, when there isn't much of material difference to report on. It's pretty much the same every year, with small variations.

We live in a time of clickbait. A metric that has changed since last year is more likely to get a click than metrics that are the same as last year.

I agree that journalists are often weak on statistical reporting and I think that yabu to assume that the BBC would be a reliable source.

See my post above. It does matter. Schools act on these things. Policies are driven by them. Funding goes into them.

That's why I take no notice of stats. Remember the one about Muhammad being the most popular boys name? Only because virtually every Muslim boy is called Muhammad. You could have 10 boys called
Muhammad
Bob
Dave
Ed
Steve
John
Paul
Ringo
George
Muhammad.
10 boys, 2 called Muhammad and therefore Muhammad is the most popular.
Same with these exam results. It's all in the numbers.

Why does it matter?

I agree OP. You had to read the BBC article pretty carefully to understand that, taken as a whole (rather than just the ones who sat A levels), girls are still doing better than boys at college age academic qualifications.
I’m sure if my 14 yo son read it, he’d have a little brag about boys being better than girls

Of course it matters. It matters that journalists use statistics, and it matters what those statistics are, because statistics like these drive changes in focus in schools.

Those 'boy mums' wanting the boys to have a win, do you want the education system to say 'Right - boys are now achieving equally with girls, so we can stop looking at ways to increase engagement and attainment in boys'? And ignore the fact that 60,000 fewer boys are even taking A Levels?

Massaging the truth doesn't actually help anyone in the long run.

But people are saying the headline is correct if you are not looking at one metric. Different metrics give different results.

This is the problem right here. Ordinary people getting sucked into pitting our boys and girls against each other. Loving parents talking about academic attainment in terms of 'wins'. This nonsense has leaked out of the manosphere and into everyday life.

That's not the point. The statistics don't take away from any individual boys achievement. They exist to show us patterns and trends so we get an insight into any issues that may need addressing. If there are discrepancies between the academic achievements of the sexes that needs reporting accurately. Not so 'boy mums' or 'girl mums' get to 'have this one', but so we understand if there's a problem and we need to make changes or target efforts differently towards girls or boys so neither are disproportionately failed by the system.

I can’t believe some people think it’s ok to not give correct facts and statistics. Wow!

Yes as soon as I read it was about A-levels I thought what a useless statistic because only a proportion of people go on to do A-levels if they are generally more academic anyway.

Well clearly the boys are now not behind so surely we should be congratulating them rather than the usual male bashing on here?

You're being unreasonable to expect rational, fact based journalism from the BBC.

The headline is accurate. Using raw numbers instead of percentages would be a daft metric to use when comparing two groups.

It'd be like saying that English students outperformed Welsh ones by a huge margin...because there are loads more students in England (when Welsh students did better on average).

Not only a very petty thread, but wrong-headed to boot.

I completely agree. The amount of misinformation that is EVERYWHERE because both the media and the general public have no basic grasp of statistics or data interpretation is shocking. Knowing the difference between Correlation vs Causation when looking at graphs is also another one. People struggle to understand per capita figures as well.