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?

[Putneydad7]

journalists have jumped on the statistic that boys had a slightly higher percentage performance in the A/A whilst barely or not mentioning that girls got way more A&A than boys. Only because 20% of boys (the less academic ones typically) dont do a levels then it skews the %ages.
60,000 more girls than boys do A levels. So while we are all patting ourselves on the back saying haven’t the boys done well, crisis over, this patently isn’t true. Maybe the journalists should go back and do some a level maths themselves.
Right rant over

@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

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.

@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

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.