I thought girls performed better at school than boys?

[potentialqualms]

Have I got that wrong? I though overall girls did better at GCSE, although possibly not in Maths and Science?

At our infant school there's a massive gap between the achievement of girls and boys, with 20% more boys than girls achieving higher than expected at the end of KS1 in Maths and 15% in English. Apologies if I've got the terminology wrong, I'm no expert.

Anyway, this appears to be the next focus area with parents of girls being invited to meetings and family learning opportunities. The school seem to have decided that in our area (think Towie ) boys are encouraged and expected to do well and girls are still treated as little princesses at home and not expected to worry their pretty little heads with things like school work. there's definitely an inference that the problem stems from the home. I am but is it common?

In my experience girls usually out do the boys at every level at all levels of social class. What is happening in your child's school is very unusual.

Think boys fall behind at about 14 as they couldn't care less at that stage and girls like to be competitive with each other then. I think a lot of 14 year old boys mums will know what l mean here!

Statistically boys are behind in every age group.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1559989/Boys-underachieving-at-school-says-study.html

I don't think I am in favour of boys having more resources than girls. Having a dick or being bone idle is not a special need.

This year girls have done much better than boys at KS1 expect in maths where it is only slightly higher. There are more high retaining girls in all areas as well, except maths where there are more higher attaining boys.

However cohorts vary. You could have more girls with SEN or English as an additional language. The cohort could be small. There could be more boys that girls so each girl would be a greater percentage.

Loads of reasons- that is why you need to look at trends.

Our primary school has been giving the boys extra lessons to get them up to speed because they were so far behind the girls. Maybe its the same where you are?

I believe the Government have been pushing for more intervention with boys underachieving at an earlier age. If they get them early enough it will greatly improve their chances of passing their GCSE's and A Levels.

14 year old boys couldn't care less?! Really??

More of a case of schools and parents accepting that attitude and labelling boys, lack of support at home and in the classroom plus and education system that isn't always geared up for boys.

IME many teenage boys are focused and motivated-get their work done, tick the boxes and then do what they want. The 14 year old girls - hair, make up, boys, social media etc, dramas.

OP it's unusual the situation you describe but fantastic the school are addressing it!

14 year old boys couldn't care less?! Really??

More of a case of schools and parents accepting that attitude and labelling boys, lack of support at home and in the classroom plus and education system that isn't always geared up for boys.

IME many teenage boys are focused and motivated-get their work done, tick the boxes and then do what they want. The 14 year old girls - hair, make up, boys, social media etc, dramas.

OP it's unusual the situation you describe but fantastic the school are addressing it!

Giving children who are behind extra lessons should be done regardless of the sex of the child. I have issue with schools who focus extra resources on a child just because they have a penis.

My daughter's class has some high achieving boys and some low achieving boys. It also has some high girls and low achieving girls. Low achieving girls deserve exactly the same level of support as low achieving boys.

I could see sense in saying that every child who has failed their keystage 1 reading, maths or grammar test has extra support after school to help them reach the required standard. Any extra intervention should be available to both sexes.

Is there a single sex selective girls' school nearby OP? But nothing similar for boys?

Kinda odd in my opinion too. Maybe it's a freaky cohort or indeed they have reason to believe that the girls themselves think that all that matters is being pretty. Maybe there are lots of dominant boys or something too.
I've never noticed much difference between boys and girls attainment at our school, but the stats are clear overall.

DS1's primary class has a group of very bright boys, DS2's is not very obvious. I think generally girls can sit dow to do works ealier, so maybe have a better start. Boys tend to like moving around, so start to focus on works a bit late.

what is statistically true across the whole country isn't going to hold for every individual school

How big is the school? Our local primary only has an intake of 20, so every child is 5% of the SATs results IYSWIM. A couple of very high (or low) achieving children or a boy/girl heavy year group can really skew the stats with small numbers.

I must live fairly near to you and I have often encountered parents who support their sons' education while saying that their daughters just need a job to tide them over until they marry well.
Although, to be fair, girls and boys have very similar attainment levels at the end of KS2.

As said by longlost although it's true averaged across the whole of the UK that girls do better, there are going to differences in individual schools and year groups.
At KS1 results can still be dependent on the age of pupils - are there more girls with August birthdays as that could be a factor? If the numbers on roll are small there can be significant differences for a small number of pupils with SEN.

In most countries girls do better than boys. Girls even do better in backward countries where women are treated unfairly.

Women are the academically stronger sex except for genius level academic achievement. Interestingly there are more men with exceptional IQ than women and more men with learning difficulties. The average overal IQ for the sexes are similar.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30933493

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_intelligence