Right - Primary aged girls and Maths

[CatKisser]

I've been looking at the list of children I'm teaching in September and once again, the highest achieving children in Maths are all boys. Every single one. Don't get me wrong, they're nice boys, but I'm so frustrated and really wondering why this is the case.

Two things stand out to me.

1. At parents' evenings, its crazy how many mums tell me "she's not great at Maths, I never was either. She's more into her writing." And they're talking about intelligent girls with bags of potential.

2. I find many of the girls I've taught struggle when it comes to investigations and open ended challenges. It comes with practice, but I do get the impression many of them would just prefer to have a nice page of sums where they can get a nice set of green ticks...

I was talking to a colleague today who claimed it's simply the fact that girls and boys are wired differently, which I totally disagree with, but I felt I couldn't give a coherent argument in return.

Can anyone, teachers or not, shed any light on this or offer any comment? For the record, I'm very proud of my Maths teaching and put a lot of time into making interesting lessons with a wide range of challenge, and our results are great.

noddingoff there's definitely studies on how long people give toddlers to solve problems depending on whether the child is seen as a boy or girl (often the same one in different clothes) - also observational ones of how close parents hover to boys versus girls when say climbing high climbing frames, or say "be careful" to boys versus girls. Generally adults fret at girls more even when they think they arent - supported by my own informal research in the local playground when bored rigid...

It's too early to tell about groups at my life's schools, but the school does put a lot of effort into engaging parents with what they are teaching the kids and how, so they can help their own children - every week there's two days where parents of 2 year groups get free tea and cake and get to do a fun activity and learn about literacy/math things, and younger siblings can come too. Seems to get a lot of parents involved who admit they never understood maths at school but are now giving it a go.

I've been giving this some thought today. I have boy/girl twins entering year 3. They've been in the same class since they started school, so I assume have been taught similarly. I'm a scientist and use maths daily, certainly no throwing up of hands and saying I'm rubbish at maths from me. Or DH for that matter. DS is more able in maths and reading, DD ahead in writing.

Their school had an evening last year to encourage a positive attitude towards maths which was good, particularly in explaining current techniques in teaching. I was, however, taken aback at the assumption that as a parent I had a negative attitude towards maths, and it was certainly more directed at me than my husband.

I'd say their biggest difference is in attitude, DD is keen to do well and be praised. DS does enough to get his work done but isn't very inclined to put effort in.

Google "stereotype threat" - you should find quite a few articles on it, and many will specifically look at girls and maths. (I do worry about the effect of all the reports on boys being bad at literacy, too.)

There are cultural differences - it's a bigger problem in countries like the USA, UK, Australia, western Europe - where maths is considered a "boys subject".

I would be wanting to beat any parent round the head if they came out with comments like, "she's just like me, I was never any good at maths" - but then I suppose I was brought up by my family, with a grandmother who read maths at Cambridge (before women were awarded full degrees), and there was never any truck with comments like that. We were expected to be good at maths, just as some girls in other families are expected to be bad at maths, and we live up to those expectations.

Whatever the reasons, it's not going to be something we fix overnight, but we can all help in not perpetuating damaging stereotypes.

Cordelia Fine is fab.

I have nothing useful to add on this but (and I really hope this doesn't sound patronizing) I am so thrilled you are thinking about this and asking the question. It's great that teachers, who play such a vital role in our children's lives and have such influence, want to understand the different factors at play here and not just to dismiss it as 'girls being wired differently'.

Gives me real confidence that we are moving in the right direction.

I'm going to take a massive leap here, but I wonder if thee anxiety about "getting it right" is somehow related to the socialisation of girls "to be good". Girls, on the general, tend to be encouraged to be good girls, to behave, to adhere to a set of rules, while boys can be "naughty" and it gets brushed off in a complimentary way "oh he's got so much energy". So from the beginning, girls learn that there are rules and they should stick to them if they want to be "good girls" (to be loved?). So if they face an open ended, unstructured problem, they might panic because they can't see the rules or the structure, which in their heads translates as they won't be able to follow them, therefore won't be good girls.

Just total amateurish psychology on my part, but...

I think there's probably quite a lot in that - but girls are "meant" to be good at English, and writing stories and so on can be quite unstructured.

Couldn't that be because part of being socialised to "be nice" involves social conversations and thus, being a good communicator?

'We were expected to be good at maths, just as some girls in other families are expected to be bad at maths, and we live up to those expectations.'

DD was/is being brought up in precisely that atmosphere but really does struggle with maths.

Being fine at maths yourself can make it difficult to see how to help a struggling child.

OP, this came up on my feed today and made me think of you. It's about the importance of having a growth mindset, of not being afraid to get it wrong and figuring it out. Maybe you could play the video to your class.

www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/95208400815/the-learning-myth-why-ill-never-tell-my-son-hes?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=All%20Parents&utm_campaign=Sal%20Op-ed%20Email%20%28Parents%29

Oh wow - so many more responses.
Going to have a big old read...

I understand tha anecdotes and facts presented here, but my experiences are different, my daughter has always enjoyed maths and just achieved A* in her GCSE, nothing stealth about my boast, sorry. Anyway at primary and secondary she has been classes with an almost 50/50 split.

My son a few years younger is also secure with maths and he is an avid reader, not sure what this adds really but i find the discussion interesting.

Posted oo soon...

I think the view that girls like to get thing wrong, which happend more easily in maths, may have something to do with it.

My dd had a massive problem in year 4, was troubles for two weeks, my dh and i thought she was being bullied, or worse and then one evening she confided in me. She was struggling with a concept in maths for the first time and was really worried. Sounds daft but it really upset her. We worked on her resiliance since then!

My ds at the same age, just as able but much happier to struggle with a problems in maths.

Just my thoughts, not very well formed but there you go.

Up against a different problem, trying to keep DS1 focussed on English when he likes Maths much more and so do me and DH - and ds1 knows that too.

We had an INSET on this today: mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/index.html

Basically, even if the girl has a 'growth' mindset, if the messages she's getting at home, school, or both are 'fixed' mindset, that will affect her. I also read some learning theory research when I was training that said teachers tend to give different feedback to girls and boys - success by girls at Maths is put down to hard work, success by boys to 'talent'.

At my (secondary) school we do v. well in Maths, probably partly because it is a girls' school (with a majority of female Maths teachers).

Mind you, DH just pointed out that my DM constantly says how bad she is at Maths but somehow I came out with A at A level and a degree in a quantitative subject.

Phineyj for a minute there I thought you were a teacher at my school because we had INSET about 'growth' mindsets today too, but we're a mixed comprehensive rather than a girls' school. We do very well with Maths too, and this year the girls got better results than the boys (last year the boys did better - they're always very similar but we keep an eye on the gender bias)