Girls expected to outperform boys again at GCSE

Telegraph

2 days ago

Boys will be outperformed once again in next week's GCSE results, despite them triumphing over girls at A-level, expert analysis has suggested.
Prof Alan Smithers, an academic at the University of Buckingham who forecasts exam results every year, said the chronic underachievement of boys at GCSE should be treated as a ' matter of national concern '.
He said girls' dominance in last year's GCSE results was likely to continue this summer, meaning around 24.7 per cent will receive top grades this year compared to 19.1 per cent of boys.
Pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive their GCSE results on Thursday, a week after A-level results were handed out.
Boys exceeded girls in this year's A-levels for only the third time on modern record, reversing a stable trend of female pupils securing the lion's share of top grades in recent years.
But that turnaround is unlikely to be repeated for GCSEs, according to Prof Smithers, who has called for an official inquiry into the under-performance of boys. Girls were ahead in 42 out of 47 subjects in last year's GCSEs, with boys leading in just five – maths, statistics, economics and 'other sciences'.
Prof Smithers said: 'The chronic under-performance of boys in education should be treated as a major issue. It appears that we are not developing the talents of half the population as fully as we could. This can only lead to a decline in the nation's economic competitiveness and ultimately loss of its standing in the world.'
The Centre for Social Justice, a social mobility think tank, has repeatedly warned that a generation of 'lost boys' is falling behind in education, particularly those from white working-class backgrounds.
'Written off'
Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, said last week that the demographic risked being 'written off' by society, with the Government planning a series of measures to tackle the issue.
Plans include publishing more data on how white pupils are performing, as well as harnessing artificial intelligence to identify schools falling short.
Prof Smithers said he called last year for ministers to investigate the poor performance of boys at GCSE but was met with a 'complacent view' from some critics that 'since men usually came out on top anyway, what's to worry about?'.
He added: 'Our policy-makers seem to be content for the hard evidence of the exam results to be over-ridden by fashionable narratives.'
'Ineluctable force of nature'
The academic expects this year's overall GCSE results to be broadly similar to those seen last year, when more than a fifth – or 21.8 per cent – of all entries were awarded the top grades.
This remained higher than the year before the pandemic in 2019, when 20.8 per cent of GCSE entries scored a grade 7 or above – equivalent to an A in the former marking system – despite efforts to curb grade inflation.
Prof Smithers warned that grade inflation appeared to be becoming baked into the system after top A-level results leapt to a record in a non-pandemic year on Thursday.
'These grades, of course, are not determined by some ineluctable force of nature, but by human decisions,' he said.
Education experts have called for the Government to crack down on creeping grade inflation to stop formal exam results losing their value.
'Soul-destroying'
Prof Smithers also called for an urgent rethink of 'soul-destroying' compulsory re-sits for those who fail their English and maths GCSEs, since figures show those who retake them are likely to be doomed to fail them again and again.
Around a third of pupils fail their English and maths GCSEs each year, and those who choose to stay on for sixth form are required to retake them until they either pass or turn 18. Just over a fifth of pupils who resat their English GCSE passed last year, while 17.4 per cent did the same in maths.
'This puts a big question mark over the efficacy of the re-sit requirement. Although well-intended, it looks to be utterly demoralising to pupils who find difficulty with these GCSEs, whose purpose is different from ensuring the basic grasp of words and numbers that is necessary to cope with life as it is lived,' said Prof Smithers.
Ministers are understood to be considering abolishing mandatory resits for the two subjects as part of Labour's review of the national curriculum. They have faced calls to replace it with a driving license-style certificate showing pupils are competent in the basic skills in English and maths.