Girls still do better than boys at GCSE

The publication of exam results shows that the gender gap is narrowing but that girls are still doing better than boys.

The national figures, published by the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) also show that 73.1 per cent of girls were awarded at least a C grade, compared to 64.7 per cent of boys.

This is a gap of 8.4 percentage points, compared with 8.8 percentage points last summer. The A*-C pass rate for girls has not changed since last year, while the percentage of boys gaining at least a C rose by 0.4 per cent from last year’s 64.3 per cent.

Girls also got more A*s, with eight per cent of them achieving the top mark, compared to just 5.2 per cent of boys. This year is the first since 2010 that the girls’ lead over boys in A*-C grades has dropped.

Commenting on the narrowing gender gap, Brian Lightman, General Secretary at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said that girls do better at coursework as boys tend to rush it.

He added: “The boys’ underachievement has often been because boys tend to do things at the last minute, so you need to be sitting there and keeping the pressure up.” Asked what could have led to boys doing better, he continued: “They (teachers) have worked very hard, they have used the data very effectively. They’ve used strategies - there has been a lot of research carried out into effective strategies that motivate boys and that help them to achieve better. And you can call them interventions or support, or various types of things, and that has enabled boys to achieve better.

“The other aspect of it is the coursework element because girls did better at coursework.”

Cherry Ridgway, curriculum and assessment specialist at ASCL, said: “There is some compelling research which shows that in general girls perform better on controlled assessment and coursework, and boys perform better in their exams.”

The subjects traditionally taken by each have remained more or less the same. Boys made up 94.7 per cent of those taking construction, followed by 92.6 per cent taking engineering and 84.2 per cent sitting engineering exams. While girls accounted for 93.4 per cent of those taking health and social care and 88.1 per cent of those taking home economics.