Gender Gap

 

Boys are falling further behind girls at 15 years of age - with the gap in academic results having widened over the past seven years.

Schools are blaming this on a lack of maturity in the boys.

In addition, girls are leading the surge in the number of teens taking - and excelling in - tough science subjects, traditionally an area where boys have flourished.

The trend is somewhat surprising in that recent higher results have shown boys closing the gap in top grades. Boys appear good at focusing on a means to an end and therefore fight to get good grades to get in to university.  But it appears that at a younger level some of the maturity that girls have is missing in their male counterparts, and that boys can't see an obvious reason to aim for the very best grades.

Girls are out performing boys in other traditionally male subjects such as statistics and engineering, so we appear to have moved away from the sense that science is gender-specific, thereby encouraging girls to believe that they can do just as well in science.

We firmly believe that it is all to do with individuals - which is of course why Step Ahead can make such a difference because of our one-to-one approach - and with our carefully-matched and chosen tutor assessment system !

 

Comments

[Wendy Baker]

I can see it, my eight year old son acts quite a bit more immature than his girlfriends and class mates.