Educational Attainment: Boys

Viscount Younger of Leckie Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Grand Committee

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, this has been a short but fascinating debate, and I thank my noble friend Lord Lingfield for raising this important and complex issue. I shall start by setting out what we know about the issues affecting boys’ performance at school and describing the measures that we are putting in place to address many of the problems.

We have known for decades that boys develop at a different rate from girls and that there are certain areas of the curriculum, such as English, in which girls tend to outperform boys, but it is only in recent years that a pervasive gender attainment gap has begun to open up in state schools in England, with girls now outperforming boys at all educational stages and in most curriculum subjects. The gap opens early and persists—indeed widens—through school. Let me give some statistics. Last year, 75.4% of five year-old girls achieved the expected levels for all the early learning goals, compared with 59.7% of boys. As my noble friend Lord Lingfield said, at the end of primary school, 50% of boys—I think that he said 49%—and 57% of girls achieved the expected standard in reading, writing and maths. By the end of secondary school, girls outperformed boys across all the GCSE headline measures. I could give more statistics that confirm this pattern.

As a result, it is not surprising that boys are less likely to go on to further study at 16 or to apply to university, but let us look at the reasons why. What is clear is that the early years are critical. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised the issue of research, which highlights stark differences in early cognitive and social development. Girls start school with more advanced social and behavioural skills and, for example, more well-developed language and attention skills, which have been shown to account for two-thirds of the gender gap in reading observed at age 11. While girls outperform boys across all major ethnic groups, there is considerable variation. Boys from particular ethnic backgrounds, including Chinese and Indian, do much better than others, notably white British and black Caribbean boys.

As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, boys are much more likely than girls to be identified as having special educational needs, although he also said that the underdiagnosis of SEN among girls may also be an issue. There is a much higher incidence among boys of social, emotional and mental health needs, speech, language and communications needs and autistic spectrum disorder. Boys are much more likely than girls to be temporarily or permanently excluded from school, yet it is not clear from research evidence whether negative behaviour in school is a cause of poorer academic attainment or one of its consequences. Similarly, there is a lack of good research into how educational outcomes are affected by family structures and, in particular, the absence of a male role model. One recent study found that families with single mothers are associated with greater gender gaps in children’s non-cognitive skills, but it did not look at academic attainment.

My noble friend Lord Farmer asked what was being done to improve the rates of active fatherhood and how we are supporting families to prevent family breakdown. There can be no doubt that parental conflict causes heartache and damages children’s upbringing, potentially harming their opportunities well into the future. We now understand more about the mechanism through which children’s outcomes are affected by parental conflict and that it impacts directly on children’s well-being, as well as getting in the way of good parenting. We must make reducing conflict between parents our priority, regardless of whether they are together or separated. That means making support to reduce parental conflict a part of local provision. To achieve that, we will continue to work with local authorities to help them to embed this work into local services.

We understand the importance of both mothers and fathers to children’s future outcomes, regardless of whether couples are together or separated, but we often hear that services are less likely to identify men as parents and to consider them as having responsibilities to their children. We are ensuring that both mothers and fathers are supported through our parental conflict work and will look at whether more can be done to ensure that services recognise fathers and help them to play a full and active role in their children’s lives.

International studies suggest that boys and girls differ in their behaviour and attitudes towards school and academic study. Girls are more likely to use self-regulation strategies, to do their homework and to respond to school work more positively. Noble Lords may agree that this is a rather obvious conclusion. However, the impact of school factors on the gender attainment gap is not obvious. There is some research that shows no conclusive link between the size of the gap and overall school performance. However, we know that schools with little or no gap have a positive attitude to study, high expectations of all pupils, excellent teaching and classroom management and rigorous tracking of individual pupils’ achievement.

Some common assumptions about boys’ underperformance in school are not supported by evidence. For example, there is no evidence that the emphasis on coursework at GCSE, which has been thought to be a factor favouring girls, has adversely affected boys. Similarly, some people have suggested that boys are held back by a lack of male teachers, particularly in primary schools, but there is no conclusive evidence to back this up.

My noble friend Lord Farmer asked what was being done to increase the number of male teachers, especially in certain hot spots where there might be more of a plethora of lone parents. Current data show that in 2015 there were more than 119,000 male teachers, full-time equivalent, compared to 115,000 in 2011. Men comprise 26% of teachers in state-funded schools in England, a proportion that has remained broadly stable over time. We are aware of concerns around the number of male teachers in our classrooms and we want all schools to be able to recruit high-quality teachers, regardless of their gender, since evidence shows that quality of teaching is the single most important factor in determining how well pupils achieve. Research has not found that the gender of teachers has a differential effect on boys and girls, but we will continue to monitor the composition of the teaching workforce by gender and will consider what if any steps would be appropriate to increase the number of men entering the profession.

Having set out the scale and nature of boys’ underperformance and briefly described its causes, I now turn to how the Government are tackling this issue. We are committed to tackling educational underachievement wherever it exists, not by targeting specific pupil groups but by setting high expectations for all pupils and building a self-improving school system offering world-class education to every pupil. I begin with the early years—which are so important, as the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said. Every three year-old and four year-old is entitled to 15 hours per week of free early education. Numbers of qualified staff and graduates in the early years workforce are rising, and we have introduced early years teachers, who must meet the same entry qualification requirements as teachers of older children. At primary school, we have introduced a stretching national curriculum with higher standards in English and maths so that all pupils secure the basics in literacy and numeracy by age 11. At secondary school, through the English baccalaureate, we have set a strong expectation that all pupils will receive a rigorous academic education that prepares them for further study and employment.

Beyond the core curriculum, we want to ensure that all pupils can develop essential life skills—qualities such as resilience, perseverance and self-control. We actively encourage schools to develop these qualities in their pupils through activities such as team sports, volunteering, arts, drama and cadet training. I am minded of the anecdote that my noble friend Lord Lingfield mentioned at the beginning of his speech.

Our vision for a self-improving schools system is fast becoming a reality. The growing network of teaching schools and multi-academy trusts ensures that schools can collaborate and be supported to raise standards. We are working hard to create a sustainable pipeline of high-quality head teachers and school leaders, and have put in place reforms to improve teaching quality at all levels. My noble friend Lady Bloomfield highlighted the importance of good teachers and Teach First. I also acknowledge the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about the need for more experienced teachers in deprived schools. He is, of course, quite right.

However, while there are now nearly 1.8 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools than in 2010, there are still a million pupils in schools which are inadequate or require improvement. A good school place remains out of reach for too many, particularly those from less well-off families. The ban in place since 1998 on opening new selective schools makes it harder to create good school places and limits access to the most stretching academic education to those who can afford to move near to existing grammar schools or pay for independent schooling. That is why we propose to scrap the ban on new grammar schools and allow them to open where parents want them, with strict conditions to make sure they improve standards in local schools and beyond. However, recognising that highly academic routes are not for everyone, we are also reforming technical education, offering training for highly skilled occupational areas such as engineering and manufacturing, health, science, construction and digital. We continue to develop the increasingly popular apprenticeships route, with which noble Lords will be familiar, through a strong partnership between government and industry, equipping young people with the skills that employers need to grow.

I am fast running out of time. A very important point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, on the link with poverty. If I had more time, I would speak about that. I shall write to her and copy in all noble Lords who took part in the debate, because there is a link and some very important messages there which we are aware of and need and seek to address.

To conclude, as my noble friend Lord Lingfield said so eloquently, this is a complex topic. I think that all noble Lords recognised that there are no quick fixes, yet the far-reaching reforms of education set in train by this Government, covering the early years right through to higher education, are equipping schools with the tools to tackle these entrenched issues. I passionately believe in the transformative power of high-quality education, that that is a right for all children—both boys and girls—and that strong leaders in good schools are in a unique position to make it happen. Above all, and as noble Lords said, there is undoubtedly more work to be done to tackle these issues. The focus of the Secretary of State for Education must be and is on the 1 million boys and girls stuck in underperforming schools and how to ensure that each one is able to reach their potential. Only then can her and the Prime Minister’s unerring focus on improved social mobility truly become a reality.