Sats results: girls outperforming boys at 11

Figures show more than 20,000 boys will start secondary education at least four years behind the standard expected of the average 11-year-old.

The disclosure came as Sats results confirmed that girls are outperforming boys in almost every area of primary education.

Girls even drew level in mathematics for the first time in recent years – the only subject in which boys have traditionally been stronger.

The findings, in Sats results published by the Department for Education, will add to continuing fears that boys are being left behind at a young age, impacting on their chances of succeeding in later life.

Critics have claimed that an over-emphasis on formal education in the early years interrupts boys’ natural development and they struggle to catch up throughout school, college and university.

Dr Richard House, senior lecturer in psychotherapy at Roehampton University, has warned of a “grave danger” that boys will simply become “disaffected and ‘turn off’ from learning if they experience comparative failure at too young an age”.

"We must face the politically incorrect fact that there exist significant gender differences in children’s development and learning," he said.

By the end of primary school most pupils are supposed to achieve Level 4 in Sats tests.

This means they can read well enough to grasp the point of a story, write extended sentences using commas and add, subtract, multiply and divide in their heads or recite the 10 times table.

According results published on Tuesday, girls again gained better results in both reading and writing tests taken at the end of primary school.

Some 79 per cent of girls reached the standard expected for their age in writing, compared with only 64 per cent of boys. The gap between the two groups widened by one percentage point to 15.

In reading, 85 per cent of girls and 76 per cent of boys hit the national target. The gap – nine percentage points – narrowed slightly on last year.

Figures also showed that 10 per cent of boys were only at Level 2 or below in reading – the standard expected of the average seven-year-old. These pupils struggle to read independently. Only six per cent of girls were at the same level.

Under Labour, schools were encouraged to stock bookshelves with action thrillers and spy novels to get boys more interested in reading.

But the Coalition has criticised the failure to properly identify those struggling the most at a young age.

Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister, has pledged to introduce a new reading test for all six-year-olds to pick out those failing to master reading when they start school.

Boys have traditionally performed better than girls in maths, but today’s figures show 80 per cent of both groups achieved Level 4 in tests.

Last year, 79 per cent of boys hit the target, compared with 78 per cent of girls.

In 2009, ministers scrapped an official primary school science test, although children are still formally assessed by teachers in the classroom over the course of the last year of primary school.

Figures show 86 per cent of girls gained Level 4 in “teacher assessment” scores, compared with 84 per cent of boys.
--By Graeme Paton, 03 Aug 2010