Study

last updated:November 2002

How are some schools tackling the differences in achievement between girls and boys?

Whilst not all researchers agree about the level and extent of the ‘problem’ of boys’ underachievement or even, (see Gorard, 2001), whether the ‘problem’ exists at all, nevertheless teachers have expressed considerable concern about this issue. The research featured this month shows how some schools are tackling perceived differences in achievement between boys and girls by drawing on the experiences of teachers in 19 case study schools. The researchers explore three approaches in a way in which we hope teachers will find interesting and potentially useful for their own practice.

What did this study aim to do?

Recent studies (eg, Noble and Bradford, 2000; Bleach et al, 1998) have highlighted concerns about the relatively slower rate of achievement of boys compared with girls in our schools. Little large-scale research has so far been undertaken into the implementation of approaches in schools and their evaluation. Whilst some studies (eg, Gorard et al, 2001) try to unpack and, to some extent, challenge perceptions about boys’ achievement relative to girls, the concerns remain widespread. What do we know about the most effective ways of tackling these concerns? This study explores how far teachers have been successful in addressing them.

The study was carried out by researchers from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), and was funded by the Local Government Association (LGA). It began with a survey of LEAs - 83 of which identified schools showing good practice in their attempts to address gender differences in performance among their pupils (Sukhnandan et al, 2000). The researchers selected 19 of these schools as case study sites for Phase 2 of the project, which is summarised here.

They collected data from the schools to evaluate just how successful their specific approaches were. Although it is never possible to generalise from case studies, we believe that the examples provided will offer teachers some useful insights into approaches that other teachers have found effective. The preliminary survey and evidence collection processes serve to verify that the practice was perceived as effective by those involved and was linked to positive results.

Whilst this provides a useful starting point, further testing of such perceptions through comparative trials carried out by teacher or academic researchers would be useful. We would be very glad to hear from readers who may be involved in such activities.

The study focuses on three sets of approaches identified as important in the Phase 1 report and discusses the benefits and issues arising from their implementation. The report presents a ‘menu’ of approaches from which teachers may be able to find helpful examples.

What did the research reveal?

The study identified three types of interventions that were followed by improvements in learning. It also analysed the processes involved in the implementation of these approaches. Details of how the approaches were put into practice in schools and how teachers felt they improved boys’ achievement can be found on the following pages:

• teaching single-sex classes or groups at secondary level
• mentoring and role modelling by adults, including teachers within the school, and other pupils, at secondary level
• additional literacy support from adult volunteers from outside school at primary level.

The importance of these strategies in addressing the underachievement of boys was also identified in a separate teacher research case study based on a pyramid of primary schools.

The majority of teachers were found to be supportive of the type of intervention implemented in their school, particularly when they had been closely involved in the decision to adopt the policy. Despite the benefits, the strategies did create some tensions for most teachers and they are presented on the pages highlighted above.

How helpful are single-sex approaches to teaching?

Eight secondary schools had adopted teaching single-sex classes as a strategy for a variety of reasons including that it was thought to offer:

• a practical way of targeting boys without jeopardising girls’ performance
• an opportunity to improve boys’ perceptions regarding ‘feminine’ subjects like English
• an opportunity to enhance girls' competence in ‘masculine’ subjects like science
• the possibility of challenging the anti-learning subculture among boys.

In many of the schools, the key to improving boys’ performance lay in improving boys’ attitudes. As one headteacher said: “We wanted to overcome the culture that states they cannot be seen to be successful without losing their street cred.”

Teachers in the schools believed that:

• levels of motivation and behaviour improved
• boys developed positive perceptions of ‘feminine’ subjects like English among boys
• both boys and girls were more willing to contribute to lessons
• boys’ achievement improved.

One teacher reported: 'I now have a group of boys for whom it ‘s OK to like English. There’s been a change in the way boys are viewing English.'

Despite the benefits, this approach did cause tensions for some teachers who observed that:

• in single-sex classes boys and girls missed out on one another’s approaches to learning, perspective and opinions
• some all-boy classes were very demanding in terms of behaviour management.

How was single-sex teaching implemented?

Who was targeted?

In six of the eight schools, teachers targeted underachieving pupils in Key Stage 4 using a combination of test results, examination predictions and teacher judgement. Underachievers were usually defined as those on the C – D grade GCSE borderline. In selecting classes, most schools tended to focus on middle and/or lower ability pupils, although one school chose high ability sets and another extended the strategy to all pupils in the year. Most schools also concentrated on English although one included all subjects in their strategy.

What did teachers do?

Teachers modified their lesson structures and teaching methods to meet the needs of their pupils. This was particularly true for all-boy classes where staff aimed to address boys' learning styles. At Applewood School, for example, a 50-minute English lesson for an all-boy low ability set was highly structured around a number of short-term tasks based on an English text.

In their book Getting it right for boys…and girls, Noble and Bradford provide another example. They describe the characteristics of an English teacher’s approach to teaching Macbeth to Year 11 boys. The teacher began by giving pupils a questionnaire about their preferred learning style, which she then used to help her choose appropriate teaching styles, which included:

• presenting some of the text in tabulated form
• using statistics and graphs
• breaking Macbeth into recurring sections of horror, humour, fantasy and action
• setting short, written tasks, often in the form of games or quizzes
• setting small group work to produce verbal accounts of the story
• using only a small amount of video to illustrate key points
• using ICT to proofread, edit and display
• raising the status of oral work and introducing a reward system.

In an independent teacher research study of Year 10 boys, Shipman and Hicks investigate the factors affecting the motivation of boys in the context of single-sex classes. The authors identify pastoral and pedagogic approaches that might be of interest to teachers.

Did mentoring help to raise achievement?

Interviews with teachers in the eight secondary schools, which chose to use mentoring, suggested that the main reasons for doing so were that it offered the possibility for:

• staff to target specific groups of pupils
• staff to address the anti-learning culture existing among boys
• pupils to monitor their own progress and to identify their own strengths and weaknesses.

Teachers reported perceived benefits of mentoring in terms of improvements in:

• pupils’ organisation and study skills
• confidence, self-esteem, motivation and attitudes among pupils
• attitudes to school and learning among boys
• quality of analysis of post-16 choices among both boys and girls
• levels of achievement among boys and girls.

Mentors and individual pupils claimed benefits for mentoring. One teacher observed: 'I think the benefits have got to be the improvements they see in their grades. Nathan is absolutely over the moon. Not even his parents thought that he could possibly get five A –Cs. It’s also a benefit to us if it improves the pass rate.'

Although they were supportive of mentoring teachers observed that:

• lack of support for mentors limited the effectiveness of mentoring
• the withdrawal of teaching staff for mentoring presented organisational problems for schools.

How did schools implement mentoring?

Which pupils were targeted?

The mentoring programme targets differed from school to school. In six of the eight schools Key Stage 4, pupils were targeted, the other two schools concentrating on Year 8 pupils. The most common group to be mentored were Year 10 and 11 GCSE borderline grade C-D pupils, a policy that may have arisen through schools’ concerns about league table positions. For this rather restricted range of pupils, staff reported some evidence of an increase in the number improving their grade from D to C in the GCSE examinations. At three of the case study schools teachers observed that mentoring had helped to reduce the gender gap by raising boys’ achievement.

What was a typical mentoring session like?

The most common pattern was a 15 to 30 minute session, usually out of lesson, when a member of staff mentored an individual pupil. Although there was diversity in the structure of mentoring sessions, most schools followed a similar pattern. One school’s ideas about the focus areas for mentors and pupils seemed to be typical of a range of schools. Suggested issues for discussion included:

• planning of homework and coursework tasks
• time management and meeting deadlines
• monitoring and using the pupils’ assessment data
• presentation of work
• liaison with parents about pupils’ progress
• careers planning
• revision techniques.

At Abbott High School for example, pupil and mentor used record sheets, to focus a discussion about study skills and homework habits. They then looked at the boy’s progress in particular subjects. The mentor directed the discussion through positive features about progress made to areas of weakness or difficulty. The pupil participated fully in the discussion. Together the mentor and pupil identified specific targets for the pupil to work on. These included obtaining further support in science-based subjects and completing late coursework.

Did additional literacy support help pupils?

In the three primary schools studied in the project, staff chose to implement a strategy of additional literacy support because boys consistently underachieved in literacy in their schools. This observation was consistent with Ofsted’s identification of early literacy skills and, later, English, as one of three main areas of the curriculum in which girls outperformed boys.

Teachers at three of these primary schools decided to tackle the problem of boys’ underachievement in literacy by providing additional literacy support. They noted:

• an increase in motivation, confidence and self-esteem among boys and girls
• increased participation by boys in literacy lessons
• improved behaviour of boys
• significant improvements in reading levels of boys.

Teachers also thought that because the strategy took some of the pressure off them, they were able to teach the other children in the class more effectively.

One school reported that children improved their reading scores by at least 0.5 of a year over a six-week intervention period.

How did schools implement additional literacy support?

What was the aim of the strategy?

The schools wanted to enhance pupils’ attitudes towards, and to raise their confidence in, literacy. This was quite separate from work explicitly directed at their literacy skills. The aims of the strategy were designed to be complementary to, but distinct from, the National Literacy Strategy. As one headteacher put it: “It is definitely not raising the skill of reading, it is raising their appreciation of reading”.

What did schools do?

One school recruited adult literacy supporters from Business Partnership Schemes and the Voluntary Reading Help Scheme. The other two schools relied on parent and local community volunteers. One school recruited an allmale team of adult literacy supporters. Teachers at this school were interested to see if the use of male role models would help to challenge boys’ stereotypical perceptions of literacy as ‘feminine’, although the policy was not evaluated.

The programmes usually consisted of adult literacy supporters coming in for a half term block. Each supporter worked with three children on an individual basis for 15 to 30 minutes. The children were taken from years two to six and were identified for support by their class teacher. At the end of the support period, class teachers used professional judgement and reading tests to decide if a pupil needed to continue the programme. Teachers were concerned that children withdrawn for support would miss parts of the curriculum, a risk they sought to minimise by establishing close liaison between literacy supporters and class teachers.

How was the research designed?

In Phase 1 of this NFER project, the authors presented an overview of recent research into gender differences in achievement and the current approaches of staff to raising the achievement of boys relative to girls in their schools. The project then continued into Phase 2, which had as its main purpose the investigation of the strategies highlighted by the Phase 1 study.

Research in each of the schools was co-ordinated and guided by a project coordinator. Staff in the schools undertook primary data collection, analysis and evaluation. This information was then analysed and evaluated further by the research team.

Data was collected from a number of sources including:

• interviews with teachers and pupils
• discussions with teachers, parents and learning support staff
• reading tests, Key Stage tests and GCSE results
• observation of teaching and mentoring
• questionnaires completed by pupils and teachers
• pupil monitoring records
• pupils’ option choice data.

Because of teachers’ concerns about boys’ achievements, schools were keen to adapt and refine strategies as they were implemented. This led to problems in evaluating the effectiveness of the strategies in some cases. In other schools, the strategy had not been in place for long enough to evaluate it.

How were the schools selected for this project?

In part one of the project the research team had sent pro-formas to 175 local education authorities to identify schools that showed good practice in addressing the slower rate of improvement of boys, and to discover the strategies adopted by the schools. From the 83 replies, the authors first selected the three strategies for further investigation on the grounds that they were frequently used by schools to address boys’ underachievement.

Secondly, 19 schools were selected from those nominated by LEAs, as case study sites on the basis that they:

• had strategies in place that fell under one of the three headings
• covered a range of geographical locations in England and Wales, types of local authority and contexts (such as urban, suburban and rural)
• were situated in catchment areas with different socio-economic backgrounds.

What other issues and risks did teachers identify?

A number of issues arose from the teachers' experiences. From this feedback, the authors identified the following as areas for consideration before gender strategies were implemented:

• securing equality of access to targeting and support of pupils
• selecting the right strategy for the school
• monitoring the effects of the strategies on school organisation. Staff varied in their willingness to adopt single-sex teaching in some schools. It was also found that re-arranging classes to make them single-sex led to a greater mix of abilities and an unevenness of size of classes
• monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of strategies. Among those teaches who were involved in mentoring there was a feeling that additional staff training would have made the strategies more effective.

In terms of equality of access most schools for example targeted pupils who were on the 5+ A-C GCSE passes borderline which left out a considerable proportion of the cohort of pupils who needed additional support.

A further danger was that in modifying teaching styles and planning in ways teachers perceived to be appropriate to each gender, stereotypes might be reinforced. In addition, although male role models were successful in challenging boys’ perceptions, this approach could possibly undermine the authority of female teachers.

Similarly, seeking to modify learning resources to meet the needs of boys, could deny equal opportunities to girls. For example, two schools involved in additional literacy support bought new books specifically designed to interest boy readers.

Implications for practice

While preparing this RfT we became aware of a number of possible implications for teachers and schools seeking to improve the attainment of under-achieving boys and girls.

School leaders may like to consider the following questions:

• The study suggests that it is important to identify and investigate all data that may be relevant to attainment in order to identify gender issues. Is this an activity which could be undertaken by subject or year teams of staff? Would it be helpful to engage staff in action research in relation to tackling problems associated to gender differences in achievement?
• Is there already good practice in your school in relation to gender differences in achievement which your colleagues could share with each other? Would it be helpful to free staff to work together to bring this practice together to provide advice for other staff?
• The study describes three strategies for dealing with gender differences in achievement in the classroom – single-sex teaching, mentoring, additional literacy support.  Would it be appropriate for senior staff/curriculum planners to work with departments to select the strategies most likely to benefit in different circumstances?

At classroom level, individual teachers may like to reflect on implications for their own practice, including:

• Boys and girls often have different preferred learning styles – some boys may respond better to short-term tasks, competition and active learning involving role-play, girls may enjoy working in groups and on longer term projects.  Could you extend the range of approaches you use in order to engage as wide a range of students as possible?
• The study highlighted three strategies for tackling underachievement and for developing teaching styles which harmonize more with students’ preferred learning styles.  Would it be possible and helpful for you to explore some of these approaches through small-scale research in your own classroom possibly in collaboration with a colleague?

The research suggests that the use of other adults for mentoring or additional reading support activities is most effective when the activities are carefully planned and the support staff are clear about what they have to do.   Do you have the opportunity to plan jointly with these colleagues?  If not is this something you could ask your head to provide time for?  Joint planning between teachers and other adults in support roles was highlighted as a key factor in optimising the effectiveness of classroom support in our RfT on the role of teaching assistants.

Have you tried any strategies that were successful at raising the attainment of under-achieving boys?  We would be interested to hear of examples which we could perhaps add to the case study section.