Dame Alice Owens- why are boys doing worse than girls?

[Orangeblossom]

There is a significant discrepancy between the progress 8 scores between the girls (0.89) and the boys (0.38).
Progress 8 for boys at QEB is over 1.
I asked one of the teachers at the open day this week and he said they just don’t know why the boys are lagging behind.
Are there any parents if DAO students that can shed any light?

[piggys]

Good question. I'd be interested in hearing responses to this too.

[loobylou]

This is an interesting question and I hadn't seen the stats on that before, just the overall Progress 8.
I have two children at the school, one dd and one ds. Obviously anything I say will purely be anecdotal about them/their friends and might not be the case for all boys/all girls.
My dd is doing extremely well. Also she absolutely loves the learning style of the school which suits her. Her friends are all like- minded. She says that the school is very non-pressuring and that most of her work ethos comes from a) wanting to do well for her own sake and b) seeing how much the teachers want them to succeed which makes them all want to succeed, for both their own sake and their teachers'. (This is not just her saying this. Her friends say it too).
My ds is also doing well but he's happier to do as well as he feels he needs to; he doesn't strive for excellence in the same way as dd does. He thinks most of his teachers are great but he doesn't feel the same way about them as dd and her girl- friends seem to. I don't think he will achieve as well as dd (from a similar base level and similar SATs results etc) because he won't put in the same effort or care as much about the differences between 7s, 8s and 9s.
The only a few things I can think of that might possibly have a bearing.
1) The school gives prizes for both achievement and endeavour. Those prizes are very much skewed towards girls (approx 65/35) from what I've noted at the four I've been to so far. I think this is because girls are perceived as putting in more effort. However I do think that sometimes girls' efforts (and I really really hate generalising which I know I'm doing now) are more obvious - their notes are prettier and more colour coded and their handwriting is neater etc - and boys' efforts might not be so clear.
2) Is the progress 8 from SATs or from the tests the school does on entrance? If it's from SATs then I can't explain it. If it's from the CATs tests done on entrance then those are quite interesting because they are VR, NVR and maths. My ds did loads better than dd on that test (in fact, given that he'd done zero preparation for any tests at all, he did phenomenally well) and I think those tests are probably skewed a bit more to boys rather than girls, which might affect the baseline?
3) Again I need to reiterate that this is based on my children's experiences only. Both my children found that there was a lot of jostling for position by the boys at the start of year 7 (I don't mean academic position, more for perceived "coolness" because I can't think of a better word). This had little/no impact on dd who despised the boys (and has only really started being friends with them since year 10 when she says that they get much more sensible). However it did impact ds in that it took him longer to find like-minded peers and made him think that lots of the boys were very immature. My perception would be that the girls just got on with secondary school and were happy to do well or as well as they could whereas the boys were more cautious about their image, wanting to be seen as "cool" and not wanting to be seen as too academic/geeky - and that they therefore settled in to the school/working etc significantly later than the girls. (Now in year 9, the boys seem to be wanting to do well, be in top set etc). Does this later start impact on them?
4) I do also think that, from my experiences with some of the parents at the school, that there is a minority of parents who expect their girls to study and do little else whereas are very happy for their boys to play. However I do think that's a minority.

These are my immediate thoughts. I will ask my children later if they have any ideas as well. It would be interesting to see other people's perspectives though I think most people who post on this forum as DAO parents seem to have girls.

[Guest55]

Firstly, progress 8 is not a score - you need to quote the confidence interval. How many year's data have you looked at? Ofsted look at three year trends

2017
DAO: prior attainment middle ability 27 pupils [0.5] 0.04 to 0.96; high ability 166 pupils [0.64] 0.45 to 0.83

You'd need to find out if the boys were evenly represented between these ability groups on entry before drawing conclusions.

QEB: prior attainment middle ability 0 pupils; high ability 157 pupils [1.16] 0.96 to 1.35

A different entry profile - one is totally selective.

[ToadMum]

It's based on KS2 SATs, not assessments taken at the secondary school.

How we calculate Progress 8
Progress 8 compares pupils’ key stage 4 results to those of other pupils nationally with similar prior attainment.
Our first step is to put all pupils nationally into prior attainment groups based on their key stage 2 results, so that we have groups of pupils who have similar starting points to each other. We do this by working out a pupils’ average performance at key stage 2 across English and mathematics. Pupils’ actual test results in English and maths are converted into points and an average of the points is taken to create an overall point score. Pupils are then allocated into prior attainment groups with other pupils who have the same key stage 2 point scores as them.
Our second step is to work out a pupil’s Attainment 8 score. The points allocated according to grades the pupil achieves for all 8 subjects are added together to give the Attainment 8 score. English and maths point scores are double weighted to signify their importance.

Sorry, the link to the (.gov) source I'm quoting went a bit doolally in the move (on my phone).

[lastminmum]

The Progress 8 scores given by schools are just provisional and will be finalised over the next couple of weeks. The difference between the progress of girls and boys is a national issue and not just one that DAO faces. Provisional national figures show girls at +0.18 and boys at -0.24.
When comparing schools it’s only useful to compare schools with a similar profile - DAO will have this data

[loobylou]

It's based on KS2 SATs, not assessments taken at the secondary school.

How we calculate Progress 8
Progress 8 compares pupils’ key stage 4 results to those of other pupils nationally with similar prior attainment.
Our first step is to put all pupils nationally into prior attainment groups based on their key stage 2 results, so that we have groups of pupils who have similar starting points to each other. We do this by working out a pupils’ average performance at key stage 2 across English and mathematics. Pupils’ actual test results in English and maths are converted into points and an average of the points is taken to create an overall point score. Pupils are then allocated into prior attainment groups with other pupils who have the same key stage 2 point scores as them.
Our second step is to work out a pupil’s Attainment 8 score. The points allocated according to grades the pupil achieves for all 8 subjects are added together to give the Attainment 8 score. English and maths point scores are double weighted to signify their importance.

Sorry, the link to the (.gov) source I'm quoting went a bit doolally in the move (on my phone).

Thanks. I thought it probably did. That gets rid of my point 2 then!!

[loobylou]

I've asked my children. "Why does it appear that girls do better than boys at your school (and probably generally)?"
Dd: "Because we are encouraged to push ourselves but no one forces us to and it seems to me that girls are more self motivated".
DS: "Because they try harder". When asked to expand this thought he said "Working harder is effort. Girls are happier to put in the effort".
There you have a perfect example

[lastminmum]

I’m doing GCSE intervention classes for the pupils I teach. The girls come along willing to do the work and want to stay behind to do more. Most of the boys need to be reminded to come several times and roll their eyes at having to give up a bit of time at lunch or after school.

[Eliza7]

I took my son to the open day at DAO last week. It was his first experience of an open day, and he was very excited. While we were queuing for a tour there was a group of parents nearby discussing this issue quite loudly and saying in plain hearing of my son that it clearly was not a very good school for boys, and that some of them at least would not be sending their son there (I'm paraphrasing but that was broadly the gist of it). It was such a shame - I was hoping my son didn't hear or fully grasp the conversation, but when we got back and his friend asked him if he liked the school I heard him say "Yes, but apparently its not a good school for boys". I have reassured him that it is, and we are looking forward to going back to the next open day in the summer when he can see more of the wonderful grounds and facilities.

It is an interesting question though, and great to hear current parents' views. I wonder if the statistics are similar in other co-ed schools?