‘Yes he can’

Closing the attainment gap for boys at secondary school

Summary

• Despite comparable measures of intelligence between genders, boys consistently underachieve academically relative to girls.
• Existing research on Boys' Educational Underachievement lacks comprehensive solutions tested at scale.
• Four UK secondary schools successfully closed the gender gap, offering interventions aligned with high-quality evidence.
• Their approaches dispel common myths and focus on whole-school culture change.
• Effective interventions include fostering a safe, respected, and valued environment, celebrating diverse achievements, maintaining high expectations, building strong relationships, and engaging parents.
• Role-modelling, peer mentoring, literacy support, oracy development, and consistent discipline strategies are pivotal.
• School leaders emphasise staff support, reducing workload burdens, identifying and addressing biases, and upskilling educators.

Closing the gender attainment gap is achievable with no extra resources.  It requires a concerted whole-school effort, offering equitable and inclusive learning environments benefiting all students.

Part1:  Background

What’s the problem?  

Boys are underachieving in education, relative to girls, despite no significant difference in measurements of intelligence between the two groups.  

Research  review

The literature review we undertook, looking at the existing research into the problem of Boys' Educational Underachievement did not offer solutions which have been tested.  There are no large-scale trials, such as to the standard set by Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), in the UK.  Almost all the research either fails to engage boys or engages a small group.

Asking the experts

To find the real experts, we emailed all the schools in the UK asking if they had closed the gap for boys.  Initially, we heard from 4 secondary schools which had closed the gap.  They did not know each other, nor use the same advice, but have come to very similar solutions.  This summary identifies the main interventions they took.

Using the criteria for ‘good evidence’ offered by EEF, these schools already offer high-quality data:  they used a large sample – the whole school; they used standardised tests over a significant period to show their results – KS2 and KS4 data.

Myths:

There are some ideas about Boys' Educational Underachievement which, according to these schools, are myths: they are neither supported by the approach of the successful schools nor by reliable evidence.

1. Make it ‘boy friendly’.  There is no need to do things like finding adventure books or having more competition.
2. Focus on ‘masculinity’.  There is no evidence that telling boys they are ‘toxic’ and giving them ‘training’ in better behaviour is effective in improving their learning.
3. Find the ‘silver bullet’.  The schools are clear that there isn’t one thing which has an effect and that any claims that there is are unhelpful.
4. More male teachers.  While having more male teachers is a good thing in itself, there is neither evidence that boys learn better with a male teacher nor that female teachers cannot provide discipline.
5. Smaller classes.  When the cultural change outlined below was implemented the successful schools found they did not need to use smaller classes to deal with disaffected students or poor behaviour.

Part 2:  Effective interventions

(NB.  This summary includes real examples used by individual schools.  Not all the schools used the same interventions, but they all had effective ways to deal with the same issues.)

Research base

While some schools use research, such as is available from EEF, some did not use research.  Interestingly, they all end up doing roughly the same things to succeed.

Culture

The schools all agree that it is not one, or even a few, interventions which are important.  What works is a whole-school culture change:  

• the adults change the ways they interact with boys
• the boys are then better motivated and enjoy school more
• their behaviour and results improve

Safe, respected, and valued

Create a school where boys want to be: a place where they feel safe, respected, and valued. Be proactive and constructive – create openings on leadership positions and actively encourage (or nominate)  boys to stand.

Enrichment and Celebrating Success

Boys need to be able to be good at something and be valued for their achievements.  This is not just in the traditional 'boy' subjects such as physics and football.  The schools use enrichment to offer a wide range of ways to succeed and encouraged all students to take part, for example, in drama and music, and celebrate those achievements.

Fairness

The schools identified that they are not holding boys and girls to the same standards:

• Boys being punished more severely than girls for the same offence
• Lower expectations of boys than for girls: sometimes boys being rewarded for simply turning up.

One school systematically assessed all the visual images used in posters, websites, prospectus etc and found that while there are many positive images of girls, there are far fewer of boys and those are limited to the stereotyped activities such as sport or science.  They deliberately changed some of the images so that boys are portrayed in positive roles and celebrated for all subjects.

High expectations

When the same high standards are expected of all students, the boys rise to the challenge.

Building relationships

The schools know their pupils' backgrounds and needs in detail. This greater awareness is not used as an excuse for lower achievement, but rather to see what support is needed for success. Examples:

• Visit every primary school in your catchment area and build a profile of each student.
• Take an individual approach based on accurate knowledge of the students’ needs.
• Celebrate and publicise the successes of your students, both big and small. Boys need to see examples of boys being successful in a range of fields as much as girls do. Model, promote and demonstrate what we want to see and where others have been successful.
• Offer mentoring programs for boys, either by older students or by outside organizations.
• Create opportunities where boys can share their opinions and feel heard.

Home-school links

The schools amplify their effectiveness by making close links with parents/carers.  Examples:

• Send out weekly emails, invite parents/carers to school events, and follow up on any concerns they may have.
• Hold a primary-secondary transition evening for parents and carers to learn more about the school and how they can support their child's learning.
• Send reminder calls for parents' evenings and other important events.
• Offer a half-termly course for parents on supporting their child's learning.
• Create systems so that staff can easily send positive emails home in a low hassle way so parents build positivity with the member of staff about their son; hearing what they are good at and celebrated for.

Male role models

The schools find that neither male teachers nor male heroes are vital as role-models.  Instead, they make sure that older boys are taking the lead in all subjects and activities who are visible and acknowledged.

Peer mentoring

Older boys are organised to mentor younger, struggling students.  This has the dual role of being a combined role-model and assistant.  

Building literacy

Research shows that many of the boys who became disaffected with school at age 15 had been struggling with literacy from early in their education.  

The effective schools create extensive literacy support for all the struggling students, the majority of whom are boys, and work on the assumption that low literacy is a significant hindrance to learning.  Examples:

• Identify boys who are struggling with literacy and address their needs systematically.
• Provide targeted interventions, such as peer mentoring or withdrawal groups.
• Regular structured occasions in and out of lessons where reading is encouraged and prioritised.  Examples:

• regular form time reading sessions
• award house points for reading in the library

Oracy

Besides developing skills in reading and writing, several schools promoted developing spoken-word skills.  Examples:

• Help boys to develop their vocabulary and use clear and concise language with deliberate practice.
• Encourage the use of full sentences and technical language in the classroom.
• Make sure that all boys have access to books and other reading materials that are interesting and relevant to them.
• Teach boys how to disagree in a constructive way.
• Provide opportunities for boys to practice public speaking.
• Include drama in the curriculum and celebrate good male performance

Rewards and consequences

None of the schools describe their discipline system as ‘strict’.  However, what they have in common is certainty and consistency.  Not only have they acted to ensure that boys and girls are treated equally, but staff are supported and encouraged to use the system.

• Ensure that all staff are aware of the school's behaviour policy and are consistent in their application of it.
• Give teachers the support they need to manage challenging behaviour. This could involve providing them with training or access to specialist support staff.
• Use a clear and consistent behaviour management system and relentlessly uphold that it is applied to all.  Example:

• a traffic light system (green, amber, red) or a similar approach.

• Support clear and consistent consequences with strong relationships.  Example:

• use ‘restorative justice’ to address incidents of poor behaviour: rebuilding the relationship between the student and the staff member who has been affected.

• Have a centralized system for managing detentions and other consequences, so that all students are treated fairly.
• Contact parents or carers when their child is involved in an incident of poor behaviour.

Part 3:  Supporting your staff

School leaders report that it was not difficult to get their staff ‘onside’ with this project.

Time to focus on solutions

Schools are aware that simply asking teachers to take on something else does not work if teachers do not have the time to do it.  They have active mechanisms for reducing the workload so staff can focus on the solutions, not the administration.  Examples:

• Remove inefficient tasks from teachers' workloads, such as photocopying and data entry.
• Centralize the detention system and other administrative tasks.
• Use technology to make it easier for parents to contact the school.
• Employ a counsellor or mental health worker to support students with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

Identifying staff bias

Using observation, several schools discovered that the bias against the boys was endemic, but so normalised that it was unconscious.  Even those doing the observations realised they were biased themselves.

Upskilling staff

Staff training and interventions are used to ensure that they:

• Treat boys are equally in terms of expectations, rewards and consequences, literacy, enrichment etc.  
• Raise expectations of boys is and challenge any stereotypes that they may hold.
• Know how to deal with challenging behaviour.
• Can scaffold tasks so that all students can access the learning.

Conclusion

Closing the boy:girl attainment gap is a complex challenge, but it is one that can be overcome by schools that are willing to adopt a whole-school approach. By following the advice of these four headteachers, schools can create a more equitable and inclusive environment for all students and close the attainment gap for boys without negatively impacting the girls.

April 2024

Participating school leaders

The original four leaders were:

• Diane Henson, (former) Headteacher, Wheelers Lane Technology College, Birmingham.
• Andy Eadie, Assistant Headteacher, Cardinal Langley RC High School, Middleton, Rochdale.
• Dominic Burke, Headteacher, Balcarras School, Cheltenham.
• Caroline Barlow, Headteacher, Heathfield Community College, Heathfield, East Sussex 

These school leaders also report closing the gap using similar approaches:

• Laura Ellener and Graham McNamara, Chiswick School.
• Deneen Kenchington and Oliver McVeigh, Ferndown Upper School, Dorset.

Video resources

All the recording of presentations and webinar are available on this playlist.

Contact

All-Party Parliamentary Group on Issues Affecting Men and Boys.  

Lead researcher:  Mike Bell: mike@equi-law.uk .