Today I had the privilege to lead a debate in Westminster Hall on a topic very near to my heart, that topic being the educational attainment of boys. Please find the text to my speech below:
I beg to move.
That this House has considered the educational attainment of boys.
It is a pleasure to serve under your Chairmanship, Mr Paisley
I would like to thank the Backbench Business Committee, which agreed to the debate.
The Government has been improving the overall standards of education in this Country.
We can see that with 88% of our schools being Good or Outstanding.
We have been rising up the international rankings on maths, reading and science.
Yet today, boys are not still doing as well at school as they should be.
They are underperforming.
And it cannot go on any longer.
As well as with their own results, they are also behind girls at every single stage of education.
This gender attainment gap is an expression of their underperformance.
This is because there is no biological or other intrinsic reason why boys should be behind girls.
Just as they have been for the past thirty years.
It is of course not a competition or a battle of the sexes.
Because we all want our girls to learn, to do well , to reach for the stars.
We must as a Parliament and as a society want our boys to do the same.
The figures are Stark.
As is the lack of interest or action which I come onto later.
I will run through a few of the facts.
At 11.
In reading, writing and maths, 56% of boys meet the expected standard compared to 63% of girls.
At 16.
43.0% of boys and 47.2% of girls received a grade 5 or above in GCSE English and maths.
At 18.
34,000 fewer British 18 year old boys go to university every year than girls of the same age.
Boys are also behind girls in terms of exam performance in A Levels, T Levels and vocational education.
At 16-24.
Over 400,000 young men are NEETS – Not in Education, Employment and Training.
Fewer young men than young women are going into the majority of our professions.
We should also mention exclusions.
Another sign of boys not doing so well.
The last figures I have seen show 4,677 boys were excluded from school in one year.
These figures are hidden in plain sight.
The Government, education research bodies, think tanks, trade unions and social mobility organisations all know this.
Yet there is a silence.
A silence of inaction.
A silence of acknowledgement.
A silence of care.
We continually have research papers from academics, research bodies and think tanks.
They highlight the facts but there is precious little on what should be done.
One published in January focused on how girls were outperforming boys.
Yet the main recommendation was to ask why so few girls study stem subjects.
The plight of the boys were made invisible.
Similar research reports recently give a scant nod to the gender attainment gap but do not seek to explain why.
Let alone try and put forward ideas on what to do.
Boys’ educational underperformance is a truth that no one dare speak its name.
Silence across the education establishment.
Some have though and Mr Chair, my honourable friend, the Member for Worcester, the Chair of the Education Select Committee cannot be here this morning because he is Chairing the Committee at this precise time.
But he reminded me recently that the committee has made a number of recommendations about the need to support boys in school.
He told me that he believes it is a matter of concern that boys are disproportionately represented amongst many groups.
That he wants schools to be inclusive and to unleash the potential in every pupil
That understanding the best ways for them to support boys and drive forward their academic attainment is important.
And Mr Chair, I know he welcomes this timely debate and will be following it closely.
I chair the All Party Parliamentary Group on Issues Affecting Men and Boys.
Our fourth policy report this Parliament focused on boys’ educational underperformance.
As in all of our reports, we asked experts in the UK and across the world to speak to us.
Crucially, this included six brilliant headteachers from across the UK who have closed the gender attainment gap.
From Dorset, London, Cheltenham, Birmingham, Sussex, and Rochdale.
All in a way that has also supported their female students too.
We also heard from a national network of educators led by Dr Alex Blower, the Access and Participation Development Manager at Arts University Bournemouth.
They are implementing an educational framework based on the Taking Boys Seriously Principles, developed at Ulster University.
I recommend it highly as a starting point alongside how the six headteachers are actually succeeding at a practical level.
From what the successful school leaders told us, there were four main pillars, which need to adopted.
Firstly, schools and trusts need to recognise the gap and collect the data.
Then commit themselves throughout the school to address it continuously.
From the board down to teaching assistants.
It is a whole-school cultural approach.
There has to be institutional will from top to bottom.
The schools found that the problem is not with the boys: it’s with the way the adults treat them.
They found, for instance, that some teachers were sanctioning boys more harshly than girls for the same offence.
That they had lower expectations for boys and were inadvertently rewarding them for lower effort.
Once the teachers recognised this, improvements were immediate.
They found that many of the disengaged teenage students were also those with low literacy skills.
Which they had when they arrived at secondary schools aged 11.
The successful schools put in place careful monitoring and interventions.
To ensure language and reading skills enable the student to understand the lesson.
It’s basic stuff.
It’s not rocket science.
You cannot expect students to learn if they cannot access the curriculum because they do not have the basics.
I will happily send the Minister a summary of what the successful schools have done.
Secondly, they create a boy-positive school environment.
One which is inclusive.
Fair, including with respect to discipline.
Relational and aspirational.
It is important that boys and their parents recognise this includes them too and parents are supported if needed.
Where boys are not seen as a problem.
It’s just that they need encouragement, understanding, being believed in, given self-esteem and they need pushing.
They need high expectations, their successes celebrated and to understand the point of what they are being taught.
Thirdly, there needs to be some tactical interventions.
Especially on literacy, oracy, and study skills.
Plus, role models and mentors.
The successful schools did not see role-models and mentors as being necessarily outside of school or in the media.
They simply made sure that older boys were visible succeeding in all subjects.
Not just the traditional physics and football, but also in drama, music and history.
These are not needed for all boys but are needed for some boys.
Especially for boys with no father or positive male role models at home or in their community.
More male teachers are needed to show boys that learning is for them too.
It is telling that 80% of teachers told me that not having enough male teachers in school is a problem.
More so given 30% of primary schools have no male teachers at all.
Yet as we know the Department for Education and teaching training organisations fail to specifically promote teaching as a career for young men.
We have asked, but it is ignored.
Lastly, as a society we need to simply better care for our boys and support them when they need it.
The schools identified attitudes which harm boys’ progress are not limited to the school environment.
We, as a society, have inadvertently developed a culture which the boys experience as being hostile to them.
We have developed the belief that boys’ underachievement is somehow natural and normal.
It’s because “boys will be boys.”
The negative narrative on boys and the indifference that boys face, especially those with problems, has to change.
41% of sixth form boys and girls have been told in school lessons that boys are a problem.
Two in five boys have been told by schools or outside organisations invited into schools that they are a problem.
Let that sink in.
Two in five.
That is a shameful statistic and those schools need to take responsibility.
Because what do we feel the impact will be?
It’s hardly going to be positive is it?
Too many feel ignored, marginalised or unsupported.
Because they are boys.
We also need to deal with other problems the adult world causes them.
Family dysfunction.
A lack of community aspiration and opportunity .
Gangs and criminal pathways.
Social media’s so-called influencers.
So what to do?
As well as the points above which are aimed at all involved in education, the APPG asks the Government to do a number of things.
A few of these are below:
Provide political leadership and a narrative.
That publicly acknowledges that the gender attainment gap exists.
And that boys’ relative underperformance is a problem the whole education community has to solve.
Launch or fund a sector-wide Task and Finish Group and a summit of head teachers to find and promote solutions.
Invite the successful heads to guide the task force and the Government’s thinking.
A ringfenced research programme on understanding and addressing the gender attainment gap.
Launch a “This Boy Can” campaign similar to its “STEM is for girls” campaign and other initiatives.
To specifically promote careers in teaching and other professions including in health and social care.
This would also put pressure on careers services as well.
Tell Ofsted to include the gender attainment gap in their assessment of schools.
And give a positive assessment to schools that have policies and initiatives in place to address it.
More encouragement of mentoring schemes for boys.
Whether from current or former students or community leaders.
And vital for boys with no fathers or positive male role models are home.
I urge the Government but also the wider educational community to take action.
As a society, a government and Parliament that believes in inclusion and equality – this cannot continue.
We must not and can not tolerate our boys not doing as well at school as they should.
The time to stop the inaction and for ignoring this issue has come.
We have to come together and tackle the underachievement of boys in our schools.
Thank you.
