Girls still leading the way for GCSE results

The figures were published by the Department for Education on Thursday (January 21) and showed girls at all six Crawley secondary schools outperformed the boys when it came to the number of good GCSE results achieved.

At Hazelwick, 58 per cent of boys achieved five or more A*-C grades, including A*-C in both English and maths, compared to 60 per cent of girls.

At Thomas Bennett the figures were 38 per cent boys, 41 per cent girls; at St Wilfrid’s they were 53 per cent boys, 56 per cent girls.

At Holy Trinity they were 58 per cent boys, 65 per cent girls; at Ifield Community College they were 31 per cent boys, 41 per cent girls; and at Oriel they were 56 per cent boys, 61 per cent girls.

Things were more balanced when it came to the progress made by each child between Key Stage 3 and the GCSEs, with boys often leading the way in maths but falling behind in English.

From next year, schools will no longer be judged on raw GCSE data but on a broader range of results across eight subjects – a change largely welcomed by headteachers.

One predicted the new system would “redress the imbalance” between boys and girls.

Rob Corbett, head of Ifield Community College, said: “For many years girls have outperformed boys at GCSE. Prior to the introduction of GCSE, boys outperformed girls.

“Perhaps the change back to terminal exams forced on us by the government will redress the imbalance.

“That said it is a strange system where you study for two years and your fate is determined solely by a series of tests in a short space of time.”

A government consultation into the implementation of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) in secondary schools comes to an end on Friday (January 29).

Michael Ferry, head of St Wilfrid’s School, expressed concern about the future of some non-academic subjects, which he felt were in danger of being squeezed out.

The implementation of the EBacc move would ensure children were studying more core subjects such as humanities and languages – whether their skills lay in that area or not – rather than selecting subjects which interested them or in which their talents lay.

Mr Ferry said: “In my opinion this is simply wrong as students should be allowed to use their talents to the full in the subjects that they enjoy and have a particular skill set for.

“If we go down the route of making some subjects, such as humanities and modern foreign languages seemingly more important than others then we run the risk of a school’s curriculum being devoid of creativity as subjects such as art, drama, music and PE become increasingly marginalised.”

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