Why ‘patience’ and ‘diligence’ drive girls’ historic lead over boys in GCSE results

‘Boys are more impulsive. They want something instantly. They are not as good at the marathon and are more interested in the sprint,’ a headteacher tells Maya Oppenheim

Students at Sullivan Upper School in Holywood, Co Down, celebrate after getting their GCSE results (PA Wire)

While it is widely known girls have been outperforming boys in terms of GCSE level results since the 1980s, it is far harder to discern why. As with most things in life, the answer is complex, multicausal and imbued with nuance.

Although the lead that girls historically have over boys for the top grades grew smaller this year, the gender gulf remains sizeable. About 30 per cent of girls were awarded 7/A or above – which is 7.4 percentage points higher than the male entries – of whom 22.6 per cent gained 7/A or higher. Whereas, last year, girls beat boys by 9 percentage points.

Francesca Craik, executive headteacher of both a mixed school and a girls’ school, has first-hand experience of why this may be the case. Ms Craik, the head of St Wilfrid’s RC College in South Shields and St Anthony’s Catholic Girls School in Sunderland, told The Independent she had spent 20 years teaching in co-ed schools - and that in January she took on being head of the all-girls school.

“It was a real eye-opener,” she said. “It made me think about how boys and girls can learn in very different ways. In both schools I run, the girls outperform the boys in terms of their GCSEs.”

She added that the pupils in the all-girls school have done “absolutely phenomenally”, with their pass rates “way above” the co-ed school.

Ms Craik added: “I don’t want to generalise but it is about the characteristics which students display – girls tend to be more diligent, turning in homework and preparing for assessments. If you are a teacher, you are more likely to be chasing boys for work. Over periods of time, that all accumulates.

“Girls have an element of patience; they can see the GCSE and the A-Level coming and will continue to work for it. Boys are more impulsive. They want something instantly. They are not as good at the marathon and are more interested in the sprint.

“Boys do the sprint just before the exams when it is all systems go, whereas girls are on the marathon, working pretty diligently all the way through.”

She partially attributed this gender difference to girls maturing more quickly than boys. “I speak as the mother of a teenage boy,” Ms Craik said. “Xboxes and PlayStations have to be time limited.”

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, took a similar perspective.

“The differences are more to do with personality than overall brightness,” Prof Smithers said. “One of the things that has come up many times in studies is girls tend to apply themselves more conscientiously and consistently to schoolwork. During lockdown, they were following lessons online and applying themselves. Boys tend to mess around a bit more. But boys really concentrate in the period before exams.”

He noted while the gender gap for GCSEs has narrowed a little this year, girls still remain way ahead. He explained that the gender differences could be partially linked to societal structures as well as differing gender roles. “The way people behave is a mix of their intrinsic abilities and personalities but also their roles within society,” Prof Smithers said. “The part they are expected to play is set by society’s particular time.”

However, it is worth noting that while girls may outperform their male counterparts at GCSE level, boys catch up at university before surpassing them in the world of work in terms of pay and seniority of positions –with clear gender inequalities and a gender pay gap emerging.