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28 FIRST ELEVEN SUMMER 2010 WWW.FIRSTELEVENMAGAZINE.CO.UK
BattleSexes
of the
S
ome less popular boys’ schools have, in recent years, been forced to take girls because there was insufficient demand from boys of a good enough standard to maintain a respectable position in exam league tables. Having taken girls, it is quite understandable that they will justify this decision in terms of the supposed merits of co-education. I would do the same thing if I ran a school which needed to take girls in order to survive. But. But never think that co-education was something that these schools’ parents wanted or supported.
Single-sex schools have a huge problem – they have half the number of potential applicants as the co-ed schools. So they are going to find it harder to fill their places and you would expect them to be less selective and less successful academically. In fact, however, they dominate the league tables. How can this be?
There are not many single-sex schools in the state sector but in the top 20 of the exam league tables, 12 are single sex. Most independent schools are co-ed but of the top 20 in the league tables, two are co-ed. I am sure that not all co-ed schools are popular, but many well-known co-ed schools are very popular. So why do their pupils not do better in exams?
e s le
Because, as every teacher knows, teenage boys and girls learn in different ways and need to be taught in different ways.
girls and boys is greatest when they are 15.
Boys like competition and find it motivating, even if they lose. They do not mind competing with their friends. In fact competition, such as on the sports field, creates friendships. Girls do not like competing against their friends. Girls like to express their feelings, boys do not. Boys systematically overestimate their ability, girls underestimate their ability. Girl friendships are about being together, spending time together, talking together. Boy friendshiips more usually develop out of a shared interest and involve little talking. In a recent survey, ‘reading a good book’ was listed as a ‘preferred activity’ by 43 per cent of girls and 17 per cent of boys. Girls also work harder.
t the p
These differences, which will be familiar to parents with both sons and daughters, have implications for teaching and learning. Boys prefer teachers with loud voices, girls prefer a teacher with a soft voice. Girls are concerned about having a good relationship with their teacher and are adversely affected if they ‘don’t like’ the teacher. Boys are less concerned. Girls are more likely to do homework in order to please the teacher, boys do not do this! Girls are more likely to ask for help, boys will only do so as a last resort. Boys like hierarchies, so to be successful with boys, a
s wit
“Boys like competition and
find it motivating, even if they
Brain research, much of it linked in the past five years to MRI scanning, has shown that the left hemisphere of the brain is clearly specialised for language functions in men, while women use both sides of their brains for language. Also, while men’s brains contain large
lose. Boys systematically overestimate their ability, girls underestimate their ability. Girls also work harder. Tese differences have implications for teaching and learning”
BARNABY LENON
Headmaster,
Harrow School
amounts of protein coded with the Y chromosome, women’s brains are rich in material coded with the X chromosome. This chromosome affects how the brain develops – ie differently. The brains of girls develop quicker than the brains of boys. Girls are fully mature by the age of 22, boys by the age of 30, and the differences between the brains of
omo ome
teacher has to establish the fact that he or she is at the top of the hierarchy. Boys like drills more than girls. Boys are more likely to take risks and need to be protected from their inability to judge the consequences of taking such risks. Boys are less interested in literature which requires them to think about feelings. Girls prefer fiction, boys prefer non-fiction. Girls prefer characters, boys prefer books about action. Because they underestimate their abilities, girls need to be encouraged. Boys need to be pushed to understand that they can do better. Boys respond best to clear rules, clear deadlines and punishments. Girls respond best to explanations based on feelings. Because girls mature earlier than
boys and have better work habits, boys tend to be outclassed by girls in co-ed schools. Teenage boys have fragile self- esteem and they give up the struggle to
compete by withdrawing. Co-ed schools tend to reinforce gender stereotypes because in co-ed schools, girls behave in the way they think girls should behave and boys behave in the way they think boys should
behave. In co-ed schools, girls are less likely to opt to study physics, boys are less likely to opt for modern languages or literature. In co-ed schools, girls are much less likely to play the trumpet, boys are less likely to play the flute. A recent survey conducted by the Girls’ Schools
Association shows that, compared to all girls nationally, ✒
am surprised to find myself – for the time being at least – a defender of independent schools. My mother was the head of a state primary school in Telford and I was brought up to be a passionate advocate of state education for all – even though I was sent to the
local direct grant school! Indeed, I continue to think that public schools provide a context for the entrenchment of social privilege for sheer snobbery. That is not always intentional, but it is an inevitable consequence of a division into fee- paying and non-fee-paying schools; schools for the rich and schools for the rest. They act to bolster some of the values that are worst about modern Britain. I am also sure that fee-paying
schools are not necessarily better than state schools. There are some educationally truly great public schools (and they are the ones we always have in mind). At the other end of the spectrum, there are also some fee-paying schools that charge ridiculous amounts of cash for a lousy education, little better than the dame schools of the 19th century. So why do I stick up for the
than 500 comprehensive schools in this country that offer any classical languages, mostly in what are euphemistically called ‘twilight’ classes. But I am not resting my case on classics, even though I happen to think that a society in which no one had direct access in the original language to Homer, Virgil, Euripides or Ovid would be grossly impoverished. I am more concerned with modern languages, with the tools of communication within Europe as well with the rest of the world, and with our entry to the shared cultural heritage of humanity, from Dante to the most recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the German Herta Müller. A penny-pinching, culture-averse state educational system is busy destroying the linguistic competence of this country. In 60 per cent of state schools,
independent sector? Quite simply, because of what I think it takes to produce the kind of society that we can be proud of. That means intellectual goods as well as economic ones; and it means a society in which we can still communicate with those outside our own shores in languages other than our own. It also means a society in which we still have direct access to the thousands of years of history of world culture that frame and enrich what we are as human beings. While we have a philistine government control, and an under-
funded state education system that reneges on its duty to equip our kids with the tools of access to culture, I have no option but to support the good independent schools and what they teach – even if only on a temporary basis. You might imagine that I have the decline of Latin and Greek in state schools in mind here, and in part I have. There are fewer
fewer than half the pupils are studying any foreign language at age 14, compared to 18 per cent of private schools (and that includes the dame schools I was talking about and other special interest institutions). The entries for French GCSE fell by over 100,000 between 2004 and 2008, while German is approaching the level of Latin. So bad has it become, that one of the problems facing the 2012 Olympics is not finding enough medal winners but enough British translators for the games. This decline could be terminal.
Once we lose these cultural resources,
we don’t get them back. We cannot let Homer skip a generation or two and then learn how to read him again later when we have the cash. Our skills in these areas depend on a continuous tradition of learning, which is now being sustained – for all their other faults – by the public schools. Against the monolithic philistinism, the exam-obsessed curricula imposed by Whitehall (not to mention the still lousy pay given to young teachers), the public schools do offer a glimpse of an alternative. And it’s for this reason that I have to back them… even if my mother would be turning in her grave. %
arents go to great lengths to secure the best education for their children, taking out mortgages, moving house,
even involving a child in various brain- stimulating activities. However a report released last year indicates that the best advantage parents can give their child is rather closer to home: in the bedroom, in fact, with the date of conception.
A Cambridge Assessment review
released in 2009, and since incorporated as part of the Rose enquiry into the primary curriculum, reinforces a view which scientists and analysts claim has been staring us in the face for years. A child born in the months of September, October and November is likely to be physically, intellectually and emotionally more mature than his or her summer- born peers, giving them an advantage at school. Furthermore, this phenomenon can persist at all stages throughout an academic career and even into adulthood. Tis so-called ‘birthdate effect’ is
most pronounced at primary school. Te magnitude of the effect gradually and continually decreases through Key Stages 3 and 4 (KS3 and KS4) and at A-level. Research by the Institute of Fiscal Studies found that the disadvantage for August- born children over September-born children in expected attainment dropped
from an average of 25 per cent at KS1, to 12 per cent at KS2, to nine per cent at KS3, to six per cent at KS4 and to one per cent at A-level. Others claim the impact remains significant at GCSE, A-level and in entry into higher education. September-born students are 20 per cent more likely to go to university than their August-born peers. “Te statistics are compelling
and shocking,” says Tim Oates, Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment. “When you look at qualifications, gender and date of birth effects, there is a very, very significantly pronounced effect.” “Many parents believe that
So what is the solution? Some parents try to solve the problem by holding their child back a year so that they join their academic year when they are nine or 10 rather than eight, but not only is this not a long-term solution, it may add to your child’s difficulties, especially if they are boarding. One former prep school boy explained that it is better for everyone to start at the same time and get over the homesick together as that’s when you make your friends. “If you go later, and are crying alone, everyone else calls you a sissy”. It is a complex
Children
born in August are 20 per cent less likely to go to university than
those born in September
Higher Education Funding Council
the effect peters outs as children grow older but this isn’t true. It is a powerful and persistent effect. Summer-borns are screened out before the university stage. Tere are many individuals who do get to university and do very well but that is because they are brilliant anyhow.” Oates believes it is a developmental issue. “We think that there is a crucial
spurt at about [age] four and a half which enables children to monitor, plan and evaluate their work. Some rising fours just haven’t got there yet. Tey are just not ready for school. Tey are labelled ‘not as able’ which leads to a loss of confidence and negative associations which will colour their educational background. Tere is evidence that these learned attitudes will persist for the rest of their life.” Teachers confuse maturity with
ability, he says, placing the older children in advanced streams where this prognosis soon becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as they receive more advanced teaching. Economists Dhuey and Bedard found that younger students were under represented in US four-year colleges by 11.6 per cent. Tat initial difference in maturity doesn’t go away, argues Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers, where he suggests that success is no accident but a product of parenting, preparation and chance circumstance including birthdates. “It persists,” he explains. “In America, for thousands of students, it is the difference between going to college... and not.”
issue, but in the independent sector, schools offer flexibility, which can help to alleviate the problem. “Independent schools recognise that summer-born children, especially boys, have something of a time lag in maturity,” says John Tranmer, Headmaster of Froebelian School in Leeds and current Chair of the Independent Association of Preparatory Schools. “Te difference between a three- and a four-year-old or a 10- and an 11-year-old child is very acute. If we were designing it from scratch we wouldn’t start with an arbitrary date of September 1st
but we do our best to
cope. Te advantage of independent schools is that we can be flexible. If there are notable situations when it is in the child’s best interest to join a lower year, then we will accommodate this.” Opinion differs on the best way to
respond to the issue. “Some prep schools admit children in phases to allow the younger ones time to mature, others, including the Frobelian, prefer to take them as one cohort and then, once they are in the school, make allowances for differences by putting them into different classes”, says Tranmer. “With a ratio of 9:1, we can then concentrate on supporting the slower ones while helping
the older and seemingly brighter ones to achieve their full potential.”
In the
independent sector, schools offer flexibility, which can help to alleviate the
problem
Jane Cameron, who founded Notting Hill Preparatory School, has always felt that summer-born babies should not move onto pre-prep if they haven’t turned four before they have left nursery school. Cameron, former head of the Acorn Nursery School, which offered a ‘sapling year’ to summer-born children, noticed the difference between the older ones who understood what was happening and the younger ones, who were unable to articulate their feelings about moving to ‘big school’. At Notting Hill Preparatory School, she accepts August-born children into the year below and keeps the children born in the second six months of the academic year separated from the older children until Year 3.
At the prep school stage, parents can buck the system if they are planning to send their children to a country public school but not if they want them to continue into secondary education in London. Not all London schools are rigid but parents don’t want to narrrow their childrens’ options at such a young age. It starts at the pre-prep stage, the school preceding the preparatory stage. “Tere is a difference in maturity between boys
born earlier and later in the academic year” says Mark Snell, Headmaster of Wetherby Pre-Preparatory School, “but if they are going on to a prep school which won’t accept boys into the year below, then there is nothing I can do. It wouldn’t be fair as they would have to jump a year. I spread the boys randomly across the classes because they learn from the older ones, just as they learn from older siblings.” Nick Baker head of Wetherby Prep has inherited a couple of summer born boys in the year below but considers each case individually, specifically with children coming from abroad whose education might not be so “brisk”, he says diplomatically. Rarely does he need to keep them down a year.
It is perhaps significant that
Cambridge Assessment’s research focused on the state system. Many independent public schools argue that by 12 or 13, the age differences have been ironed out. Angus McPhail, Warden of Radley College, permits late-August boys to start a year later but they have to have a good reason. With the support Radley gives them, his younger boys have done very well. “Not just in their academic abilities. It’s across the board, whether as head boys, in sport, army scholarships or those going on to Cambridge,” he explains. Dr Stephen Spurr, Headmaster
of Westminster School, doesn’t put boys into the year below, explaining that, “Although we are aware of the phenomenon and are sensitive to it when considering younger boys for entrance, I think we fall into the top category, where boys with late summer birthdays can do just as well as anybody else if they fall into that top percentile bracket.” He is the first to acknowledge the
significance of the review, however. “Tim Oates has put his finger on something,” he says. “Competition is stiff – this is the real world. But if this is an important developmental issue, it would be a shame if we were guilty of missing out on potential. It would be a good outcome of this feature if there was more debate on the subject.” %
nothing to worry about Sad children are
Good news for Jamie Oliver comes with the report that primary school test results in Greenwich improved after the TV chef banished Turkey Twizzlers from canteen menus. The number of “authorised absences” (generally due to illness) also fell by 15 per cent following Oliver’s 2004 Feed Me Better campaign.
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