BOYS' PERFORMANCE
Much publicity has recently been given to the issue of boys' under achievement in GCSE and other areas of the Secondary School Curriculum, compared to girls.
However, there has been a tendency for a number of years for many more boys than girls to be recognised as having special educational needs, so that the number of statemented boys is double the number for girls.
Following the monitoring of the implementation of the code of practice, questionnaires and SEN registers were received from Secondary Schools in a LEA in Wales. It was an interesting exercise to analyse the data that came to hand concerning the ratio of boys to girls.
On levels 1, 2, 4 and 5, generally there were many more boys than girls registered, although on level 3 the situation varied from school to school.
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School 1.
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School 2.
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School 3.
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School 4.
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School 5.
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School 6.
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School 7.
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School 8.
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School 9.
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School 10.
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School 11.
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School 12.
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School 13.
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The above figures show that the majority of pupils on stages are boys in every school which provides a copy of their register. With the advent of the code of practice and the placing pupils on stages very early on, (in KS 1), it is hoped that boys with educational problems will be identified sooner.
Following this, their teachers will be expected to set up individual plans and programmes for them and thereby set specific targets. It is expected that these targets will be reached by setting small steps and as a result, it is hoped that the reasons for boys' more frequent failure than girls in the core subjects will be discovered.
What is more, by transferring the SEN Register from the Primary to the Secondary sector, more information about boys who underachieve can be forthcoming and Secondary Schools will need to keep a closer eye on them, reviewing the stages frequently and, at the same time, keeping in close contact with parents.
Differentiation will play an essential part in the teaching of pupils on stages.