![\"\"](\"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/GCSE-2017-level-9s-by-gender.png\")
<\/a>Results at the new top grade 9 (from here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\nWell, at least the headlines in the MSM are not as misleading as they were for the A Levels<\/a>. Girls are doing emphatically better than boys, as they have been doing since GCSEs replaced O Levels in 1987<\/a>.<\/p>\n A new grading system was introduced this year for pupils in England in three subjects: English Language, English Literature and Maths. The new scoring has 9 as the top grade, and this represents a higher level of performance than the previous A* (which is equivalent to a new grade 8 or 9). The graphic which heads this post shows the results by gender in this top grade. Roughly twice as many girls got top grade 9s (the caption claims 60% of grade 9s were for girls, but I think this is an under-estimate).<\/p>\n However, this is partly because there were two English subjects, in which girls do better, but just one subject, maths, in which boys do better. Boys got roughly 40% more grade 9s in maths. But girls’ dominance in English was more emphatic – with about twice as many girls getting grade 9s in English Literature, and nearly three times as many in English Language.<\/p>\n Achieving top grades at GCSE is significant because this is a reliable indicator of A Level performance – and hence university entrance. For example, your chances of getting an A* at physics A Level if you did not get an A* at GCSE are virtually zero<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of greatest interest is whether Michael Gove’s changes to the examination system involving\u00a0the downgrading of coursework would lead, as many expected, to a reduction in the gender gap. It has not.<\/p>\n It is usual to concentrate on nominal ‘pass’ grades, defined as grades C to A* under the old system and grades 4 to 9 in the new system. (NB: In the new system the pass mark has been lowered; an old grade C is midway between new grades 4 and 5).\u00a0Over all subjects, girls have an average pass gap over boys this year of 9.5%, compared to 8.9% in 2016. In fact the gender gap has been roughly around 10% for the last 25 years (see here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Across all subjects at the higher grades (A\/A* or equivalently grades 7 to 9) the gender gap is about 7.5% in favour of girls. However the proportion of candidates achieving these highest grades is falling, apparently due to the reforms making the exams harder – see graphic below,<\/p>\n Girls have widened the gap particularly in English language \u2013 despite the introduction of a reformed GCSE in the subject which features less of the coursework which many supposed favoured them. The results for England show that 70.9% of female entries were awarded at least a C (or 4) grade, compared with just 53.5% of males.\u00a0That 17.4% gender gap compares\u00a0to\u00a0last year\u2019s 16.1%. And when grade 7 (or A)\u00a0or above is considered, the gap is even more emphatic – more than double – with 18.5% of girls achieving these grades compared to 9% of boys. Finally, as seen above, at the top grade 9 in English Language there are three times as many girls. So, the higher the attainment level examined, the more dominant are girls in English. (These data from here<\/a>).<\/p>\n However, in maths the results for England show that 16.5% of male entries were awarded at least an A or a 7 grade, compared with 14.7% of females. Hence there is a gender gap in favour of boys in maths at these grades of 1.8%, which is larger than last year (0.8%), though still rather small. A word of caution: I have not yet seen the absolute numbers of candidates – so it is possible that this greater percentage<\/em><\/strong> of boys doing well in maths does not mean a greater absolute number of boys doing well.<\/p>\n Last year, maths was the only subject in which boys received a higher proportion of top\u00a0grades than girls. But this year, boys have done better than their female peers (based on this metric) in maths, physics, economics and statistics.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n