The TES announced on Friday June the 18th that Gender equivalent exams were being considered for the future.
Positive feedback has been recieved by a number of schools regarding AQAs new key stage 4 qualifications in English, Maths and Science, with coursework options for Girls and more traditional exams aimed at boys.
The aim is to narrow the gap between the sexes, as traditionally girls out perform the boys on coursework and boys apparently do better than girls on exams…….
This opens up a range of issues, not least where do we start and end with Gender specific options….. nursery school to recriutment and employment?
Will considering gender differences take us back to the past or encourage sexist attitudes?
You could argue insurance companies have for years been gender specific with regards to life insurance ,car insurances etc…..
We know that girls outperform boys, especially during the primary school years in English and we do know that 80% of students excluded from both primary and secondry schools are boys………so things are not working for both in the same way
Clearly something needs to be done to address these issues but is this the right type of approach?
In an era of inclusion and also personalised learning to we need to revert back to the age old battle of sexes…………perhaps the answer is simply a greater choice of learning options and the freedom to make those choices…………
Can we trust girls and boys and Mums and Dads the freedom to make those choices?
Interested in your comments….
Fin
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Hi Fin,
From my experience it’s about appropriate learning approaches. Research shows boys and girls learn in different ways and need different planning to accommodate this – why struggle to teach a boy his colours, sat at a table doing a matching game when he’d learn much quicker through parking all the blue cars on the top level of the car park and all the red ones on the second level? Similarly, why have a teenager struggling with a worksheet on how a car when he’d learn through car maintenance and would problem make a great career from it? Individualised or personalised planning (or whatever the government’s calling it this week!!) is the key – emanating from our observations and assessments and using our knowledge of the child and the family. Give children (and young people) meaningful activities in which they are likely to succeed – they’re not all going to go to university and be brain surgeons so work to provide appropriate opportunities to enable them to achieve their full potential (at whatever level that may be and whatever ambitions they might have!).
Regards, Kate Wall