Education is a core topic of both GCSE and A-Level Sociology so we, and our students, should all be well aware of the shift in attainment between genders…

Education for the boys

Throughout much of the 19th and early 20th centuries boys tended to perform better than girls in school – although this was mainly down to the fact that they had better access to education, as societal expectations meant that girls were less likely to stay in school so they could focus on domestic life. Boys were also traditionally seen as stronger in subjects such as maths and science, whereas girls were often steered towards home economics based subjects, such as cookery or sewing, to prepare them for their roles as wives and mothers.

Time for a change!

By the 1970s and 1980s, compulsory education and expanding access for both genders reduced this gap. Girls were no longer leaving school without formal qualifications and were increasingly attending further and higher education, and many were choosing careers over the traditional housewife role. Despite this, boys still tended to outperform girls in O-Levels (which were replaced by GCSEs in 1988) and A-Levels, particularly in maths and sciences. However, in the late 1980s and 1990s, this pattern began to reverse, and girls started outperforming boys, especially in English and humanities, but increasingly across most subjects.

Girls on top

Since the 1990s, girls have consistently outperformed boys at nearly every stage of education. They achieve higher average grades across most subjects.

GCSEs: In 2025, 24.5 % of grades for girls were Grade 7 or above, compared to 19.4 % for boys, and 70.5% of grades for girls were Grade 4 or above, compared to 64.3% for boys.

A-Levels: In 2025, girls performed better than boys overall, however boys actually performed better at the top end, with 9.9% of grades at A* (compared to 9.1% for girls) and 28.4% of grades at A (compared to 28.2% for girls). This comes after seven years of girls beating boys with the highest A-Level grades.

It is also worth pointing out that more women than men now enter and complete university degrees.

Shift happens

There are a number of reasons that can explain why girls’ achievement has risen in comparison to boys…

Changes in assessment: Educational reform in the 1980s saw coursework being introduced, rather than just relying on final exams at the end of the course, and throughout the 1990s it became a common mode of assessment for all subjects. Many argued that coursework benefitted girls more as they tended to be organised and had a more mature approach to their studies, showing a commitment throughout the whole course, rather than right at the end when the revision panic set in.

Societal expectations: In the past girls were encouraged to choose a role within the home, rather than a career, whereas now girls have plenty of brilliant female role models to aspire to, and have higher ambitions which involve getting good qualifications. Many girls start high secondary school knowing that they will need to work hard in order to have the best opportunities when they are older.

Behaviour and engagement: Boys are more likely to form anti-school subcultures, and are more likely to engage in disruptive behaviour than girls, contributing to an attainment gap. In addition, boys often over-estimate their abilities, so work less hard as they assume they will do well anyway, compared to girls who tend to lack confidence, so therefore work much harder to compensate. There is also evidence that girls mature more quickly than boys, so find preparing for exams easier than boys. And it is worth highlighting the fact that more boys than girls will opt for a non-academic post-16 course, such as a trade, which have lower entry requirements than A-Level qualifications, so they may only need to pass a small number of Grade 4s, and therefore decide it is unnecessary to push themselves harder.

2025 – the gap begins to narrow!

At GCSE girls still outperformed boys – with 70.5% of girls' grades at 4 or above, compared to 64.3% of boys. However there has been a slight decrease for girls, down from 71% last year (a decrease of 0.9%), whereas boys have increased by 0.1% from 64.2%. The percentage of girls achieving Grade 7 or above has also decreased from 24.7% in 2024 to 24.5% this year, whilst boys have seen an increase from 19% last year, to 19.4% in 2025.

But at A-Level, boys overtook girls in securing the highest A-Level grades after 7 years of getting beaten by the girls. The percentage of boys' grades that were A* or A this year was 28.4%, slightly higher than the 28.2% achieved by girls – whereas in 2024 girls had a 0.4% lead. Right at the top, 9.9% of entries for boys were A* (up from 9.5% in 2024), compared to 9.1% for girls (the same as last year).

Once reason for this pattern at A-Level could be that STEM subjects have been a surge in popularity, such as Mathematics, Further Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry – and these subjects are much more likely to be taken by boys (63% of maths entries are boys). In addition, these subjects are also likely to have higher entries requirements, so therefore higher ability students taking them.

A ticking timebomb for girls?

Although fluctuations between the genders is normal, some experts warn that there is something happening with girls that needs to be addressed before it’s ‘too late’.

For many years the narrative has been that boys are being left behind and that it is normal for boys to struggle academically. Many initiatives have been put in place to increase boys’ achievement, and the recent Netflix series Adolescence has put the themes of toxic masculinity and the psychological pressures faced by teenage boys back in the spotlight, with much work being done to support boys emotionally and academically. So perhaps these have been effective and we just need to celebrate this improvement for boys and recognise how hard they have worked.

But, at the same time, it is worrying that girls performance is declining, and has been since Covid. The Education Policy Institute (EPI) suggests that this can be linked to worsening mental health, a lack of sleep, and unhealthy social media use.

Mental health: Girls are more likely than boys to have a diagnosable mental health issue – around a third of girls, compared to 12% of boys. Over twice as many girls self-harm than boys. Girls are also more likely to take risks than boys, such as regular drinking and smoking cannabis

Social media: Over a quarter of girls report problematic social media use, compared to 12% of boys. Linked to this is the fact that over half of girls report not getting enough sleep, compared to just over a quarter of boys

Safety and belonging: Several recent reports highlight that girls feel much less safe at school now than in recent years – a lot of this is linked to misogyny, which has an impact on their learning. They are also much more likely to worry about going to school, particularly after school holidays, and less likely to feel a sense of belonging in school, often feeling that teachers don’t care about them.

It is easy to see how these factors may result in lower attainment over time – a lack of sleep and an increase in anxiety, and even eating disorders, is likely to affect attendance. According to DfE figures 21.9% of girls were persistently absent from secondary schools last year, compared to 20.3% of boys. This absence will affect school work and therefore how they perform in final exams.

The EPI warns that schools need to work on supporting girls, moving away from the focus on boys achievement, because if this is not addressed during GCSEs, attainment could continue to decline through A-Levels, and may impact university participation. And in the long-term this could affect how girls are able to compete in the labour market, and could lead to pay disparities with men.