§ Lord Northbourneasked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they are taking to motivate boys to accept academic education and to succeed at school and not to reject schooling or to behave in such a way that they are excluded from school. [HL1590]
130WA
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Skills (Baroness Ashton of Upholland)Our focus on standards is having a positive impact in schools. Pupils in general and boys in particular are more engaged and motivated through structured lessons, the greater interactivity between teachers and pupils and the pace of lessons advocated by the national literacy and numeracy strategies in primary schools and the key stage 3 strategy in the early years of secondary education.
In recent telephone surveys, 87 per cent of primary headteachers polled said that pupils were positive about the literacy hour, and 36 per cent said it was closing the achievement gap between boys and girls: and 81 per cent of primary heads also said the numeracy strategy had improved pupils' attitudes to mathematics.
Early piloting work in key stage 3 is showing similar perceptions, with over 70 per cent of headteachers reporting that the strategy had improved pupils' motivation and engagement. Boys have shown improvements in this year's national curriculum tests for 14 year-olds: in English there was an increase of 1 per cent on last year and in science an increase or 5 per cent.
And boys are doing better at key stage 4: they have improved by 2 per cent in their attainment of live or more grade A*-C GCSEs in the three academic years since 1999.