Schools hit by death of discipline among boys

A "cotton wool culture" and lack of competitive sport has led to one in five aged 13 or 14 being suspended from school last year, according to the Bow Group think-tank.

Boys received 248,950 suspensions lasting at least a day during the 2005/2006 academic year, compared with 94,750 for girls.

At the same time 7,280 boys were expelled, compared with 1,860 girls.

The result is that, at 14, one in five boys has a reading ability of a pupil half his age and at 16 a quarter of boys - almost 90,000 - do not gain a single GCSE at Grade C or above.

The Bow Group says society is sitting on a "qualifications timebomb", with just 144,229 boys progressing to further education each year compared with 167,258 girls.

The gender gap is most pronounced in behaviour, with boys greatly outnumbering girls at special centres for pupils who cannot be educated in schools.

But the centres put boys at a greater risk of drifting into crime, says the report.

Chris Skidmore, chairman of the Bow Group said: "These figures demonstrate the scale of the problem facing boys.

"Far too many leave school without a decent qualifcation and teenage boys are the main cause of the discipline crisis in our schools.

"We need a new strategy aimed at boys to tackle this severe level of

underachievement."

White working-class boys were found to be most at risk of under-performing, with 63 per cent unable to read and write properly at 14.

This compares to 43 per cent of white girls from similar backgrounds and 54 per cent of working-class black boys.

Under-achievement has been a problem for years, with some researchers suggesting schools fail to nurture traditional male traits.

Others say boys are more vulnerable than girls to "anti- swot" peer pressure.

Efforts to bridge the gap have included campaigns to recruit more male teachers and an increase in boys-only bookshelves in schools.

The Bow Group, which has links to the Conservatives, concluded that boys' under-performance is strongly linked to reading failure early in their school careers.

While boys' scores in maths and science stayed roughly equal to girls, their performance in reading became progressively worse.

Girls were seven percentage points ahead in reading tests at age seven, but by 14 had opened up a 15-point lead.

This means boys are less likely to be entered for key GCSEs in the first place and less likely to do well in them.

Eight per cent of boys are not even entered for English and maths GCSEs. Just 43 per cent get a C or above in both English and maths, against 51 per cent of girls.

But the report adds: "When it comes to poor discipline in the classroom, however, boys vastly outperform girls"

They are four times more likely than girls to be expelled from school and two-and-a-half times more likely to be suspended.

Boys between the ages of 12 and 14 made up 54 per cent of all expulsions last year - a one per cent increase on 2005.

As a result, they make up the vast majority of youngsters in Pupil Referral Units for banned children, up from 5,580 in 1997 to 11,280.

In contrast, there are currently 3,960 girls in PRUs.

Bow Group officer Charlotte Leslie said: "The shocking truth is that immense educational underachievement is taking place among boys.

"We have to get to the root of the problem.

"They are not getting the grades because many find the classroom environment impossible."

She suggested extra competitive sport such as boxing as well as freeing science lessons from health and safety red tape.

Children's Minister Kevin Brennan said: "We know from detailed research that boys can fall behind and we're successfully addressing the underlying reasons."