The differences between girls and boys.

I’ve just been interviewed on BBC Radio London about the recent GCSE exam results showing that the disparity between boys and girls in definitely widening as in GCSE results for 2013 girls stretch to record lead over boys.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/10260163/GCSE-results-2013-girls-stretch-to-record-lead-over-boys.html

As a former Deputy Head and class teacher for over 22 years boys and girls do learn in different ways.

Girls brains are wired towards memory, attention and learning through language because a woman’s hippocampus (verbal memory storage) develops earlier for girls and is larger in women than in men.

Girls talk sooner generally than boys and have wider vocabularies, read better earlier and have fine motor skills.

Boys are better at auditory memory, are better at 3D reasoning and are happier exploring, taking risks and being physical.

Girls like context and lots of emotional information – boys like you to get to the point.

Basically in lots of studies girls learn better sitting still, boys learn better moving.

So in schools perhaps we need to evaluate whether our current ways of teaching are really using visual, auditory and kinaesthetic ways of learning in the different ages and stages of a child’s learning.

I’ve got one of each and I also think personality has a bearing on successful exam results, the amount of revision they do , how they learn – whether kids prefer to listen, see or hear information, whether they fall apart at exams or do better in coursework – down to whether they fall in love at exam time  – like my friend Bob Audino who fell for Jill Matcham big time and just couldn’t concentrate on his books ( he did go on to be a lawyer in the end though!)

What tips do you have for teaching boys specifically or girls specifically?

What differences have you found in your family raising boys or girls?