The needs of boys currently hold centre stage in educational thinking, with a plethora of quick-fix strategies aimed at boosting their achievement. But only seven or eight years ago boy-improvement programmes were nowhere in sight. In the 1980s and early ‘90s, girls were in the spotlight, the object of numerous equal-opportunity schemes and the subject of much research. Now there’s a national panic that boys - all boys - are doing badly. But any sensible teacher can tell you it is not all boys but some boys - and that underachievement is as much an issue of class as it is of sex.

A further misconception is that if boys are doing badly at school then girls must be doing well. And the fact that they have now overtaken boys at A-level as well as GCSE only goes to prove it. But the truth now emerging is that some girls are not fine at all. Impressive exam averages and SATs results conceal a significant minority of girls who are struggling at school. And those who quietly get on with their work may be suffering from low self-esteem, problems at home, or difficulties in their friendships - all of which can pass unnoticed by teachers taken up with the noisier and more demanding behaviour of recalcitrant boys.

The neglect of girls at secondary level was highlighted in January, in a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the National Children’s Bureau, Not a Problem? Girls and school exclusion. Although girls account for only 17 per cent of official exclusions, a great many more, the report suggested, are unofficially excluded, switching off from school and skipping lessons. Teachers, the report claimed, were failing to notice unhappiness in girls, because so much of their attention was focused on disruptive boys.

It is perhaps not far-fetched to ask whether some of these problems originate in the junior years, but there is no comparable study on girls in primaries. However, projects that look at primary boys’ underachievement are turning up concerns that girls are not getting a fair deal.

Trisha Maynard, senior lecturer in education at the University of Wales Swansea, was approached by the head of a local school, St Thomas primary, to help explore how they could make boys and literacy a focus for school improvement. Her research (documented in a new book, Boys and Literacy: Exploring the issues, published by Routledge Farmer) involved staff in talking about their perceptions of boys’ and girls’ performance, and then undertaking a six-week study of children’s written work to see if these perceptions were correct. Teachers found that differences between boys and girls in spelling, punctuation and handwriting were less marked than they had assumed. Both sexes had the same difficulties in writing stories (particularly thinking of “good ideas”). But boys’ and girls’ reading choices and stories often were different, influenced by their attitudes and interests. As a result, some teachers decided that to adopt particular texts and approaches because they appealed to boys would be unfair to girls.

Teachers also recognised by the end of the study that they had different expectations of girls and boys, and tended to accept and condone girls’

passivity and conformity, partly because this supported effective classroom management. At the same time, however, teachers found that they criticised girls’ passivity as it manifested itself in their stories, often described as “bland and dull”, compared with the boys’ more “sparky and creative” efforts.

“SATs only measure one aspect of children’s learning,” says Trisha Maynard. “If we, inadvertently, accept, condone and reinforce girls’ passivity and conformity, and boys’ self-assertiveness and self-belief, who, ultimately, are we educating for failure in the world outside - boys or girls?”

Popular and widely publicised strategies to combat boys’ underachievement include the use of more boy-friendly texts. But Christine Skelton, in her recent book Schooling the Boys:Masculinity and primary education (Open University Press), warns against swinging too far in that direction. Incorporating football references whenever possible in maths and English or reading only swashbuckling stories could leave some girls and boys feeling marginalised.

Friendship is another crucial area where girls often operate differently to boys, and where, because girls tend to be more private about it, teachers can easily underestimate the real trauma that can arise over a break-up or quarrel. The Rowntree report highlighted the powerful effect that friendship problems and bullying can have on girls’ opting out or staying away from school. Towards the top end of primary school, girls’ friendship groups are often painfully riddled with nuances about who’s in and who’s out, broken confidences and mini-betrayals, says Professor Valerie Hey of Brunel University, co-author of an Economic and Social Research Council study, Learning and Gender: A study of under-achievement in junior schools.

“Teachers tend to think that girls are just being bitchy,” she says. “But if their friendship groups are also their learning groups, this type of ‘psychological warfare’ can impact massively on their learning. We need to look much more at the dynamics of groups to see how children’s social relationships are interacting with their capacities as learners.”

Karen Majors, an independent educational psychologist, argues that primaries need to spend more time helping girls and boys develop successful friendships, encouraging a wider range of friendships in the classroom.

“Many junior schools are cutting afternoon break, partly for learning reasons, but partly because of problematic behaviour in the playground. But is it really a behaviour problem, or is it to do with children learning to get on with each other? This is something we need to be spending more time on, not less.”

IMPROVING YOUR AWARENESS

* Make sure you are not giving your attention to a few noisy and demanding children (probably boys) at the expense of the others. Take extra time to get to know the quiet ones, too. Make a deliberate decision to focus on one child for a whole day, observing her behaviour every time you have a spare moment.

* Be aware that some girls might appear to be learning when they are only being quiet. Are they being challenged to produce their best work?

* Before you reach for a boys’ improvement pack and a wadge of boy-friendly texts, assess which children really need help. Boys and girls are likely to experience many of the same difficulties, including problems in literacy.

* Expectations of boys and of girls can vary considerably in different schools and communities. What images of masculinity and femininity are children bringing in with them, what types are they acting out? Try to offer a range of ways of being a boy, and being a girl: for example, opportunities for girls to work competitively and for boys to work co-operatively as well as individualistically.

* Talk to the children about their preferred ways of working - for example, in pairs, groups, or whole-class.

* Pay attention to children’s friendships, and look at the ways in which their social relationships interact with their learning. Observe them in group work and in the playground. Make opportunities, circle time for example, to talk to children about their friendships.

HELPING THE QUIET ONES

As teachers are often aware, a quiet, withdrawn child may not be happy. But if the child is not difficult, their problems may be overlooked. They may need to be referred to an outside agency for support.

The National Pyramid Trust is a development agency currently operating in 30 authorities and 130 schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, with schemes to help teachers carry out “emotional health checks” on a school year (normally Year 3). Ten to 15 children may be identified as needing extra help, and eight to 10 attend a 10-week therapeutic after-school activity club, staffed by trained volunteers. Boys and girls tend to come to the club in equal numbers. Girls’ problems are often to do with lack of self-confidence and difficulties making friends. “It’s so easy for children’s needs to get overlooked when they’re acting in rather than acting out,” says Kate Hardy, Pyramid director of organisational development. “The courses are designed to help children gain new skills, make new friends, and feel affirmed.”

Susie (not her real name), aged seven, was withdrawn at school, often tearful, and reluctant to join in with other children. Her mother was occupied with Susie’s brother, who was getting frequent fixed-term exclusions. Susie showed signs of becoming school-phobic, but she enjoyed the Pyramid Club and became more confident and self-assured. Supported by new friendships that were consolidated at the club, she has since joined after-school and out-of-school clubs, and is playing with other children during breaks. All this has led to a general improvement in her achievement at school.

National Pyramid Trust: telfax 020 8579 5108