My daughter came home from school recently with a frown on her face and dragging her feet the way that sulking kids often do.
What was wrong, I asked. “I’m rubbish at maths,” she said. “I’m in the wrong group, and I’m struggling. I need to be moved down. Charlie said that it’s because girls can’t do maths. I’m too slow and I’m just rubbish.”
The three forms in my daughter’s year are grouped by ability in phonics and numeracy, even in year 1. The rights or wrongs of such a system are a subject for another day, but I have faith that her teachers know what they are doing. It is not surprising to us, her parents, that she is in the “top” set. Even setting aside the obvious bias of loving parents she is able, articulate and generally a confident child.
However, this was not the first time she has expressed doubts about her maths abilities. Her father does sums with her at home to find out what she knows and understands and can see little cause for concern. Trying to bolster her with praise and reassurance doesn’t seem to work.
I went to see her class teacher to find out if our daughter really did need to “drop down” a group to find her feet. It is a discussion we’ve previously had at parents’ evening. No, the teacher said, there were no problems. Not only is she in the “top” group but she performs towards the top end of the class.
Further discussions with our child around her lack of perceived ability suggested that the way her classmates worked may be at the root of the issue. The boys race through their exercises to be first to finish, while she takes her time because she wants to get the questions right. As a result, she often does not complete her work within the time allocated and is teased for being slow, even when what she has done is correct.
All of which has got me wondering – are girls worse at maths than boys? And if not, where does this attitude from some boys come from? It rankles to call six-year-olds sexist, but is that what this is – blatant sexism, already at such a young age? Or is it some sort of peer pressure?
Are boys keen to be seen to stand out in maths because they find it more interesting than literacy and phonics, or because society tells them it is something they should be good at? Perhaps they see maths as their “thing” and girls as more bookish.
I pondered this battle of the sexes during our Easter holiday abroad as I watched my daughter negotiate monkey bars in the park with an ease most boys can only dream of. A friendship with one little boy blossomed when he showed off his own climbing abilities – she was thrilled to have met her match and that they had this in common.
The bottom line is that children just want to fit in. They want to be accepted and respected for who they are, regardless of race or gender, or anything else. This was reinforced by a very articulate comment piece, written for the Daily Telegraph, by 14-year-old Edie Jones (http://bit.ly/1rdCRfC) in early April.
Edie described how, ever since she was at primary school, she has been told by her male peers that she cannot do science or sport or whatever because of her gender and that “it was seen as normal that boys could tell me girls had evolved to have smaller brains than them – so we should stay at home”.
Edie has started a petition “A In Equality” calling for feminism to be included on the PSHE curriculum because, she says, there is too little gender equality in schools. She believes that educating young people on their rights, and the rights of others, will create a fairer, more equal society.
Her argument about gender equality in schools doesn’t explain why girls out-perform boys in most, if not all, subjects all the way up to degree level. Perhaps females are doing better in spite of the obstacles put before them.
But if girls are being made uncomfortable and put down by boys comparing sizes of brains, then clearly there is an issue. It is disappointing that the education secretary Nicky Morgan continues to be unwilling to make PSHE statutory, making Edie’s wish unlikely to become a reality.
But when, in our 21st century education system, six-year-old girls are already being told by their male peers what they can and cannot do, or may or may not be capable of, then this needs to be addressed.
As for Charlie, my daughter’s classmate, he really should know better. His mother is a maths teacher – and a very good one, if reputation is anything to go by!
- Diary of a parent is written anonymously by a mother living in the South of England who has a child aged six in year 1 in primary school. Names have been changed where appropriate. Email your views and questions to editor@headteacher-update.com