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White disadvantaged girls have seen the sharpest drop in attainment among the major pupil groups, analysis by ����Vlog suggests.

Leaders say the “concerning” findings show a clear need for targeted action, including via the upcoming schools White Paper.

The calls come amid concern that girls are being overlooked in efforts to tackle the underachievement of white working-class children, as highlighted in a ����Vlog investigation.

Disadvantaged white girls struggle

The proportion of white girls on free school meals (FSM) who obtain grade 4s in GCSE English and maths has fallen by nearly 6 per cent since before the pandemic, ����Vlog’ analysis of Department for Education data shows.

During that same time period, the figure for white boys on FSM has risen by 6.6 per cent.

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Joel Hinchliffe, headteacher at Sheffield’s Parkwood Academy, said the improvement among white boys on FSM was “encouraging”, but the decline among white girls on FSM was “concerning and deserves serious attention”.

“The analysis is a stark reminder that this is an issue that is growing, and we need to be proactive in addressing it,” he warned, adding that the gap suggests “current strategies may not be addressing gender-specific barriers”.

“This trend must inform the upcoming White Paper,” Mr Hinchliffe said.

In 2018-19, 37 per cent of white girls on FSM secured a grade 4 in their English and maths GCSEs.

This jumped to nearly 48 per cent during the pandemic, when exams were cancelled, and the figure has since steadily fallen to just under 35 per cent in 2023-24, the most recent year for which this data is available.

This is 5.8 per cent lower than before the pandemic.

White girls who are not on FSM have seen a smaller, 0.85 per cent, decline over that time, to 68.5 per cent in 2023-24.

But every other major group for which ethnicity, gender and FSM breakdowns were available in this dataset saw a rise in 2023-24 compared with pre-Covid times.

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Elma Lawson, director of education at Anthem Schools Trust, which runs four secondary schools and 11 primaries, said just 22 per cent of white British girls on FSM at her trust are predicted to get grade 4s in English and maths this year, down from 49 per cent last year and 50 per cent the year before.

“That’s a huge worry for me,” she said, adding that the trust would ensure that these students have “the best teachers in front of them” - in one case, a headteacher who provides 10 hours of teaching a week.

The trust also offers mentoring and arranges confidence-boosting trips to increase students’ cultural capital.

However, some of these girls were averaging 60 per cent attendance, Ms Lawson said. Nationally, white girls on FSM have the

Call for targeted action

An , due to report in the summer, has released interim findings, including that “there are more similarities than differences” between white working-class boys and girls.

However, some leaders want a targeted approach that takes account of the specific barriers that girls face.

Policymakers “need to consider moving beyond one-size-fits-all for FSM strategies and create targeted and specific support for girls with early identification”, according to Mr Hinchliffe.

These could include mentoring, tailored catch-up initiatives, stronger parental engagement, enrichment opportunities and better mental health support, he said.

The narrowing gender gap

White girls on FSM still outperform their male peers: 35 per cent of girls in this group get grade 4s in both English and maths, compared with just 29 per cent of boys, the DfE data shows.

And the figures partly reflect an overall narrowing of the gender gap at GCSE in recent years, as girls’ attainment has dipped while boys’ outcomes have generally improved.

But this pattern is particularly stark for white girls on FSM, whose attainment is falling at almost the same rate that attainment is rising among their male peers.

Nicole McCartney, chief executive of Creative Education Trust, which runs 11 secondary schools and six primaries, said: “The data shows we must stop reading the narrowing gender gap as a sign of success.”

The trend is being driven, she said, “not by boys racing ahead but by a decline in girls’ progress, especially white FSM girls, whose outcomes have been increasingly affected by body image pressures and rising anxiety linked to social media since the pandemic”.

The government’s White Paper “should respond with targeted action”, she said, suggesting that the DfE could endorse English non‑fiction units on “digital persuasion, misinformation and body image”, and invest in strengthening the role of the form tutor.

Girls are ‘quietly quitting’

Seamus Murphy, chief executive officer at Turner Schools, a multi-academy trust in Kent with five primary schools and three secondaries, was also concerned by the trend, but did not see social media as driving it.

“I think the social media apocalypse is overdone,” Mr Murphy said, pointing instead to patriarchal attitudes, undiagnosed special educational needs and the impact of Covid on school attendance among white working-class girls.

“The curriculum is a big factor,” he added, suggesting that there are too few options - including into key stage 4 - likely to appeal to this group.

found that white British girls on FSM were less interested in their lessons, have the weakest sense of agency at school and enjoy school less than any other group.

Mr Murphy felt more effort was needed to speak to girls about their ambitions and develop ways to support them.

“We’re pretty good at understanding the challenges of being a white working-class boy,” he said. “We’re less good at that with white working-class girls. Some of them just quietly quit.”

Whitney Crenna-Jennings, associate director for mental health, wellbeing and inclusion at the Education Policy Institute, said the data showed that disadvantaged girls were “increasingly at risk of falling short of their full potential”.

However, she highlighted the fact that white British pupils “are not the only group of concern”.

Gypsy and Roma students are by far the least likely to achieve grade 4s at GCSE - but there was no breakdown by gender or FSM status for this group in the dataset ����Vlog used for this analysis.

And, using a different measure, Black Caribbean students than white British students overall.

“Poverty remains the single biggest driver of educational inequality,” Ms Crenna-Jennings said.

“Until we address that - along with the rising crisis in young people’s mental health - attainment gaps across all groups will persist,” she added.

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