5: Tuning into the Beach Boys

Boys’ educational underachievement across the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and into Key Stages 1–4 has been a concern for educators for many years (Adcock, Bolton, & Abreu, 2016; Goodman & Burton, 2012; Strand, 2014). The Statutory Framework for the EYFS (Department for Education (DfE), 2017) sets out basic educational goals for children at the end of their reception year. National data (DfE, 2019) show that girls continue to perform better than boys in all three key measures with 77.6% of girls achieving at least the expected level in all early learning goals compared to 64.0% of boys. However, for those on free school meals the difference was more significant. This pattern decreases steadily as you move from North to the South of England (Perera, 2016) with children and young people attending schools in London and the South being more likely to outperform their counterparts living elsewhere in England (Greaves, Macmillan, & Sibieta, 2014). It is acknowledged that those children who fall behind by the age of five have lower average educational attainment in their future (Field, 2010) with lower attainment throughout primary school predicting lower achievement at GCSE level (Goodman & Gregg, 2010).