Girls are outperforming boys in GCSE exams at Jewish schools, according to new data released by the Department for Education.
But the margin of difference is still smaller than the national average for English schools, where girls do five points better than boys on the “Attainment 8” score, one of the new performance measures introduced by the government this year.
Hasmonean girls scored four points higher than boys— 63.2 to 59.2 and the picture was similar at JFS where girls scored 65.2 to the boys’ 61.3.
At Yavneh College, girls achieved 62.4 compared with 59.6 for boys.
The gap was closer at some schools — less than a point at JCoSS where girls recorded 57.6 and boys 56.8.
And at one school, Kantor King Solomon, boys did better on all GCSE measures, scoring 58.3 at Attainment 8 to 57.8 by girls.
One striking figure is the progress made by girls at some schools since primary school. In the new Progress 8 measure — which evaluates academic development from entry to GCSE — girls achieved a high score of 0.75 compared to 0.26 for boys. (It means that girls achieved nearly threequarters of a grade higher on average at GCSE than might have been predicted when they started secondary school.)
At JFS, the Progress 8 score for girls was 0.73 compared to 0.19 for boys. At JCoSS it was 0.64 for girls and 0.35 for boys. (There was no comparative breakdown for A-level.)
The latest figures, updated from October’s provisional tables, confirm the quality of teaching at Jewish schools.
Three schools — Manchester Mesivta, King David High School, Liverpool and Kantor King Solomon — are in the top five per cent of English schools for Progress 8.
There was no Progress score for Menorah High, a strictly Orthodox girls’ school in north-west London, because it went state-aided only last year. But it was the highest-performing Jewish school for Attainment 8 and the “English Baccalaureate”.
The GCSE results for Immanuel College and Pardes House Grammar have not been included in our table because they take iGCSEs, which do not count in government statistics.
As Charles Dormer, Immanuel headmaster, explained, “Thankfully we are an independent school and able to choose the qualifications which give our children the best education and best results”. David Vincent, deputy head of Pardes, said it offered iGCSEs “for our most able boys”.
Immanuel topped the A-level table for Jewish schools as the only one to obtain an average A-grade in the new evaluation system.
It also had the highest proportion of students, 45 per cent, who achieved at least two As and B and including two in the traditional academic subjects such as English, maths or history favoured by leading universities.
Two state-aided Jewish schools, Yavneh and JCoSS, are in the top four per cent nationally according to their A-level progress score, meaning that students did far better than expected from their GCSE results.
A-LEVEL
School |
Average A-level points | Average grade |
|---|---|---|
| Immanuel | 46.6 | A- |
| Yavneh | 42.1 | B+ |
| JFS | 41 | B |
| Hasmonean | 40 | B |
| King David Manchester | 39.8 | B |
| JCoSS | 35.3 | B- |
| Beth Jacob | 34 | C+ |
| Menorah Grammar | 32 | C+ |
| Lubavitch Girls | 29.4 | C |
| Kantor King Solomon | 29.3 | C- |
| King David Liverpool | 28 | C- |
A-level points are based on system which scores 60 for grade A*, 50 for an A etc to 10 for an E
GCSE
| School | Progress 8 | Attainment 8 | English/Maths | EBacc |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manchester Mesivta | 0.61 | 59.2 | 75 | 63 |
| King David Liverpool | 0.56 | 59.7 | 87 | 35 |
| Kantor King Solomon | 0.54 | 58 | 80 | 49 |
| JCoSS | 0.47 | 57.1 | 78 | 35 |
| Yavneh | 0.46 | 60.7 | 85 | 35 |
| Yesodey Hatorah | 0.46 | 59 | 86 | - |
| JFS | 0.45 | 63.3 | 85 | 53 |
| Hasmonean | 0.43 | 61.1 | 78 | 60 |
| Beis Yaakov | 0.42 | 54.1 | 72 | 26 |
| King David Manchester | 0.1 | 62.6 | 91 | 33 |
| Lubavitch Girls | 0.18 | 56 | 73 | 59 |
| Menorah High | - | 66.9 | 90 | 69 |
| Menorah Grammar | - | 56.6 | 64 | 46 |
| Tiferes | - | 53.5 | 85 | - |
| Beth Jacob | - | 49.7 | 67 | 8 |
Progress 8: measures how much progress children have made since entry into school. A score of 0.50 points means they are achieving on average half a grade higher at GCSE than might have been predicted when they started at the school
Attainment 8: consists of one English and one maths GCSE (which count double), three other English Baccalaureate subjects like geography, science or history, and then the three best scores in other subjects. 50 points means a student scored on average a grade C; 60 a B.
English/Maths: percentage of children gaining GCSE in English and Maths at grade C or above
EBacc: percentage gaining English Baccalaureate — English, maths, two science, history or geography and one language
