Girls 'get better GCSE results in all-girl schools'

Image captionGirls' school leaders say girls have more confidence when taught in a single-sex school

Girls at single-sex state schools in England get better GCSE results than those in mixed schools, according to an analysis of the most recent exams.

And the advantage for girls' schools remains even when other factors are taken into account, such as social background or a selective intake.

Girls from poorer families in single-sex schools got better GCSEs than their counterparts in mixed schools.

The study showed much less advantage for boys in single-sex schools.

The high performance of girls in single-sex schools has been identified by education data analysts SchoolDash, in a breakdown of GCSE results published last week.

In terms of overall GCSE results, single-sex state secondary schools, about 11% of the total, performed much better.

Image copyrightPA

Image captionGirls are more likely to get better GCSE results than boys

In mixed schools, 55% of pupils got five good GCSEs including English and maths, while in single-sex schools the proportion was 75%.

Among these single-sex schools, girls' schools got better results.

But there are some underlying factors skewing these results, such as:

• grammar schools are more likely to be single-sex
• co-educational schools have a higher proportion of poorer pupils
• girls are more likely to get good results