Boys are closing in on girls in terms of top grades, with the gap between the sexes the smallest it has been for eight years

However, while boys are edging towards the same success as girls, girls still massively outperform their counterparts.

Almost a quarter (23.7%) of all the grades awarded to girls in the UK were at A/7, compared to 17.2% for boys.

EDUCATION GCSE
(PA Graphics)

Figures published by the exams regulator Ofqual show this represents a difference of 6.5 percentage points, the narrowest since 2010, when the gap was six percentage points.

The figures this year also reveal the first year-on-year fall since 2007.

Girls also outperformed boys when it came to achieving a clean sweep of 9s this summer.

They made up almost two thirds (62%) of the 732 16-year-olds in England taking at least seven new GCSEs who scored grade 9s in all subjects.

Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham, said: “There is further evidence that boys do better in the tougher exams – in the tougher courses with the exams at the end.

“They are still a long way behind, but they have narrowed the gap a bit.”

He added: “But the fact that girls are getting the clean sweeps still, just shows how far the boys are behind.”