Most Boys Aren’t Failing School — School Is Failing Them

Boys are underachieving in UK schools, not due to lack of ability but because classrooms ignore biological and neurodevelopmental differences. Changefactor explores how gender, hormones, and neurodiversity shape learning — and what schools can do differently.

The Problem: A Pattern Hiding in Plain Sight

Across the UK, boys continue to fall behind in education. They underachieve in reading, disengage from learning, and are nearly twice as likely to be suspended or permanently excluded as girls.

This is not new but it is preventable.For too long, education policy has focused on behaviour management rather than understanding the biological and developmental realities behind boys’ learning profiles.

“We can’t teach effectively if we ignore how children’s brains and bodies actually develop.”

At Changefactor, our work with schools, local authorities and learning professionals focuses on inclusive design. True inclusion means recognising all dimensions of diversity, including biological and neurodevelopmental difference.

Understanding the Biological Difference

Research shows that boys’ hormonal and neurological development follows a different rhythm to girls’.

During puberty, testosterone in boys increases up to thirtyfold. This surge influences brain regions responsible for reward, motivation, impulse control, and risk-taking. It amplifies energy, focus on challenge, and responsiveness to immediate feedback.

Yet most classrooms still rely on long sitting, extended writing, and delayed assessment — conditions that clash with how many boys process learning.

With a predominantly female teaching workforce, few educators receive training in male hormonal development or how it shapes attention, regulation, and learning styles.

The Overlooked Timeline: Hormones Before and During School

Hormonal shifts begin long before adolescence.

In infancy, boys experience a brief “mini-puberty”, a temporary testosterone rise that shapes early brain development and motor activity.

Throughout childhood, steady hormonal influence supports exploration, spatial reasoning, and movement. These foundations drive the energetic, trial-and-error style many boys display in early learning.

By around age nine, the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal (HPG) axis quietly activates, signalling the start of puberty years before physical changes become visible. From this point, rising testosterone interacts with brain regions responsible for planning and reward, influencing attention and motivation throughout adolescence.

Ignoring this rhythm means teaching out of sync with biology.

Neurodiversity: A Social and Biological Lens

The term neurodiversity was introduced in 1998 by Judy Singer, an Australian sociologist and autism activist.She reframed neurological difference as a social concept, not a disorder, arguing that conditions such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia reflect normal human variation, and that society disables people by failing to adapt environments.

Singer’s insight is essential today. Too often, neurodivergent is used only as a medical label rather than a call for flexible educational design.

Many boys sit at the intersection of biology and neurodiversity. Their developing brains and hormones often drive higher movement needs, fluctuating attention, and a strong preference for structure and immediacy.

Rigid classrooms mistake these traits for defiance when they are, in fact, expressions of natural developmental energy.

“When we align learning with biology, we unlock engagement, not disruption.”

Seeing the Individual, Without Ignoring the Majority

Every child deserves to be seen as an individual.

Around 0.2–1.6% of people are intersex, born with biological traits outside typical male or female categories. Their inclusion and safety are vital.

But inclusive education must also recognise that over 98% of children fall within typical male or female biological profiles. If systems are designed around the exception, they risk neglecting the majority — especially boys whose developmental needs differ most from the classroom norm.

Recognising difference isn’t bias. It's fairness in practice.

What Schools Can Do Differently

• Integrate movement and physical learning.

• Design short, structured tasks with immediate feedback.

• Offer team roles and leadership opportunities.

• Train staff in biological and neurodevelopmental variation.

• Reframe energy and assertiveness as strengths, not problems.

• Keep inclusion broad, support intersex and neurodivergent children without sidelining the majority.

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The Way Forward

Educational equity doesn’t mean sameness.It means giving each child what they need to thrive.

Recognising boys’ distinct hormonal and developmental patterns isn’t exclusionary — it’s evidence-based education.

Until we align schooling with biological and neurodevelopmental realities, we’ll continue to see boys disengage from systems that were never built for them.

References

• UK Parliament Education Committee (2024). Why do boys lag behind girls at all ages of education?

• National Literacy Trust (2025). Children and Young People’s Reading in 2025.

• Granger, D.A. et al. (2014). Hormones and Behavior, 66(2), 314–326.

• Laube, C. et al. (2020). Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 42, 100752.

• Fausto-Sterling, A. (2000). Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality.

• Singer, J. (1998). Odd People In: The Birth of Community Amongst People on the “Autism Spectrum.”