I can't find results comparing boys and girls in Australian schools.

However, it wouldn't mean much anyway

The real test is an international test, and the TIMSS international test shows that Australian schools should be doing much better.

In fact, grades 1 to 4 are a waste of time for many students in Australia, and it is only towards grade 8 that they begin to learn something.

https://www.acer.edu.au/files/TIMSS-PIRLS_Australian-Highlights.pdf

Primary school teaching in Australia needs a complete overhaul, starting with teachers paid according to student performance and student satisfaction.

Waverley circles the wagons...
At last someone on this site has real knowledge! Maybe Waverley is actually from Waverley, in which case the real Australia stands up. Wherever the prime educational institutions, it is there where you find the Chinese.
There is a whole subject on this phenomena Waverley. Never once on this site have I seen the problems of Chinese immigration discussed intelligently.

I find the editor of this site reasonably open to a reasoned debate.

I'm no expert on the Chinese and their impact in Australia but it would be good to have even a beginning introduction to:
- numbers of Chinese tourists
- Chinese students here and where they end up
- do Chinese students buy land while they are here ostensibly as students?
- in what sense can we talk of Chinese as foreigners or outsiders when there are many ethnic Chinese who have lived here for many years? Just as a boy of 15 may say "I am Greek" but his father and mother were born here as well as himself
- control of Australian resources by Chinese government-owned organisations
- is "Chinese" a description of race or nationality or culture? (Just as I wonder what is 'Jewish') . People say that if we're opposed to Chinese control of electricity supplies we are racist, but there is no one Chinese race but many races in China. We might, however, oppose foreign control of our resources

I could go on.
By all means let's have a full exploration of these issues as well as talking about boys' underachievement! But ethnicity class and gender intersect as factors in educational success.

//Boys feel that on the whole school is something to be endured, rather than enjoyed.//

I rather enjoyed the learning bits. The time-wasting not so much.

//There were echoes of the principal in another school who said "A boy sits in school all day thinking of the game of footy he will play at 3.30".//

I assure you he does not. He jogs in his morning P.E. class thinking 'well, this is pointless. How is cross-country running supposed to set me up for a better future? I can't wait till next period, when I have a science lesson and will get to learn something that is actually useful and interesting.'

If I could have had extra science, maths and even English classes instead of time-wasting periods spent learning the rules of various codes of football (all as pointless and boring as each other), or how to dance the frigging foxtrot, my time at school would have been much more productive and enjoyable.

But instead we have this quaint, ill-founded belief that permeates our culture which says that people with Y chromosomes all love sport.

No, we don't. It's an inaccurate stereotype, and as such it's a poor basis for good education policy.

//Boys don't want to sit at desks and be talked at.//

I don't know that girls do either. But you're right; subjects where students are given problems to solve such as maths, science, music and art are far more engaging than subjects where the teacher sits you down and tells you what all the answers are. History and English are by far the worst in this regard.

//When asked for advice on this matter, my first suggestions are: talk less. And let the students do more. We need more adventure, more hands-on learning and maybe some creative chaos.//

I agree: I think more problem solving and more hands-on learning would help to address male underachievement in education.

Sport not so much.

It's often true that when we make the changes boys request (more active learning, more learning outdoors, recap of main points at lesson's conclusion, more guided group work) girls agree that this is better for them, too. Perhaps boys' complaints suggest more general criticisms of the passive modes of instruction West has highlighted.

I am fortunate in coming from a more enlightened time, when we did not keep kids at school way past a suitable age for many, just to keep the unemployment figures down. Those who were going to become carpenters, plumbers, secretaries & shop assistants went off at 15 to start learning something more useful than Shakespeare.

Those left at school after the intermediate really wanted to learn, as they planned on serious university courses. We had only 12 boys & 8 girls in 5Th year in a country town school of 350 kids. Today that school has 700+ kids, & a third of them are wasting their time & taxpayer money being there.

I am sorry for you Toni Lavis, you see I really enjoyed, as did most of us, being in the school Cadet Corps, the senior football team, the cricket team, just as much as we enjoyed the debating team, & the before & after school classes for honours candidates.

We even enjoyed learning a bit of hockey, so we could provide some sort of opposition to help train the girls hockey team.

One real advantage of the small numbers was all could participate, & you did not have to be all that good, as you played against other schools with similar numbers, who were mostly no better.

It would be really profitable for all involved, if we could get back to "schooling" only those who can actually profit from more time in school. Many could start their real education in a trade or vocation a couple or more years earlier, with advantage.