SIGNIFICANTLY more girls than boys are making good progress during their crucial early years, according to new figures.

They show that, by the age of five, 75 per cent of Bolton girls are deemed to have achieved a “good level of development” compared to just 60 per cent of boys.

The statistics, which relate to 2018, were reported to members of Bolton Council’s children’s services scrutiny committee by Jan Robinson, head of the borough’s Start Well Service.

The findings are of particular concern because, while the early years development gap between boys and girls is a national trend, Bolton’s figure for boys is also five per cent below the national average.

Cllr Mudasir Dean questioned why addressing the issue was not listed among the service's “current priorities” as listed on a presentation shown to the committee.

But Ms Robinson said it was an “ongoing priority” and one which the service had worked with a number of schools on over the last two years, looking at language, learning environments and resources.

And she added that one reason for the problem could be that early years education tended to be a “female-dominated profession”.

She said: “We do a lot of promotion around the workforce, it’s something that attracts more women into it historically. We have probably got less than two per cent of our workforce in Bolton in early years who are men.”

And she added that salary level could be one factor deterring more men from coming into the job.

She said: “A lot of staff are on the minimum wage, I think it’s very difficult. For a lot of families it’s a secondary income and it’s a shame, because, when you do have male practitioners and settings, the marks are very different, and you can see that.”

She added that boys also tended to perform better when the majority of their classmates were of the same gender as the curriculum was more likely to be geared to their needs.

Among the areas boys tend to lag behind girls in include language use and writing skills.

Cllr Adele Warren raised the point that boys’ motor skills do not develop as quickly as girls, and this was recognised in countries such as France and Sweden. Ms Robinson said this was why the service was putting an emphasis on physical activity, which can be forgotten as schools feel the pressure to get children reading and writing from an earlier age.

She said: “To write well you have to be able to use your muscles to climb around.

“That’s why we say physical development is so important, getting boys climbing, using their right hand and their left hand at the same time, that’s how you improve writing skills, not by sitting down with a pen in your hand.”

She added that while the disparity between boys’ and girls’ development was a national one, efforts were being made to understand why boys were still falling behind, despite improvements over the last three years, which have seen the overall figure in Bolton rise from 64.6 to 67.5.