Girls under the age of five are continuing to develop quicker than their male counterparts in Kent, with new data showing the ‘gender gap’ has widened.

Kent County Council’s early years and school performance document says 82% of "early year foundation stage" girls achieved a “good level of development” in 2018, compared to 69% of boys.

The difference between the two genders has seen a year-on-year increase of 0.4%

Cllr Trudy Dean (Lib Dems) said earlier today (November 29): “It’s really, really worrying that it is embedded so early in children and it’s very worrying for all sorts of things.

“Not least for the aspiration of children, and the turning off – if you like – very early on in the life of boys and how that plays out later on.”

Girls outperform boys in reading, writing and mathematics in both key stages one and two.

Members of the children’s, young people and education cabinet committee were told the ‘gender gap’ was also apparent in key stage three and four pupils – as well as in all parts of the county.

James Roberts, chief executive of The Education People – a KCC company – said: “Further analysis on gender performance show across all areas boys’ performance is significantly below that of girls.

“That will be one of the areas of focus for school improvement work both from The Education People, and in partnership with the school improvement sub-groups across the course of this year.”

Mr Roberts also said there were geographical differences in Progress 8 outcomes (key stage four), with “west Kent performing above average, north Kent is in line with national averages, south Kent below, and east Kent just below that.”

Both sets of data are due to be discussed in further detail at a future committee meeting.