The ‘Raising Boys’ Achievement Project’ (RBA) was a four-year project (2000-2004) which focused on issues associated with the apparent differential academic achievement of boys and girls at key stage 2 and key stage 4 in schools in England. This report highlights some of the dilemmas which are implicit within the debate, explores different interpretations and perspectives about boys’ ‘under-achievement’, and challenges some common misconceptions. Working with over fifty primary, secondary and special schools in England over four years, we have endeavoured to identify strategies which appear to have the potential to make a difference to boys’ (and girls’) learning, motivation and engagement with their schooling, and consequently to raise levels of academic achievement. These strategies have been analysed in different school settings through time, in an attempt to identify their essential characteristics, so that they might be transferred to other schools in similar socioeconomic contexts. The process of transfer of these intervention strategies has involved schools working together in learning triads (each triad consisting of one Originator School and two Partner Schools), with a total of seventeen triads studied, to introduce, refine and consolidate these strategies. The project team has worked with triads throughout this process, supporting, exploring and analysing the process of innovation transfer. In so doing, we have aimed to clarify further the essential characteristics of each intervention strategy, and to identify essential pre-conditions which appear to need to be in place if the potential of the strategy is to be maximised.
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