The same girls reported wanting to protect younger girls who they see posting online about “wanting a toxic relationship with a guy” in which they are “told to watch their behaviour or change their attitude”.
They could see the ways girls were performing a strange kind of female role in order to please boys who are themselves performing a nasty version of masculinity.
Their solution: organise. In one school I visited in Rochdale, they were starting a girls club in which they would discuss it all: from gender inequality, to domestic violence and body shaming, to periods, sexuality and friendship groups.
But leaders from the trust of a Birmingham-based school raised a further concern: girls at school might be worryingly quiet in class, but that’s if they make it into school at all.
Chronic absenteeism (missing 50% or more of school sessions) is on the rise. In 2017/18, only 6% of girls affected by absenteeism were severely absent. In 2024/25, that proportion more than doubled to 13%. Absence rates were higher for particular groups of pupils including those eligible for free school meals.
Mental health issues like anxiety were the most common concern raised by parents of girls to a helpline run by the charity Young Minds. And there’s also caring responsibilities.
I was told of girls as young as Year 6 tasked with caring for younger siblings, and missing lessons as a result. In one city, I spoke to a teenage girl who had spent a year away from school, “helping her mum” with the newest baby.
Tom Campbell, who heads up the ACT Academy Trust, which runs 38 schools in England and Wales, told me: “The decline [for girls] is real. And the data is flashing red.” GCSE passes in English and Maths are down 7% at grade 4, (previously a grade C).