In terms of major advantages or disadvantages, I cannot think where my gender has hugely impacted on me growing up. I remember in primary school where different sexes changed for PE in different rooms, however, this was only when we progressed up the school; lower primaries still all change communally.

I believe that gender affects children more as they move up to secondary school. This is where pupils, girls particularly, start to change their behaviour in order to impress others to form both friendships and relationships. I recall many girls whom I knew at primary school changing their personalities, and their appearance, simply through moving up to “big school”. Makeup featured heavily – sometimes very heavily – for many of the girls, in the hope to become “popular”. This pressure of appearance can often cause more stress for girls than it does for boys and through my years at high school, I could with certainty say that this was the case, however, this faze seems to be appealing to girls younger and younger. The older primary children, primary 6 and 7, can be seen wearing makeup and short skirts, which I believe is an unnecessary pressure being put on young girls which boys do not have to face.

Personally, looking back academically, most of the top groups in primary school did consist of mainly girls, and I can even see that now as I have worked in primary schools on placement, however, I believe this was strongly due to ability, not sex.