Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service. I'm David Grossman. Each week one question, four expert witnesses and an answer.

It's a morning scene that's played out in various forms all over the world.

Good morning, Bruno!

Come let's get ourselves sorted, please gentlemen.

Reluctant groups of boys, some yawning, some chatting excitedly, are coaxed into more or less straight, more or less quiet lines, ready for the school day.

But Fulham Boys School in West London is different. Everything they do here

from physical stretches, and vocal exercises.

Three four,

Tiki tak-da-da-da-da-da-da.

To English lessons aimed at developing not just writing and reading but

confident public speaking.

And what I'd like you to do is just to read through this this brief extract where we've

got the dialogue from Lady Montague, Bancolio.

Are all geared towards tackling one of the most puzzling and pervasive problems in education,

the educational underperformance of boys.

So what's going on and why on average do girls do

spectacularly better in education than boys? and boys.

Part 1. Mind the Gap. More than a decade ago, a colleague of mine and I were just having a casual hallway conversation. Claudia Bookman is professor of sociology at Ohio State University in the United States.

He had just been at an ice cream social for his school where they were handing out

Achievement Awards and he noticed that the great majority of the people

receiving the awards were girls and as we began digging into the data,

we were really struck by a growing educational

...