To expect primary schools to reach out to boys?

[onebadmother]

This is a genuine question - I feel very uncertain about this and about what I want to do about it, and I'd really appreciate as much objective advice as poss.

DS is in Year 1, and since reception has seemed utterly unengaged by school. He frequently complains of being bored - tho I know this might be bcs it gets a reaction from me - and (from the very little he tells me about his day) it sounds like the things they're learning are things that we've talked about at home a couple of years ago.

But a bigger worry is about how schools deal with boys in primary.

Tbh before I'd had kids I totally despised the 'boys and girls are just different' argument - been a feminist since I was 13. But watching even my not particularly rough and tumble, clever, sensitive boy cope with the last 2 years,I've changed my mind.

Almost all the boys seem like grenades with the pin still in (just) at home-time. Like they've been caged, and suddenly set free. And the girl's just don't seem to feel that.

Watching DS run around the playground after school bellowing like a character in Apocalypse Now, and hearing the boredom he expresses, and the fact that his teacher says she has to work really hard to get him to sit down to do the boring stuff - maths, writing - really worries me.

I worry that they don't make allowances for the fact that boys, from my observation, seem to have a shorter attention span.

Or that many of them don't like sitting down and drawing/writing/doing crafts.

And I really worry that the topics they do are approached from a girl-centric (!) position - eg. Nature topics are flowers, not predators/volcanoes. That all the scary (and therefore exciting) stuff has been excised - and it's all been (I can't believe I'm writing this) emasculated.

I know that reception and yr 1 has to be about making them sit down and work, to some extent. But I don't think this is simply a logistics problem - ie. how to crowd-control a 30-strong class. I'm beginning to feel that there's an institutional failure to include boys and their needs.

Surely there's a way to educate that accepts some of boys' limitations - and plays to their strengths. And surely, after 30 years of child-orientated education, this is an issue that's come up before?

When I was 19 I would have said - so what? maybe the balance is finally being redressed. But now it's my boy, and I can't bear it.
Am I going mental?

brief article from BBC on boys performing less well at school

Just read the OP not the rest of the thread. I am approaching this as a mum of 2 very energetic boys and as a primary school teacher myself.

I agree that the 'traditional' school system does not appeal to many boys. However, many schools/teacher are working hard to redress the balance. There is a lot of current research/training going on to do this.

As for DS1, he barely talked about reception, but now in Y1, he LOVES it. He has a great teacher, who is the mum of a very lively Y1 boy herself, and she really 'gets' ds1. He is very lucky

And just to add, I love teaching all kinds of pupil, but really love teaching 'exuberant' boys

popsycal just tell me where... I'vea few going spare I can send along

I like teaching them too Popsycal. You know where you are with them!

Bump bbuump!

Sorry, I went away for the weekend (never normally do that!) and so haven't been able to check in - but blimey, this is soo helpful and also really interesting...

I agree with you.

The problem isn't just with schools though. If you go to a bookshop, it's full of angelina bleeding ballerina and flower fairies and all that rubbish.

Make a fuss. Go on. See what happens. Ask them about their strategies for engaging boys.

TheApprentice - thank you for such brilliantly practical advice. I try to do some of this kind of thing, but not nearly enough - usually because of lack of specific ideas...
Thanks again

Quattrocento, you're right. Actually, this whole thread has made me feel confident about tackling it.. I'm never backward in coming forward iykwim but sometimes you really do need a plan and some backup arguments otherwise you (by which I mean me) just end up alienating people..

RubberDuck - blood and thunder, your school sounds unbeleeeevably good. What brilliant luck.
I have a friend who used to do forest school stuff (before she had kids!) , but until I clicked on the link I'd never realised just what that was. Sounds wonderful - I've put my name down.
hThanks a lot.

Littlefish
Thank you for explaining the learning styles thing - which makes complete sense, and which also makes me much more confident in bringing it up with ds's teacher.
It's one of those things that I've never thought about before. I tend, I think like others, to think in terms of problems - 'my child finds such and such a thing hard' - but once you think in terms of 'types', suddenly the pressure's off, and it all becomes more positive..
Thanks again, I'll take this calmly into my next p/t meeting..

I find that my ds who's in year 2 has a much better day at school if he's had a good run first. I know it's a generalization, but I do think that boys of this age need huge amounts of exercise - much more than most of them get. Girls too - but especially boys. Interestingly, I was concerned about this year for him ans his teacher is quite strict and authoritarian, compared with the lovely gentle year R and year 1 teachers he had. But he loves her. "She just tells us what to do and we get on with it"

onebadmother: it certainly seems to suit ds1 perfectly. The school does have its faults - apparently it's not so hot on certain types of SEN, which is a real shame as it seems very progressive and inclusive in other areas. They are working on improving that though.

No onebad you are not,

Boys are different, and if your son has any issues with learning in noise then he will have probs.

I sent my bright, vocal son of to school and by year one they had him in the slow learners classes and basically on the road to labelling him. He got so down that he had behaviour problems towards me.

I pulled him out of school and taught him myself, and he is way ahead of were I was at his age now, he is happy, confident and outgoing, has lots of friends and mixes well.

School is not for everyone.

Home Educating is legal in England, you can take your child out at anytime and you don't have to be a teacher.

Some home-educator...excuse my bad spelling and grammer. I plead excessive vomiting.

yep agree with the op. schools are failing alot of boys. we don't have any male teachers at all at my ds(6) school.

Not having males teachers isn't failing boys. The most recent research showed the sex of the teacher had no effect on pupils' learning.

However, a mix of men and women in the workplace is A Good Thing, I think, for staff as well as pupils but then you have to take a serious look at why men are not attracted to primary teaching in particular.

Whether the set up and delivery of our education system is failing boys is another issue. I'm on the fence at the mo.

Also, I disagree that book shops are only filled with girly rubbish. I've had a few mothers mentioning this. (Never fathers interestingly.)

Just looking at the big names and events on for children at the edinburgh book festival showed that it was predominantly a Male Programme if you want to make that sort of distinction.

Marketing means book shops promote all those fairy books, etc. That does not mean it is hard to find Boy Stuff. It's not.

Thanks everyone for some really interesting ideas and info.
might try the pre-school runabout idea, though the thought of getting out of the house half-an-hour earlier makes me shiver...!

I agree that it's not as simple as more male teachers - tho that would be lovely - more that the acknowledged differences between b's and gs should be actually worked into the system, rather than just being 'acknowledged'±!

Thanks again everyone.

I think the differences - and the scale of any differences - have to be officially acknowledged first abnd backed up with some robust research.

The education system has become, and is still becoming, more active, investigative and hands-on in its teaching methods. And that benefits boys and girls.

And I know this is not the right forum for it, what with the dearth of men, but I would be interested in hearing a dad's point of view on this issue.

My Ds thrived in primary school. He loves learning and it more than met his needs. He is very bright (on g&t register)albeit with a specific learning difficulty, although other parents at the school of bright boys have said their boys haven't been stretched enough.Not sure if that is just an excuse for their bad behaviour in class.
He is not that sporty and would never make any teams, but he loved doing his Year 6 sats because it bought his competative nature, even though the school does not put any pressure on them for sats.

I have actually had more problems with DD's attention span and keeping her focused in class. She talks too much and forgets just because she can do 20 things at once and still take everything in, that she is distubing others who can't.

having read the reast of this port apart from op, but i have to say that was one of the reasons at the end of year1 we moved ds1 to an all boys prep school, and hopefully will do the rest of his education single sex.

My brother and I both went to single sex schools, and I was really shocked at the biase towards girls in state education - or maybe just ds1 old school. Boys having to prance around pretending to be fairies in gym classes, and the book for reading all biased towards girls.

Now at dss school, they are allowed to be boys, but within strict limits, and everything is geared around the boys. Games, even the way history is taught panders to boys. We love it. I know the whole private school thing opens another debate, but for our boys single sex was the way to go.

lol @ prancing around like fairies and girly books. Very rare. honest