To think the issue of poor white boys failing at school is overlooked?

[hibbledibble]

They have the worst outcome of any group.

I highly recommend watching H is for Harry, documentary film which is available currently on Netflix, and highlights this issue.

It's about a boy with SEN, including illiteracy, and his experience in a mainstream school over two years.

It brought tears to my eyes. It was great to see how much progress he made in small group teaching, but sad that his difficulties in class meant him eventually being excluded from the school, and there was not much information given as to what happened to him following this.

It's heartbreaking that this boy could have done really well with ongoing intense intervention, but that the barrier to this is funding. It seemed at the end that the school gave up on him, as he just spent time in the nursery.

I would be curious to hear others views.

@NumberTheory

It does when you factor in the differing attitudes towards raising girls and raising boys and the shifted set of expectations on each. In addition, absent and low-contact fathers are more common in this particular demographic so male role models can be missing or even, in some situations, negative influences.

It's a complex problem with lots of different causes but what is clear is that it starts well before school age and cannot be fixed through schools alone.

Male role models through fathers matter for girls and boys.
It is about societal expectations.

They have the worst outcome of any group.

Not even actually true unless you play games with statistics as the Tony Sewell led government 'enquiry' just did.

[quote Iamnotthe1]@NumberTheory

It does when you factor in the differing attitudes towards raising girls and raising boys and the shifted set of expectations on each. In addition, absent and low-contact fathers are more common in this particular demographic so male role models can be missing or even, in some situations, negative influences.

It's a complex problem with lots of different causes but what is clear is that it starts well before school age and cannot be fixed through schools alone.[/quote]
Different expectations of boys and girls in this demographic doesn’t mean greater academic expectations of girls, so that needs a more detailed explanation if it’s going to hold weight.

I’m not challenging the idea that it’s cultural and can’t be fixed through schools alone. But setting out a theory of why it happens and having that theory apply to a much wider set of people than the one you intend to provide an explanation for is never going to make you look like you have a handle on it.

@Lockdowninfinity

White working class boys who do not achieve GCSE’s have a far greater economic outcome and life expectancy than the equivalent of any other race. So whilst not a race to the bottom. They are not the most overlooked by any stretch of the imagination.

While I accept you may be right, a claim like that needs a citation.

IMO it's a certain type of poverty and family problems that are the underlying issue for this group, and it's the same for non-white kids in similar families. However, some poor kids, perhaps more often non-white ones, come from a totally different background.

For example, the school I used to work in was mainly poor students. The ones whose families had been in the area for several generations were very similar, whatever their racial background. They were stuck in ongoing poverty, poor education, often no father and rotating boyfriends, often issues like substance abuse or maybe medical issues, mental health, or some other barrier that stopped these families from getting out of their situation.

Now, I would say non-white boys in these families might have a slight advantage in that if they could make a go of it, they were more likely to get support in terms of things like special programs or scholarships for BAME students. That being said, most of these kids did not get that far.

The other group in the school was poor kids of immigrant families, many of them refugees. These parents were more likely to be working, and more likely to be free from generational barriers like addiction. Most were two parent families. They scrabbled to get their kids every bit of support they could, which could be significant even at the lower levels if the parents could leverage them. For example, when we ran literacy days, almost all of the kids who attended came from these families, often with mother and father both participating as well. About half of the families had one or more parents with higher education as well.

So if you just look at things like race, poor non-white kids may turn out to be several very different groups who in truth really shouldn't be lumped together. The important thing isn't race or ethnicity but poverty, and also the reasons for poverty.

While I appreciate the point some have made about Conservatives not really supporting programs that helped poor white kids, I am not convinced the focus on identity the LP has would end up paying off for those kids much either. They seem quite adverse to any real class analysis.

@Thickasmincepie

Thinking about it, most of what we do is geared towards engaging boys. But even then, the girls do better.

I think a lot of boys in particular have in recent years been screwed over by gaming. They are basically addicts and it can be worse where the (usually) mum is having to run herself ragged to make ends meet, or is struggling in other ways.

I see a lot of kids now, and it's boys more often in younger years, who actually do nothing besides game. They don't go out, they don't read books, they don't play with toys. It affects them in a lot of ways not least being their imagination or ability to understand narrative.

I'm a teacher working in a deprived area, pupil premium gives us extra funding for interventions etc. Sadly with the teacher shortage and school crisis' over the last decade, they are the group who are failed the most.

That's interesting @SantaClawsServiette
I didnt buy my ds a games console until he was at secondary school. He's still bitter about it . But I felt very strongly that in his primary school years I wanted him to play or be outside...not glued to a screen. He has a console now but only plays it when bored...he'd rather be playing football!

However, I've been a sahm for all his school years so could afford to invest that time into him...to be honest, my life would have been easier if I had just sat him in front of a screen all day. I know women with older sons who also have toddlers and babies and live in overcrowded accommodation...I can see why they just want their older boys out of their hair and a games console is the easy option.

It’s not overlooked, it’s well known and documented.

‘ I think a lot of boys in particular have in recent years been screwed over by gaming.’

This is why parents need to limit screen time,
Gaming time and social
Media access.
It’s not easy as it’s the way many boys ‘socialise’ too but we’re super strict about when our kids can game but can see many of DS friends parents are not and it really affects everything for that kid.

I do wonder sometimes if Boris Johnson had been a boy from the most deprived section of society if he'd have ended up in prison instead of Downing Street. The man has no moral compass fathers children left right and centre, lies about everything and has complete disregard for the law.

Yes he would be in prison. I genuinely think he is a sociopath.

@Mouseonmychair

Poor white boys haven't been the current politically correct cause though so it's not surprising they have been overlooked.

I've been retired for 16 years but even then there was an acknowledgement that white working class boys of average and below ability were overlooked because they didn't sit in a box to be ticked, there's nothing new. In one of first teaching jobs in an very culturally diverse area we were told to be careful what was said in reports, the slightest negative could create real problems for some children depending on their culture. For all children parental support is paramount, if a child can see their parents and their school working together they will be more successful, one only has to read this site to see how many parents consider themselves to be at war with the school! They bred so they know best. When my brother came home from school late the conversation with our Dad went a bit like this Dad Why are you late? Bro Been in detention Dad What did you do to get detention? Bro Nowt! Dad What should you have been doing?

@BendicksBittermints4Breakfast

I take issue with this statement: " they didn't sit in a box to be ticked, there's nothing new"

But they do, the one that is FSM, which has always been a target area for schools. The performance of kids on FSM has been a focus for over 20 years, and schools used to get extra fudning to focus on them. PP that has been given for the last 10 years didn't ever come ip to the funding that had formerly been available.

Its really divisive to say that these boys are overlooked to their detriment because the focus is on other groups, they really aren't.

I gave one child a detention for disruption in class. His mam came in and told me she could get me shot. Not sure that encouraged her child to make the best of his educational opportunities.

They [white boys] have the worst outcome of any group.

I admit I didn’t RTFT, and agree that

1. there are more white boys failing than boys from minorities failing.

2. there are also more white boys succeeding in every course of life than boys from minorities.

The reason why there are, numerically, more white boys failing than minorities’ boys failing is because there are several far more white boys than minorities’ boys.

Obviously, the tories have taken great pleasure in presenting statistics in unethical ways to advance their political agendas.

I gave one child a detention for disruption in class. His mam came in and told me she could get me shot. Not sure that encouraged her child to make the best of his educational opportunities.

I once gave a girl a 24 hour notice of detention, on the day it was snowing heavily so I told her to go straight home and we'd reschedule. Through the window I saw her mother slip, sliding her way up to school, glaring up at me. I let her come all the way before I told her I'd done the sensible thing, she said she was reporting me to th'office!

@Ionlydomassiveones no it is not as simple as that. I have lived this. Of course, chaotic families don't prioritise education, but their kids often arent in school long before exams anyway. It is the poorest kids of families who are not chaotic who are still in school, but do badly.
It is about inequality and poverty and misogyny.

I work in Primary in an area of considerable deprivation. We are a small, one form entry school and we work hard to bridge the gap for our children. We treat the children as individuals, provide countless opportunities for cultural enrichment, give up our time for boosters and after school clubs and provide same day, focussed interventions. Our children behave well and most of them try really hard. Some of them are badly parented and some of their home lives are complicated and chaotic. We do our absolute best to try and mitigate this for them during the time they are with us. Then they go to secondary and the wheels fall off. Over and again we hear about our kids being isolated and excluded by their secondaries, particularly the OFSTED outstanding catchment school that most of them attend.

Its interesting to watch this debate unfold.

I notice the claims of other minorities being given help over white boys haven't been backed up.

It really is the Tories indulging in culture wars, and it allows their suporters to invoke the failure to achieve of these boys if ever other inequalities are addressed.

They don't really want to do anything about it, they just like stirring the pot to keep the status quo at their advantage.

Where is the evidence that poor white boys do better on their careers than average, despite doing worse educationally on average?

It’s not overlooked at all and it’s only brought up because people are talking about poor black people. The people that have defunded education/voted Tory for the last 10 years made this situation possible and their being white has nothing to do with it. Being white has NEVER been a barrier in this life; this poor young man’s barrier is his social class.