To ask is this quite normal for primary schools?

[Tannie10]

I’m looking at schools for my DS. I had a look round the school that is closest to us. I liked it but realised they have very little male staff. I think only 1 male teacher in y4 and it’s a 2 form school. I think they had 3 male TAs. But absolutely no male staff at all in the infants part of the school. Is this quite normal?

Really? How do you square that with the view that all men in traditional women’s roles are the best, kindest, gentlest, most professional and popular ever?

Very normal, teaching used to be seen as a family friendly career for woman, now it's one of the least family friendly careers out there.

Men often progress more quickly in terms of promotion etc.

I really agree with this. As a mother of two boys, the disparity between how the teachers treat the boys and the girls is astounding.
My eldest is gentle, calm and quiet- youngest is the polar opposite.
Guess which one wasn't so liked at Primary - yep, the youngest one.
The school were also ridiculously biased ; favoured girls and it showed. Looking back - practice was pretty bad at times, especially with certain teachers - one of whom LOATHED boys.
Many of us boy Mums had the same experience with this, so it wasn’t just me.
It was the children who were the ones who had to suffer and deal with it and even they used to say how the school preferred girls.
We had one male teacher and the caretaker.
That was it- with a school of almost 500 children.

Ours is a primary school, in KS2 we have a 50/50 male to female split in terms of teachers, although no TAs are male.

In KS1/EYFS all staff are female and that’s been the case for a long time.

Most if the leadership team are female.

I think we are lucky and have a few more male teachers than most, including a male reception class teacher. We then have 3 other full time male teachers and there are 3 part time male teachers who cover days other (female) staff work part time. We are a two form entry primary school.

In my sons school there’s 2 teachers and the caretaker everyone else is female including all SLT.

When i trained all the malesnon my course got an extra payment for being a minority- they thought it was funny as white males never normally count as a special minority

I suspect children come in to it a lot. How many part time heads are you aware of? (I’ve known one school with a job share head.) Yet how many women want to be part time after having a baby?

A friend of mine was absolutely driven and determined to be a head. She was a deputy within about 4 years and had completed NPQH before she was 30. Then she had a baby. She returned part time for the next 7 years while she raised 2 children to school age. She got a headship when her youngest started school. Obviously all of this is a choice, but she now works bloody hard in a way that probably just wouldn’t have been possible with 2 preschoolers. I suspect many women put off being a head while they have small children or decide against it altogether as it is extremely hard to do while raising a family.

We had 2 male teachers in primary school and that was 35 years ago.

1 male ta in the school im in and a male caretaker. Last time we advertised we didn’t get many male applicants.

Where and when?

We chose our daughters school specifically because they had a lot of male teachers, the city we were in when our city started primary had (and still does) a higher than average number of male teachers. So if he had stayed and the staff have stayed 60% of his teachers would have been men. His main TA was a man.

About 15 % of primary school teachers are male, so it is very normal to have less men. Male teachers are often fan favourites with the school mums.

My kids' primary had one male teacher. He was doted on, but actually was not very good, which I wouldn't mention or associate with him being male, except that he was kind of arrogant and careless in a way that showed he capitalised on the attention he got as a role model. This was almost 25 years ago, though, so I hope things have changed.

Unfortunately I have come across quite a few male teachers like this in my time. Not all! But probably over 50%…and basically no women who are like this.

There was one male teacher at the Junior school when DS1 was there, who was a known bully. I have no idea how he kept his job for so long.
I live in a small town and so many people remembered their school days and how awful he was.
I know this won't be a popular statement, but one Dad caught up with him in a local pub and threatened to chin him if he didn't let up on giving his child a hard time.
Even the nice Beavers leader didn't have a good word to say about him.
I was very relieved that he'd retired before DS2 went there. His 3 male teachers in yrs 3, 5 and 6 were all very different, but lovely.

Yes! Teaching is a very female-dominated career. Most primary school teachers are women and secondary schools usually have far more female teachers too.

That's my experience as well.

I'm a primary school supply teacher, so see the full range of schools. And yes, rural/village schools are much more likely to be all female. The closer you get to "inner city", the more male teachers you'll find.