More male teachers - doesn't that mean fewer females?

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/apr/03/bridget-phillipson-education-secretary-more-male-teachers-adolescence

I don't think this was a considered statement as in world where women have had to fight hard for representation in professions it is is grange for a cabinet Secretary to advocate for more men in a professiion. We certainly wouldn't see the health Secretary advocate for male doctors in a profession historically dominated by men at least until the last few decades.

I don't think teachers are there primarily to be role models but educators. The sex of the teacher should make no difference only their overall ability to the job. To somehow suggest a male has more authority or respect from male pupils surely is just veiled sexism?

I don't personally agree......

I agree. Schools are nothing like the real World in any sense and are a very artificial environment which isn't good for producing well rounded adults.

I remember about a third of our primary school teachers were male back in the 70s and they provided a very good balance and taught/nurtured in very different ways.

More males can only be a good thing.

I agree. Very offensive to the vast majority of males who wouldn't be any danger whatsoever. To deal with the small risks, simple safeguards can be put in place. Is there any evidence at all that current pupils are at increased risk from the minority of male teachers currently teaching??

Children, both sex, are now likely to not have a positive male role model than female.

Caring and educating the young shouldn't be seen as women's work. It entirely ties into the mantra of women being carers throughout life. Women should have to have special dibs on jobs that work around childcare because we should be expecting men to do that too.

More male teachers sounds grand. Ultimately it should be best for the job nit an recruitment commitment to hire 3 per school for example but entirely happy for it to be promoted as a positive job for men

My DS were in a primary school that had no male staff at all. They were technically very well taught (top school in Hampshire for SATS) but I didn't get much sense that they thought about the specific needs or learning styles of boys. And boys learning netball in primary school isn't a brilliant preparation for senior school sport. I doubt many people would say it was ideal for girl pupils to have no female teachers on the staff so why would it be acceptable for boys to have no male teachers?
Not coincidentally there was a massive bleed out of boys in Y4 into the Independent sector, so that in some years only girls remained in the school by Y6, in very small year groups: this might explain the stellar SATS results.

We sent our DS to a boys-only prep that was all about how boys live, learn and play, and having a proper % of male teachers was definitely part of that- and yes, absolutely they were role models as well as subject matter teachers.

@FloreatE At primary there are loads of schools with no male teachers. You cannot make men want this career. So boys don’t always get what they need in my view. Sport can be totally hit or miss.

Absolutely agree, @TizerorFizz. It pains me to say so about Bridget Phillipson as she is so obviously determined to harm my own DC's education- but she is right on this point.

Are there more male teachers in the private sector?
We have experience of both girls only and co-ed private schools and there are plenty of male teachers in both, teaching academic subjects, art, music and sports - they have been generally excellent.
DS has had a male form tutor (5 different ones) 6 years in a row so far and they have been wonderful and am grateful they both have many different positive male role models at school.

Heads of both schools are women and it’s great for them both to see women at the top of such a mixed working environment.

We.need to believe no such thing
There are female teachers who understand.boys.very well, just as there are male teachers who don't. Teachers who can handle boys and girls come in all shapes and sizes and genders. Children respond according to their need.

Nobody actually thinks boys especially don’t benefit from both male and female role models surely. So do girls, but boys need to see men as well as women.

It’s not about handling boys and girls. It’s about seeing people in authority demonstrating good values and skills, particularly in the current climate where toxic male influence is readily accessible and many levels of society seem to hold money, looks and sex as measures of success.

Much like having diversity in race, disability etc is important for people in those groups. Having white people who “get” Asian people or and able bodied person being able to understand someone who is not just isn’t the same.

To add, teenage boys (even those with loving fathers) naturally become more influenced by men outside the home, it’s part of growing up. However, with loss of youth clubs etc it is much harder to find decent male role models IRL and social media has filled that void in a rather negative way such that concept of what a man should be has become so warped it’s pathological.

We used to have national service and more boys going into such things as the scouting movment. We now stand aghast at such military based organisations in the 21st century but with their demise (relatively) decide professional teachers need to take on this responsibility. Teachers are there to teach and teach well in my opinion and not primarily to act as make role models, it's a societal problem not a professional one.

This is an odd thread.
OP - of course teachers are role models who do more than just impart subject knowledge, this has been the case for millennia. Why do people still talk about Plato?
It is especially important in primary for so many reasons. Some boys may have no other males in their life. And please don’t think that celebs and footballers are great role models. It’s so depressing when people think that all boys like sport / football, they don’t, and the idolising of sports people is a big problem. Sports coaches IME have done little to help most kids. Boys need to see normal, steady men sticking at something and doing a normal, professional job.

My dcs school was lucky to have a couple of male teachers, my girls benefited hugely from being taught by a man - they had very few other contacts with adult males and he developed their confidence hugely.

As others have said it’s important that boys don’t grow up thinking that looking after children is something only women can do.

I would say that men work in a while range of professional jobs and indeed the received wisdom for decades is that have been over represented. If you look at the broad sweep of history men have dominated professions and high status positions. We now are in a position where women have addressed many gender gaps and especially in teaching. I think this should be praised and not bemoaned because of a lack of male role models. As I said previously why should teaching have to take on the mantle of providing male role models when other professions don't (indeed suggesting more men in any other profession would seem a tad sexist).

Groups like scouts or cadets and ideas like national service are shouted down by some on the left but then there is head scratching when male role models decline and the is a knee jerk response to foist yet another societal responsibility into teacher's shoukders.

Of course teachers are role models. They don’t get to chose if they are or not. It’s an automatic responsibility of anyone who spends considerable time with children.

Scouts and Cadets are a few hours a week. School is 6 hours every day, 5 days a week. Lots of Scout and Cadet leaders are women anyway and the organisations are mixed sex. My son had 3 male teachers during his 4 years at Junior school , in a school with 50/50 male and female teachers.

I've never heard anyone "on the left" shout down the idea of Scouts or Cubs. I've heard lots of people from all political stripes disagree with National Service though.

My son had a great time at Cubs and Scouts but it's not the same as teaching. Scouts in particular was a bunch of boys being supervised, often at a distance, while they were doing traditionally male-oriented interests like camping in the woods and setting fire to things. It was a great experience for DS and I'm very grateful to the men who chose to be scout leaders but it was essentially blokes doing blokey things.

It's a different scenario to teaching which is more collaborative and nurturing between teacher and student.

I agree that teachers can be role models but sex doesnt necessarily matter. Character and behaviour do.

Not all make teachers may be the best role models as men are as a diverse in their atitudes behaviours etc. as women. It is simplistic in my view that something as complicated as toxic masculinity can be addressed by having a teacher that shaves and talks about football.

You do know that those of us who would like to see more male teachers don't think that that is the only thing that needs to change to address toxic masculinity, right?

@mids2019 No it’s not that simple but seeing normal men behaving in a normal way is better than dc seeking out men on the internet. I’m not convinced it’s a game changer because it’s not an influence at home but more men in primary education brings other benefits in terms of the curriculum and the needs of some boys.

Which in person role models would a primary school aged child be exposed to on a day to day basis apart from a parent or a teacher?

In my primary school aged child’s life, on a weekly basis they see:
Parent (which for many will be a single mother)
Teachers and TAs
After school club (all female)
Beaver leaders (once a week, all female)
Swimming teacher (female)
Sports coach (once a week, male)

So one hour a week of exposure to a male who is unrelated to them.

On a more infrequent basis there would be grandparents (once every 3 weeks or so)
uncles and aunts (same)
doctors (50% chance of seeing a male, go once every 6 months).

Who else is there apart from people on the TV?

How do people propose encouraging more men to be role models in primary schools when the pay is crap and people will accuse them of being paedophiles (see earlier in the thread)?

Most children attend school, and they do so during their formative years. The same does not apply to professions, male-dominated or otherwise. This really isn’t complicated.

What I don't quite get is whether they are going to give special training to male teachers to check for and work on misogynistic traits?
Why put more of the same where our young boys will learn more closely to ignore women and put their own expectations first? Why is the answer to the problem to put the broken bits in to help fix it?

Maybe the role of being a teacher is meant to help grown men get better at caring and living in society with empathy at the same time? Small ratio though...

I think you’ve confused some really simple concepts. A teacher that’s male is all that’s asked. Doesn’t have to shave, or talk about football.