girls blardy girls again - no wonder boys are failing

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Figroll, and let them return to education as and when they want to. I have taught adult ed, the people were great, really committed to working hard. they were upfront that at school there were awful, because they lacked the maturity to see why it would all be useful.

The behaviour things has to be addressd though, as it is getting worse. Kids who would get most out of kinethetic, group work can't do it because they lack the social skills that are needed to do that sort of stuff

why has the behaviour got worse MB?

are parents much less strict now, or is it what happens in primary schools?

Hard to know. I don't have any slick answers, wish I did. I think that it is quite a complex issue.

Part of the reason is lack of consistant dicipline both at home and in school. By the time the kids are 11 many of them have come to the conclusion that the school doesn't have any meaningful sanctions against them, so they act how they like. If you give them a detention, they don't show up etc. some parents collude in this, but by no means all of them.

In some families it is a breakdown of the family structure.....and I'm not having a pop at single parents , my MIL was one and a damn fine woman she is too, and raised 4 fine men. But in some families there is no good male role model anywhere, lots of 'uncles' who change rapidly. the boys get to think that being a lad is being a man.

I've thought for years that the school leaving age should be lowered. Glad someone else agrees!

From waht I've seen male teachers seek promotion to management level more often, and earlier onin their career than female teachers, hence lack of male classroom teachers especially at primary level.

Have to agree with edam's post earlier today.

Um, 'why teach them history or geography if they want to be a plumber'?! Well, training as a plumber doesn't require brain removal. I'm sure there are plumbers who are interested in history and geography just as there are probably people in the City who aren't.

But I agree maybe there should be a chance of leaving school at 14 if you really are going to bugger about for the rest of your time, with MB's caveat about being able to return (and if they made some vocational training available for people who did leave early).

plumbing itself needs a bit of brainpower and application anyway, doesn't it?

I just wonder what those 14 year olds would do if they left school - would there be enough manual jobs around for young teens in these H&S-conscious days?

One reason I love my boys all boys prep school. It's boys al the way, no comparison with work of girls (Times yesterday - article showing visit to a school at least 4 of every 5 bits of work on the wall was by a girl as they're neater which of course you don't get in a boys school), boy books, boy sports, no girls doing better in class, teaching 100% addressed to the needs and stages of boys.

Having less GCSE course work as is currently planned will help boys.

TBH carolina, I don't particularly care what they do when they leave, isn't that awful? It is just that if you have sat in front of a class of disruptive , abusive 14-16 year olds who do no work, and only want to be a pITA, it gets to you after a while. And schools are not baby sitting services. If they will not work with us, and in doing so prevent others working, they should go somewhere else.

Now, like Edam a feel that one of the best ways of coping with these kids is to give them appropriate courses in things that they are prepared to work at. Mind you, some of them just plain old don't want to work. My BIL runs his own electrical company and has lost count of the aprentices who fail to turn up to their collage classes, skive off work etc.

Oh, I hate the 'course work suits girls better' argument. Not me! I'm good at exams, as are lots of other girls. And course work is just homework, isn't it? If you can't be bothered to do it, that's your problem, not the responsibility of classmates who happen to have different genitals.

'who happen to have different genitals' LOL

I don't go for neat is better either. Being hoplessly un-neat myself I have a soft spot of the bright but disorganised

The boys can all do the course work, they often can't be arsed.

It is funny, all the girls clock the fact that if they get their heads down, they can get the work done and then have a quiet chat at the end. No boy I have ever taught, no matter how able, has ever worked this one out

I do love working with them though! Most of the time

LOL MB - bring back National Service, eh?

armed forces don't want them either! dh is in the RAF

'bright but disorganised' is my kind of thing, too, MB. And I was a lazy sod at school so exams suited me fine. Coursework would have been a pain in the bum. But if it had been a requirement, I would have pulled my finger out and done it, I'm not completely stupid.

Still glad I did O-levels and had the chance to piss my geography teacher off by rarely doing my homework yet getting a B, though (compulsory subject, arrogant child who thought it was stupid).