Male teachers in primary school

[anawee23]

Hi Ladies,
Just wondering if you would like to give me your opinions on male teachers in primary schools and whether you think there are enough of them, feel free to be honest and straightforward.

I am currently training to be a teacher and have the task of researching and discovering what parents and adults in general think about Male primary school teachers and whether there is a connection to the bad publicity and the fact that there are less than female teachers?

I have done all my research regarding statistics and facts and figures, but would love to know how the general public and parents feel about this matter/topic.

Thank you for participating, I look forward to reading your replies.

Most teachers who are attracted to Primary teaching are female. Only the Head at DS's old school was a man.

I'm not trying to "diss" state schools here, but at his prep school, nearly 50% are men.

indeed, it was a male teacher that wrote my brother off as thick and obstructed him getting a statement..fortunately his next teacher was not so inclined. It's all about the individual, not the gender.

the 'role model' BS is very annoying, especially as most childrens first role model is their mother, and being female is no barrier to doing that well for both boys and girls.

Status matters more to men. Generalisation natch.

Friend mentioned she was glad her DD (7 or 8?) wasn't going into the class with the male teacher, because "She isn't old enough for that sort of thing."

WT actual F?

When challenged on it, she couldn't pin down what she actually meant, but remained adamant that she was uncomfortable and that "it would be OK when her daughter was a year or two older".

Personally I think boys deserve male role models in Primary school and there arent enough.

all the male headteachers count for nothing?

I dont think they count for much given the large proportion of females doing the teaching, no.

Where dod they all come from anyway, given the severe lack of actual primary teachers who are male?

Despite working towards teaching myself and being very definitely female (!) I have found the teachers who have got the best out of ds1 (MS but ASD) have without exception been male, and the ones at teh school I help at whose teaching I admire most are men. That doesn;t eman there aren;t crap ones or good female teachers (and in my own school days the ones who happened to inspire me weree female) but with the boys that's how it ahs been.

Frined from college went on to teach and I think he is exactly the sort of person i'd want with my own children, although he has had stick at times from p[arents because he is gay and sonsidered packing it in.

'There's something about women gushing about fabulous male teachers - as if just by being male they are far more marvellous than female ones - that is intensely irritating.

Or i's seen as less of a default career choice for men and those that want to go into it are more likely to be committed teachers than that appalling class of teacher that thought it seemed like a secure choice? no evidence, just hazarding a guess.

When ds1 was going into eyar 6, struggling, craving absolute control of his world at all times and very behind with his academic career we asked for and got the Dep head male teacher; our instincts were right, he ahs thived and is now 2 years ahead and soemtimes even does as he is told!

DS3 on the other hand (also ASD) needs a warmer, more gentle approach and so far has always responded better to fermale teahcers. not sure why, just how it seems to be.

"If I am a role model to the kids I work with, and I hope I am, I really hope the boys (at YR1) are not yet so narrow minded as to need 'men' to relate to rather than just teachers with particular characters"

I don't think they are that narrow minded but it is better to have a wide range of teachers, male/female and of different ethnic origins. Seeing a whole school of female teachers surely ingrains into the children at a young age that it is a job for women.

Roughly 40% male 60% female teacher ratio at my son's prep (boys only).

I'm glad there is a mix of male and female teachers. I don't think it is helpful that teaching is not seen by the boys as something that women do as I don't want him to start seeing school and education as something largely for girls / females.

helpful that teaching is seen

Too many negatives... but you know what I mean

My DS is so lucky ( IMO) the head deputy and 4 of the class teachers are male at his primary school . There are also 3 Male TA's :)

On the state where I help out, most children have either dads who are not living with them or unemployed (massive unemployment rate where we are and most people would mvoe away asap if they had work). So a male teahcer might well end up being a hugely significant, possibly even only, working male role model in a child's life.

The etsate isn;t typical even of council estates- obviously cannot explain more but ceertainly doesn;t resemble one I grew up on. but in schools where there is a predominance of looked after / hostel dwelling / etc children good, solid role models of all genders are important and that's especially amales as it seems to be a fact of our society that men are elast likely to retain a long term relationship when adversity strikes.

I've wondered if it's about money - how much do primary teachers get paid and has that got anything to with it (ie is it another example of low-paid jobs being mostly done by women)? that could also be consistent with the greater prevalance of men in private schools and at headteacher level.

There isn't a single male member of staff (teaching or non teaching) in my son's primary school. This is a concern of mine - esp because he only sees his dad for a feww weeks a year

I'd be far more concerned that my children had an excellent teacher, irrespective of gender. Yes, in an ideal world there'd be enough great male teachers to improve the ratio, but I'd rather my children had an outstanding female teacher than a satisfactory male teacher. It's a no-brainer, in my opinion!

I strongly disagree with your 'default career choice', peachy. Every high school I know has a very decent percentage of male teachers. Is it just women who choose it by default then? The amount of accepted sexism here is astounding at times. And, as usual, the reinforcement of gender stereotypes is mainly promoted by women.

the women i know teaching primary did it because they had already taught abroad and greatly enjoyed it, and found a flair for it.

they had other career options open - in some cases that would have been much easier as did not require a year spent doing a PGCE.

'default choice'

I think at applications level, at least, there is a 'default' position. In my last five years as a tutor at what MNers consider a 'good' university I wrote (looking at the now redundant files I'm trying to tidy out today) 37 PGCE references: 20 for men and 17 for women. Of these only six had bothered to get experience of both age ranges, of which one was the only man who opted for primary. I wrote 11 references for women applying to primary places, of which one had tried both age ranges. And, it should be noted, the fact I had done a primary PGCE before returning to complete PhD and then lecture, meant I was probably more likely to get primary applicants (and PGCE ones) than my colleagues. I'm not commenting on how applications were handled, but I think there is pretty good sense of default positions coming through. And the personal statements make you weep: I dipped in and you can almost always identify gender: men claim 'subject specialisms' to pass on (as if an Oxford 2.1 makes you an expert in anything, what a waste of an education if they think that) and women claiming to love nurturing and developing children.

When I look at colleagues now I think men have different reasons for entering the profession, have often thought about it more, and I know aspects of my teaching style are shaped by the confidence of always having been a man viewed as rather bright. I can't for the life of me identify whether or not this necessarily makes me or them very different at what they actually do. There are three colleagues who make me sick with envy-and all are women in classroom positions, not male leaders.

I am, however, bothered by the 'gender role model' thing and the acceptance rather than hostility to the idea that gender need be a key identifier even for young kids. Our school merges four reception into three YR1 classes, and the Head has already approached me to say some parents of boys want me to teach them and would this bother me-to which I said 'yes' since I fear I'd disappoint that sort of parent, and because it's f'ing rude to the women I work with. I will be studying the class allocations closely...

If you are thinking 'role models' it's not the individual teacher-pupil relationship, conditioned by so much else, that bothers me, but the overwhelming sense for the youngest people in our lives that women doing all the actual bloody work whilst men act as fun leaders-its the same picture pre-schoolers see in children's centres, shop floors, cafes, and, if Dad is the only carer who comes in from a full-time job, across their whole lives. And it may be the reason they'd see the same if they pop their heads round the door of Mum's office. To me the real problem with gender in schools is not the lack of male teachers, it's the lack of female heads.

When I was helping to shortlist newly qualified teachers for a post last year there did seem to be more males. Looking at their application forms many were "mature" and had just completed a PGCE or GTP and had been made redundant the year before that. Maybe the recession is leading more men into teaching? We could look at this influx of mature men in two ways:

1. Great! Men with a variety of experience before entering the teaching profession, or
2. Consider how committed they really are to teaching? Are they just seeing it as a relatively stable job in the current situation and may lack the huge committment needed in the teaching profession.
   One did state that they wanted to become a head as quickly as possible to ensure a pay band that was comparable with the industry position he lost the year before. Funnily enough we didn't short list him! When talking to governors, I agree with their comments on how great it would be to appoint a man so we had a better gender mix. But not a "satisfactory" man instead of an "outstanding" woman. Surely, as in any profession, it should be the quality of the candidate, rather than their gender that gets them the job. And just because they are male doesn't make them a better teacher. PS We appointed a woman in the end as both male teachers we interviewed taught really dire interview lessons.

I knew that default choice bit came out compeltelyw rong; apologies.

What I mean was people like on my course at uni- massive employment issues for course generally so we were advised to apply for PGCE. A few gangs of females went together becuase their mates were all doing it and it looked secure but they ahd no drive to do it if that makes sense?

12 classes at DC school, 3 of the teachers are male.
I guess we are pretty lucky.
Apparently over lunch, 2 of the male teachers had a table tennis match the other day, with the third male teacher refereeing. Cheered on loudly by their respective classes. :)

Can't really... imagine three female teachers doing all that .

@Peachy

I think you are spot on in terms of applications. We used to do final year career reviews, and the number of people who said 'well, with [insert Arts or Humanities subject of choice] guess I'll have to teach' was astonishingly high, and very few had even tried at that point. So my experience in working with undergrads in research-heavy universities with A-grade offers was entirely that few with any real talent for intellectual work wanted to teach, and that a minority of those who wished to teach had any way of knowing whether they would be much good at it-experience was a way of getting onto a course, not a way of deciding it they should apply.

But there are two different sample groups here-the applicants and those who were accepted and became teachers. Neither should such generalities suggest that men or women fall into teaching-the background of those undergrads is perhaps atypical of teachers, especially at primary level, and their brightness in other ways doesn't make them better teachers.

But, I think, it is interesting that from that group, many men who wish to teach did not consider primary and many women did not consider secondary.

Secondary is an excellent mix of men and women. Women apply, men apply. Some will apply because they can't think of anything better to do and everyone knows about teaching. I suspect most of them must be weeded out at interview stage. It can't be that hard to spot them.

Primary is completely different, nearly all women. And of course some will apply because they can't think of anything better, the same way that loads of people apply for management trainee jobs with banks and M&S because they can't think of anything better.