Are gilrls easier to teach and boys very different?

[3asAbird]

Been pondering this as have 2 girls , 1 boy.

Eldest at infants whenever asked her who was naughty was nearly always boys.

Some one I know having problems with her year 3 son.
Hes bright, gets bored and being punished for not listening, disrupting. class, acting like class clown.She said hes very active and schools only do 1 hour pe a week at primary.

dd1 dfferent school same area and she gets hour but they do have very active breaks and lunch hours.

I remember the tv show school for boys few years ago bbc2 schools season where it argued that boy should be taught differently and the primary system favours girls in some activities and mostly female teachers.

This has played on my mind as even a book on raising boys.

Youngest seems slower to develop than the girls hes on wait list for speech therapy ad he can be very rough and tumble so can the girls but o plus side hes super affectionate, cute and smiley.

So mothers o boys do you think boys needs are different to girls.

Do single sex boys school give better results when they not trying ti impress the girls.

Teachers based on your class as can be skewed if mix is girl or boy heavy. Guess if was girl heavy do the boys stand out as the naughty disruptive ones as dd1s reception class was girl heavy.

Think her current class equally girl heavy but boys seem to play with girls at new school whereas in old school they played very much separate from year 1 onwards.

In my class 12/18 split girls/boys I can honestly say I doubt prefer either gender - there are days when they are being chatty when I wish there were quieter children, or days when the girls have the sort of falling-out argument that only girls have when I become increasingly frustrated, but to actually teach? I'd never really thought about it.

I do try and include lots of different activities - role play, discussion, partner work, cutting and sticking, games outside. Perhaps there would be a more noticeable difference if they were expected to sit and work silently at a desk all day?

Occasionally I worry if the boys are getting too boisterous and that the girls might be feeling outnumbered, but the girls give as good as they get.

Doubt = don't

Yes I find boys' behaviour much worse than girls'. Not all boys, obviously, but in most classes the vast majority of the pupils who do not behave as well are boys, in my experience. (I have taught in mixed, girls' and boys' schools btw.)

Sad if primary education is teaching in way that does not engage boys.

I think it depends on the teacher as much as the kids. Personally I found my boys easier to teach than the girls - yes they were more active, boisterous and sometimes destructive than their female peers but also less cruel to each other (so I wasn't spending hours sorting out ludicrous squabbles) and easy to engage if you picked subjects that engaged them.

But then I loved using subjects such as football, volcanoes and Harry Potter to teach which may have helped engage my boys more, I don't know.

I find this constant negativity about boys depressing and sad though.

I'd rather have a boy heavy class than a girl dominated class.
I think my teaching style is more suited to boys and I enjoy teaching them (not than I don't enjoy teaching girls; but given the choice I would either have a 50/50 mix or more boys than girls)

YY to easy to engage if you choose topics carefully. We did some handwriting/guided reading activities based on dinosaurs after one boy's total obsession rubbed off onto the rest of the class. They had a lovely time!

Agree with Stitching - constant negativity about boys is depressing

I had a boy heavy class which I thoroughly enjoyed. Yes it was noisier, we did more outside and in big spaces, DT turned into enormous projects and any friendship problems were very quickly resolved. My classroom did look quite battered around the edges and there were less willing assistants to sharpen pencils and tidy things. They were fun and kind, very keen to learn and writing projects took different directions to previous years.
I still prefer evenly split groups and probably least prefer more girls if I'm honest.

My DC go to the same school and DS (Y5)is much more suited to the style of learning. He's a model student.

DD (Y3) is barely interested.

You can't generalise. There are children in both of their years that are disengaged, male and female.

I went on a course once about how boys fall behind girls in primary schools. However, the conclusion we came to was that if teachers do more 'boy' type activities ( although obviously some boys are more like girls to teach and some girls more boyish) then the girls get more from it too and all results rise, so the girls still remain ahead. However, I do think we should alter our curriculum (in the primary phase at least) to include more hands-on sessions, forest school, more sport, proper science and a more cross-curricular approach. It's much more fun, it requires better teaching and it produces good results.

Interesting NewBlue. My personal preference for my own DC would be a co-ed school with certain lessons (English, maths and science especially) taught separately.

Ds so far seems much more motivated than either of his older siblings, and happier to sit down with a book - since he was 9months. I don't think we should segregate by gender as all children are different, by ability/ learning styles possibly but not by such a crude measure as gender. Dd2's best friend is a boy, ds' s is a girl.

The only problem ds has at school is the inability to sit still for more than 30 seconds . His concentration span is zero.

My nieces will sit and read/colour in/ play board games etc while ds is up a tree or trying to catch the neighbourhood cat.

Some psychology study results/conclusions I vaguely remember off the top of my head.

When presented with an infant in a blue baby grow adults play more roughly with it than when presented with an infant in a pink baby grow.
And you probably will have noticed yourself in shops daddy's little monkey for boys and mummy's little (pink) angel for girls. We expect, encourage and perceive different behaviour from boys and girls. Children brought up with roughhousing are more likely to absorb that into their own behaviours.

Girls perform better in single sex classes, boys in mixed classes.

Part of forming the ID of being a boy is not just being boy, but not being a girl, distancing from 'girly things'. Education has become 'feminised' and so is rejected by boys. they devise ways in which is is 'ok' to be academic eg only in sciences, by playing power games with the teacher.

Computer sciences have been found to favour boys style of learning. A change to how they are taught to something more co-operative sees girls improve their performance.

While mothers tend to be quite accepting of boys playing with dolls or pushchairs fathers (and siblings) are more likely to tease them or be disapproving this discourages them from 'feminine' behaviours.

It depends on the boy and the girl! It also depends on the overall dynamics of a particular class and cohort. I've taught classes skewed wildly either way and just one 50:50 class. I've had issues with both boys and girls in my classes. Some issues fit the stereotypes on either side and some do not.

Sometimes boys are boisterous and girls are catty. Sometimes it's the other way around.

Sometimes boys are cocky and girls lack confidence. Sometimes it's the other way around.

Sometimes the boys are slapdash and the girls are gossipy. Sometimes it's the other way around.

Sometimes the boys are competitive and the girls are diligent. Sometimes it's the other way around.

All children are individuals.
Every class is different.
Good teachers know this and adapt.

To be honest, I love teaching boys. (I don't mind teaching girls either and most of the girls I have taught so far have been absolutely lovely...however, so have most of the boys I have come across.)
When given the choice, I'd take the boys, though. Most of the time, I'm being given boy-heavy classes anyway,....with all the silly, little, chatty and otherwise slightly disruptive boys in them. I generally get on very well with them. According to one mum, that's because I'm a bit of a "tomboy" anyway. True. I'm not very girly at all and grew up with lots of boys.
I also have a reputation for being rather strict. I'm not really; I'm just quite clear in my expectations and don't pussyfoot around.

On the whole, however, it depends on the individual children and the classes they are in. I've taught girls, who have been terribly behaved. I've taught boys, who you wouldn't notice because they are so quiet. You can have lovely children in terrible classes, simply because they are terrible as a group and don't get on.

Being a boy is no excuse for falling behind at primary level. Being a girl is no excuse for not being good at Maths, either. However, I find all this stereotyping a bit silly anyway.

I have a boy-heavy class again this year. My boys are really nice, generally very well-behaved and hard-working. (For some reason, their parents stared at me in disbelief when I mentioned this.) They can be boisterous, silly, chatty and a bit daft at times. I can say the same about my girls.

I think this is part of the problem - the expectations of boys' behaviours can generally be very low and lots of people will say to me "oh two sons, they must be so this or so that" and it's always negative.

My boys are polite kind and very well behaved. While I'm more than happy for them to rough and tumble I won't tolerate deliberate acts of aggression from them or excuse this with the "boys will be boys" crap. When so little is expected from boys they are more than happy to live down to our expectations.

I'm married to a gentle kind man, high achiever at work, bright articulate and compassionate. He is an exceptional role model for my boys.

I'm rambling now but hope someone gets my point!

I am a reception teacher. I try to treat all children as individuals & aim to make provision for their own needs. I may fail sometimes but I refuse to stereotype 'all boys' and 'all girls'...
One year I had a group of 'cool' boys who were incredibly keen on writing - so keen that it then encouraged more children in the
class to write.
This year the disruptive (boisterous, violent) behaviour is coming from a couple of girls.

Instead of thinking that "boys can't sit on the carpet", I think it's better to think that the concentration span of a typical 5 year old is not that long (old rule of thumb is 1 minute per year of age for teacher-led input, though they ususally can do a bit longer) and to plan accordingly.

It depends at the time as children differ. I have had lots of studious, quiet as a mouse boys and lots of boisterous girls in my work. You cant stereotype in this day and age.

I taught secondary. Started in a mixed comp, moved to a girls state and then back to mixed. In my experience, I found the following (but it is all anecdotal, so worth diddly squat) :

• Boys loved role plays, but would spend approx. 90% of the time practising the fight, and then try to cram the rest of the preparation for the role play into the last 10 minutes.

• The girls loved having longer projects that they could get their teeth into. I found this rarely worked with the boys because they wouldn't manage their time as well, and had more of a tendency to leave it all to the last minute. They needed lots of supervision / direction with how they used their time. However, when I went to the girls school, I was able to set lots of projects and was constantly amazed at the quality of stuff the girls produced.

• However, whilst at the girls' school, I found the actual teaching much easier, but seemed to spend almost all my time dealing with pastoral issues, friendship problems and the like. It took up a disproportionate amount of my time, compared to either of the other schools I taught in.

However, all of this could equally be down to the culture of the schools rather than gender, so very unscientific!