Why are teachers failing the narrative for boys, is boy playing incompatible with school

[Leteer]

Does anyone feel like boy play is deeply unsupported and thoroughly discouraged in school up to the point where boys are questioning if play is actually good / encourages boys to question if their hard wired need for play is a bad thing. Isn't this a downward spiral for boys to not support what nature gave them which could in turn affect academic work.

What on earth is ‘boy play’

I saw a video once that said something along the lines of school isn’t really designed for boys. Naturally boys and girls have different requirements and different ways in which they learn. Girls in general can sit for longer than boys whereas boys need to run around and learn in shorter bursts. I can’t comment on the validity of it or whether it’s true or correct but it’s worth thinking about

@Leteer Can you define what you are talking about, ‘boy play’ as it could mean a plethora of different things. This would be helpful for people to comment.

Do you mean playing like chucking things around the classroom/fighting/being boisterous?

I do think that sort of playing is incompatible with school yes, and schools are right to discourage it.

I have a dd who was a perfect primary pupil. I used to get so frustrated that her school let down the boys so badly that her education was really quite badly disrupted by their bad behaviour.

With my younger boy what I’ve noticed is a tendency for primary school to be extremely adverse to telling the boys off, sanctioning them, ruling with a firm hand.

As a result - games get out of hand. The school has banned It and Chase games (far too dangerous in case our precious darlings slip over). No stick in the mud, not Bulldog, no conkers.

Every time there is and kind of minor scuffle or disagreement it is “An Incident” I get a report at the school gates. It is exasperating. “So I have to inform you,” says the teacher gravely “there was a playground incident today. They were playing cops and robbers and while they were pretending to capture each other they struggled and The Other Boy got elbowed in the chin and had to go to the medical room.”

Okay - what do you expect me to do about that four hours later?

It gets worse. “Whilst I queuing for assembly The Other Boy teased your son, and he lost his temper and waved a fist at him, so the Other Boy pinched him and then your son pushed the Other Boy on the shoulder.” I replied to this one “that’s supervised time at the start of the day. If you can’t keep a class of six year olds in check in a queue, you need to do drill practice so they know how to queue quietly and sensibly. It sounds like my son defended himself - I will talk to him about his temper - but the Other Boy constantly pokes and pinches him day after day and no one stops h so I’m not surprised my son snapped. I suspect I might lose my temper if that kept happening - it’s very annoying and the Other Boy needs to learn there’s a natural consequence.”

It’s not incompatible with school. It’s perhaps incompatible with the classroom, but I guess that’s part of OP’s point.

If boisterous children are seen as incompatible with school, if fighting is something to be banned not channeled, if throwing things can’t be relocated to the sports field, then we will be switching off a pretty big cohort of children. Children like that aren’t extreme outliers (which is a different issue), they are a pretty big group who need to be socialised and educated too. Some of them girls, of course, but mainly boys.

Boys do need rough and tumble play and to be active. I'm not sure girls don't need more of it than they get, but they do as a whole adapt better. All children should be allowed to be outside more, move more, play more, and be more physical in the way they learn and experience the world. Not going to happen in our current education system though.

Yes exactly this and this is what's I've observed with various children over the years. If the channels are not considered we are treating a large proportion of children as outliers when they absolutely have something good to foster which is 100 percent ignored and often leaves the parent to constantly fill in the gaps and try to undo everyday what has been done in the school. This is exhausting and not necessary and puts boys (and some girls) at a disadvantage.

Exactly. We start school far too early for the majority of boys for example yet girls are ready. I see it constantly.

No

Exactly. Rough and tumble us banned in schools

I think there needs to be training on what's bad behaviour and what is literally just boys playing. I feel like teachers don't get taught this, many of them do not have boys in their family and won't know the dynamics of bringing them up.
Let bad behaviour be set apart.

What do you mean by boy play OP?

Many girls enjoy chasing games and ball games. Football seems to be the activity that ends with the most arguing. Some boys treat the lunchtime kick about like you World Cup final and take the result into the classroom. Schools obviously can’t afford to have one playground supervisor or staff member to solely monitor the football.

Grandson attends a private all boys primary; my dd says they occasionally get quite feral. Much more PE and running about helps during class time.

Boys and girls need much more active, imaginative play than the primary school day allows. Imagine if young primates in zoos were made to sit quiet and still for hours on hard chairs? It would be seen as cruel.

Children need more active play at school.
Breaktime and lunchtime are far too short.
After school care is too sedentary; being outside and muddy is good for children (and teens and adults!).

I’d ask parents what do they do afterschool to facilitate opportunities for their children to take part in outdoor physical activity that is play-based?

I asked chatgpt to explain and it said this:

Competitive games (wanting to win, keeping score)
Physical exploration (climbing, jumping, testing limits)
Rough-and-tumble play (wrestling, chasing, mock fighting)
Object-focused play (building, vehicles, tools)

Bulldog was banned in my school in the 80’s. For good reason!!!!

School literally was designed for boys though, for hundreds of years schools were boys only!

I think the real issue is a gradual eroding of kids’ ability to have some independence in the name of safety. PP have given great examples of how normal playground behaviour has become “an incident”, which is ridiculous. And until very recently, kids were left to play outside after school and in the holidays for hours on end without much adult interference, and over the last 20-30 years this has been seriously curtailed in the name of safety.

Obviously safety is good! But I think that removing all that freedom from children surely has knock-on effects too, and maybe especially for boys.

All of these are games girls like to play. Labelling them “boy games” rather than addressing this as a child development need, is part of the problem.

They banned tag at my children’s school. It’s ridiculous. Unstructured, energetic play is critical for child development.

We would play Tag in the street and at school. Now kids do neither. As parents we can pay for children to attend football, swimming clubs etc but it’s hard to replicate unstructured, high energy play as a large group.

So I agree traditional play is seen as problematic for some schools yet they also moan about behaviour. Maybe MORE running would be the answer.

But my girls played Tag etc daily, so I think it’s both sexes who are missing out.

It’s because there are 30 children in a class (hundreds in a school). If you have siblings or friends over at your house then you would be talking two or three children. If they have rough play then it is manageable. If you have 30 children or even half of that being rough someone gets hurt very quickly. You then will have parents coming in a complaining that their child is hurt. This week alone I have had three parents come in and complain that their child (all boys) was hurt, I’m talking tiny scratch or a small bump, by another child.

Parents can’t have it both ways I’m afraid.

weve had to ban football because the incidents of children being hurt (again nothing more than falling skipping over on the playground and getting a bumped knee) and the use of bad language was getting daily complaints.

Why are building sites not 50/50 male and female? Car mechanics? Why if girls can choose their careers? There's differences. Girls CAN do everything boys can but it doesn't mean they will want to or have the drive to do it out of choice which is why your bin man isn't a woman.

Let's not forget boys do have differences which needs to be catered for from young and not ignored because girls like to play footy.

Utter bollocks boys do not need 'rough and tumble' any more than girls do it's just massively encouraged in some households for boys.
My son and his friends do not and have not ever been into rough and tumble because their families don't permit that sort of behaviour. They are all absolutely fine, well behaved and notably have all been well suited to school.
Stop making excuses for boys and holding them to lower standards of behaviour than girls.

The trouble with ‘rough and tumble play’ is one child’s rough and tumble is another child feeling hurt. There is usually a power imbalance and even when there isn’t, it very quickly tips from play to a real injury. Rough and tumble at home with a parent is ‘kept in bounds by the parent and the ‘hurting’ element is controlled Particularly when children are young they struggle to understand where the boundary lies between rough and tumble and behaviour that will hurt or injure someone. Expecting schools to have a boundary between ‘rough and tumble’ and violence is unrealistic and each parent would perceive that boundary as being somewhere different. Multiply that by 30 children to hold that boundary for and you can see why the boundary has to be no contact. This does not mean no running, jumping, climbing though and all tag games are fine as long as children are ‘tagging’ not grabbing or pushing.