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 is this “narrative” stuff about!

I’m aware of his capabilities and wouldn’t be bothered by 6hrs outside in the rain if I wasn’t.

Absolutely agree. I move the girls doing gymnastics or making up dances off the area where boys and a few girls are playing football for their own safety. Luckily we have plenty of space for everyone. On occasion when we have to share space, football is banned.

Indeed!

I was one of the meany reasons it was banned at my school… I was the third person to have to go to A&E with concussion., and there were two broken arms… which is why it was banned.

Incidentally girls and boys played it! I am not sure why the OP thinks that girls don’t indulge in a bit of rough play!

wrestling was also banned at play time after a boy smashed his face on the playground and knocked out six teeth, and broke his jaw!

Luckily it was the 1990s so parents couldn’t sue the school, but I am aware that today the school would have probably paid out £100,000 or more in compensation, which is probably why such ‘rough play’ is banned!

Girls and Boys can join Scouts, do a martial art, join a rugby or football club in their own time! That’s the activities that I organise for my children (Daughters) as they like me are fairly fearless!

There’s a difference between misbehaviour and childhood exuberance. Exuberance can be managed and channeled in healthy ways that are not harmful to others. I used to teach young children and it’s been my observation that classroom teachers unrealistically expect staid compliance from kids who have not matured enough to consistently give it. They view “boy play” as an inconvenience at best and “bad” and punishable at worst. I’m not talking about bullying or physical injury, just ordinary children.

OP so you want rough and tumble? Boys should be allowed to be boys and boisterous etc?
Girls like being meek and mild and playing with a dolly and toy kitchen etc

Bollocks.

No boys toys or boys play - any child play. No male or female job take your sexism out of it. My undergraduate degree was STEM about 5% female, postgraduate it was 1%. It is not to do with females not wanting it - it starts so much younger the sexism and expectation. Take your sexism out of this. It’s just bollocks. And yes I can point you to the science.
expectation plays a huge part in this. Drip drip drip of expectation and it starts in pregnancy the expectation.

I have a son and a daughter both played with dolls, both playing with Lego, both liked pink, both rough and tumbled (out of school which is for learning) on our trampoline or in our woods etc I didn’t put expectations on them. Happily I have a daughter who has straight A* including maths and physics and can knit and also happy to beat your backside in a game of tennis and climb a tree and she is a crack shot at clay pigeon shooting. I have a son who is equal who can also knit and sew, and wants to join the army. But there is a reason rough and tumble isn’t encouraged in school - they get hurt.

You say boys don’t succeed at school that it fails them. The gender pay gap is very real. Sexism and violence against women is very real. All children need physical play -all parents can walk their children in the woods, take them swimming, teach them tennis etc all walk or run is free. But they need to be taught social behaviour etc All children need this.

I thought we had grown out of the ‘oh he’s smashed stuff and broken stuff - it’s ok he’s a boy’ mantra ????!!!!!

If schools can't/shouldn't, and many parents can't, what's your solution?

Define can’t.

I don’t think you can blame teachers , many boys are naturally lively and boisterous , it’s up to parents to direct that energy out of school too as well as schools within school.

Parents can't or parents won't?

At weekends we were sent outside after lunch and told not to come back until dinnertime. And that was during the Northern Ireland troubles, so I'm not convinced that life is that much more dangerous now. We also used to play in the street until it got dark in summer (which is nearly midnight in NI summers) Parents have been led to believe it's far too dangerous to let children out of their sight for a second, sure, but that doesn't make it LITERALLY true. We used to knock on each others' doors to call people out to play. So if children no longer visit each others' houses except as organised "play dates", I suspect that's more about parental comfort than children's safety.

And my last paragraph began with "parents need to", so I don't know why you're expecting me to repeat myself.

Many parents can't, times are hard, people often work very long hours, open spaces in many areas are limited as can be transport etc. I'm sure some could do more, some will be struggling just to get through the weeks.

If parents work long hours, then the children are presumably in some form of childcare that would offer socialisation and physical activity, no?

I wouldn't deny any of that but it's not entirely relevant to my point. Children in London after the war played on bomb sites, and I'm sure their parents were kind of busy too.

The only big thing that has changed is (possibly) road traffic - and that could be dealt with if people decided that childhood mattered more than giving car priority everywhere.

But the truth is, people care more about their cars than about children. It's not that these things can't be changed, it's that too many people's priorities are elsewhere.

It's fully relevant, children playing on bombsite is a stretch though.

Not necessarily, no.

Where are the children then? Because we’re not talking about teens(or even tweens )here , are we?

I'm not saying they should, I'm saying they did. The point being that you're using the claim that "things are too hard for parents now" as an excuse for children being deprived of basic liberties, as though they were easier for parents in the past.

Often with elderly family members or at home while parents continue working. Or, in some hall where a bit of colouring is done while they are kept an eye on, but it's accessible and affordable. Can you really not out yourself in someone else's shoes?

For some parents and in many ways access to outside space is much more limited. Many green spaces and play parks have disappeared or some parents can't be there or get them there safely.

When I started teaching (in a tough inner-city primary, mid-70's) there was a DAILY 40-min PE lesson on the timetable (gym; games; skills; movement; swimming - something different every day) when all the children had time to run about, exercise, learn physical skills.That all got progressively more squeezed out by the National Curriculum focussing down on Maths, English & a bit of Science. In those days, all that extra PE notwithstanding, kids still fought at playtime and the time of my then headteacher, for the half-hour after lunch, every day, was taken up with sorting out boys' fights, so that class-teachers could get on with the actual teaching. Fourteen or so years later, as a headteacher myself, I routinely spent 1.30-2.00pm sorting out (boys) 'play-fights' that had got beyond the scope of the (skilled & experienced) lunchtime TAs. Again, so that class-teachers could get on with teaching their classes. I could have chosen NOT to use my (expensive, executive & leadership) time doing that. But that would, almost inevitably, have led to post-school interminable meetings with irate pirates who felt their precious child had been victimised/bullied/unfairly-blamed-tho'-innocent, etc. It's what happened. I guess it still happens. It's part of why schools strongly discourage active 'rough and tumble' play among (almost always, tho' not exclusively) boys.

As I said earlier, many parents can't afford after school activities and live in areas where it's unsafe to play outside. Add to that, I have a DS who's an introvert and was exhausted by the time he came home from school, and another whose ADHD meds wore off just before hometime and he'd have been very disruptive at after school activities. I know this because school had a basketball club that he was kicked out of for exactly that reason.

irate pirates

Best.Typo.Ever.

I think there is a nurture issue as well as a nature one. Behaviour expectations just seem
higher for girls at school and at home. One of my daughter’s has picked up on it over the years and it makes her cross that the girls just were expected to behave whereas lots of the boys in her class had all sorts of rewards for basically not be feral. She moved to an all girls school and it’s incomparable behaviour wise.

That said, I do think there is something in nature as well. They have cousins who are boys who have always played differently and are just much more physical with each other. My girls are much more likely to say something cutting and upset each other verbally - the boys are much more likely to thump each other but be BFF 5 minutes later.

School needs to be more active for both sexes- pe should be daily, not once a week. We have been lucky that our primary has a lot of space and you quite often see the kids do a mile round the track before they sit down for the morning or the class is sent outside if it’s a bit fractious. Lots of schools just don’t have the space to do that as easily.

Let’s be realistic here, it will be a very small number of children who never , ever get any outside play/socialisation because their parents can’t provide anything at all for them. Even if that were the case , once they get to school, it’s all play /play based learning and socialisation in EYFS(some schools extend that to y1 too). Then two breaks and lunch play in KS1. Then one break and lunch in KS2. Plus 2 hours of PE a week. Is it enough? Possibly not in some cases, but schools can’t be everything for everyone.

Children need this kind of play and activity. All children, not just boys. However people mould girls to ‘behave nicely’ and encourage or ignore boisterous play in boys. It’s got to stop. It’s stupid gender stereotyping and harms everyone.

All children should be encouraged to behave appropriately at school, take the noisy physical play outdoors and keep it out of the classroom

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/magazine-40936719