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.

That is because young primates in zoos are a different species to young humans in schools and the cognitive development is not the same.

Many teachers don't have boys in their family? On what basis are you claiming this?

If parents didn’t complain, schools wouldn’t ban certain games.

Rough and tumble is called play fighting in our school. It isn’t banned but we massively discourage it as it usually leads to someone actually getting hurt and then parents being annoyed.

Usually rough and tumble is fun for one child but the other child starts to get fed up or annoyed and then it turns into an actual fight.

It’s also hard for any adult in the school, not strictly limited to teachers, not knowing if this is plah or an actual fight which is why it is stopped.

The amount of parents I’ve had to speak to over the years about play fighting going too far is crazy. Even the past week I’ve had parents on the phone, angry that their child got hurt with play fighting.

You might be okay with it but it doesn’t mean that all parents are on board with it. Also children are free to explore and express themselves in many different ways, rough and tumble can be enjoyed at home, by stopping it at break and lunch really isn’t disadvantaging a child that much.

Yes, I don't think it's a good thing that girls are being encouraged to comply with such a sedentary life, either. They may not act out and cause trouble like little boys do, but it will be having an impact that shows up down the line in physical and mental health.
Children need to play, outside as much as possible, unstructured, not intrusively monitored, physical, imaginative play. They should be doing so for hours every day.

So basically you've failed to nip boisterous behaviour in the bud with your son and now he's getting in trouble in school for being too boisterous and rough and you don't like it.
How about instead of getting defensive and saying it's the school at fault, you start working on the behaviour at home and imposing consequences for rough /unpleasant play.

Children don't get in trouble for running around at school.they get in trouble for pushing and shoving, not paying attention to other children so knocking them over as they run, and crashing into other children in an obsession to win.

I actually felt sad reading this as I see banning tag at school problematic. Most kids aren't allowed to play on the streets after school to banning this is cruel in my opinion as it's their chance to play.

This, DS had something after school every day if nothing formal then to the park. I am not sure about all boys but he needed it.
It went something like this:
Monday - Riding
Tuesday- Park
Wednesday- Judo
Thursday- Football
Friday- Chill
Saturday- Swimming

In reception he finished at 1pm, straight to the park everyday. He needed running.

This is a really interesting thread, thank you @Leteer
While some people are busy being faux naive and asking what boy play is, of course we know that some girls like more boisterous play and some boys like calmer play.
Nevertheless the majority of boys in early years / KS1 will want a more energetic, lively kind of play and the majority of girls will want to do more kind of role play and less boisterous activity. This can easily be observed in the playground. Why this happens is a whole different matter (nature / nurture etc).
When I first moved to early years teaching from KS2 back in the early 90s there was some interesting research on this. One point made was that most EY teachers are female and favour the kind of behaviour shown by many girls at that age - sitting at a table making something or colouring in, role play in the home corner, for example. They could be less understanding of the number of boys who were busy running around waving random toys at each other and being more physical.
This matches my experience as a parent with a boy and a girl, plus my experience in schools professionally.

Honestly what can we do about this I'm impatient I don't want to wait until the stats show up in 20 years time.

I definitely agree that children should be far more active both in school and at home.

Children are meant to play with other children not their parents. It's how they learn safe limits and conflict resolution.

Are girls not hard wired to play also? Seems a divisive idea that boys are.

Have you got a boisterous DS who isn’t ’accommodated’?

Of course they are but in the school environment boys are failing girls are not.

Exactly they can't learn this by playing a structured class after school

(I’m a send teacher) There’s a programme called Jabedo which I did over 20 years ago, all around active movement and the importance of rough and tumble play for children.

Judo and other martial arts should be on the curriculum imho.

The current yrs 2-6 were affected by lockdowns in different ways; I know my at the time 20 month old missed out on lots of soft play time. The bubbling they did at nursery limited connection with other kids. My then 7 yr old also missed a segment of play date time that I’m now seeing my now younger 7 yr old getting.

Rough and tumble play is important for learning boundaries. Luckily my youngest had my eldest to do it on.

It’s important for girls too. And not all kids seek it as much as others - across the sexes. But generally, most boys tend to seek it more/ need structured and free active movement. Girls need more than they’d prefer actually. They often get it via gymnastics and riding etc. though locally there’s a huge rise in girls doing rugby!

one of the things important for executive function development:

https://www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/latest-news/2026/03/covid-lockdowns-set-back-childrens-development-for-years/

They do get into trouble for running around in some schools. At my children's secondary school there was no space for them to run around because they stopped them playing on the field where there was room because none of the teachers wanted to keep an eye on the field.

And yes - note that private boys schools often do loads more sports.

One nephew who went to one lives to exist to be active and outside. Going into farming. His young brother prefers academic life.

This is a very good point. Private schools are much more suitable for boys from this perspective with so many more sports available.

Schools breed perfectionism. This causes issues for boys who need to run and girls who are already very conscientious. (And a few boys who are conscientious and nervous and the few girls who also need to run.)

Both learn shame at an early age. (Re bottled now as rejection sensitivity disorder)

What are these sex specific different requirements and different ways they learn? I’d love to know. Maybe your assertion that ‘girls sit longer’ whereas boys need to ‘run around in short bursts’ is the result of societal expectations rather than any actual scientific, biological reasoning.

all the ones round here are merging with the girls’ due to financial issues.

To be fair I think private schools for girls also do a lot of sport.

Fully agree that children are meant to play with other children.
Consider the range of height and weight differences in a class or a school though and it becomes very easy to see how rough and tumble tips over into injury even without intent. Add in the group of children who are using the cover of rough and tumble to deliberately hurt someone and the supervision of rough and tumble becomes more problematic.

I agree structured classes don’t always have the freedom of free-play (although a good class will have elements of it) but there are plenty of spaces for children to go and play together - parks and playing fields are in every town and village.

At this sort of age it does require light parent supervision, but it’s a parents responsibility to facilitate it. Yes, school has a part, but the bigger onus is on the parent to provide it after school, before school, and on weekends.

In short, take your kids to the park to meet their friends and play outside.