Head teacher's 'not sexist' comment

[susannahmoodie]

We are in the process of visiting prospective schools for my 3yo ds.

When we went to one today the ht was discussing 'freeflow' in reception, saying (prefaced with 'this is not a sexist comment') that in theory the govt encourage it but in practice it would mean 'all the boys would be outside running around and all the girls would stay inside'....

In the school we visited last week we saw free flow working well with no apparent gender divide!

Is this a harmless comment or would it make you think twice about sending a ds there? I'd a good mind to give him a copy of my Cordelia Fine!!

It's like the head has never seen a free-flow indoor/outdoor setting before. I've been to plenty and both sexes go in and out, although boys do seem to do more...extra extra vigorous play when outside.

I took my DS to a playgroup arts and baking thing, the whole thing was lovely except that the woman in charge said, "Typical boy!" three times in fifteen minutes about my son, as well as commenting without fail on what all the girls were wearing by way of introduction ("Hello Jane, I like your hat!"). I gently challenged every gender normative statement she made, but who can be fucking arsed to be doing this all the time in a bloody play group? We didn't go back.

I'd not be taking my son to that school, OP. If you've no choice then a detailed statement about your objection to this sort of thinking, preferably wrapped around a Cordelia Fine. With some reading material on the ways that Steve fucking Biddulph's findings have been contested.

I'd not be sending my dd there. Dd1 went to a lovely school but it was slightly before the "free-flow" units were taking off, so she was allowed free play etc but not free access to outside space.

Dd2 will start reception in September and she absolutely LOVES running around outside as much as possible, her 2 best friends are boys, and she can be hard to pin down to do anything quiet. The head in the op wouldn't be encouraging that because he'd see her as doing "boys things" when actually she's doing "dd2 things". Luckily, the school we've chosen (the only one we stood a chance of getting into as it's our catchment school), has a fabulous free-flowing unit for nursery and reception children. They have easy access to all the resources they want to play with, both indoor and out, although they do seem to have a system to limit the number of children outside at any one time, so that the staff ratios for indoors and out are correct.