Boys only club at DD's school

[Scarzo]

It was announced in the newsletter that a program has been started up at our school for some yr 3 and 4 boys to "increase resilience and problem solving skills".

This is apparently because of the "differences between how boys learn" and "interact with peers". Also that boys are "cognitively 12 months behind girls when starting school"

They will be repairing second hand bikes and making models.

So while it's great that they're trying to help students that might be struggling with the structure of a typical classroom set up, I think it's really innapropriate that the opportunity is only open to boys.

Would this bother any of you? No other parents that I've spoken to seem concerned, so maybe I'm over thinking it.

I want to complain to the school, but am worried I wont get my point across succinctly.

Any advice on wording a pithy letter would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

It's a "programme" rather than a club- it will be targeted at particular children who have been identified as needing specific intervention. Our primary school had a boy's writing club that was the same.

I can see that this is actually a program targeted at a group of children with identified needs. But I think there is a bit of a problem with billing it as a boys club when there is nothing specifically about the skills they are developing that are boy specific. Especially since fixing bikes reinforces gendered ideas about socially acceptable activities. I also dislike this idea that the "differences between the way boys and girls learn" is a good reason for separating out boys and girls in classes. It is a gross misinterpretation of the data which shows a massive overlap in learning styles with more differences between sexes than within them.

But that's more about the messages that the announcement sends to school stakeholders rather than thinking a program targeted at specific boys is bad for girls (what do the girls that have problems with resilience and problem solving get though?).

I get the feeling that there is a separation of girls and boys, not because of the way they learn, but because at this age there is a natural progression for girls to play with girls, and boys to play with boys. The program has been developed to help the kids build on their friendship skills. I see the kids who are on the program at our local school and on the whole, they have no problems with their general everyday interactions. It's the long term friendships that they struggle with e.g. The boy who hangs around the edge of the playground because he doesn't know how to join in the football game, the boy who is getting in fights everyday because he doesn't know how to deal with small conflicts.

easterly nice to know my daughter is unnatural.

@BertrandRussell: Interestingly, they only ever seem to identify troublemaking children as needing anything.

This seems to not be about the needs of the children, but about the needs of the school.

Boom, I assume from this you mean that your daughter plays with the boys. Nothing wrong with that. However, if you go into a school playground and look at the reception class, typically the girls and boys all play together. By about the age of 7, they typically start breaking off into groups of same sex friendship groups, whether it's the boys playing football (at my kids school, they encourage the girls to join in but only a few want to) or the girls colouring in (which is what my dd does, none of the boys join in with this activity). I don't know why it happens but it does.

What I mean easterly is that the language you use is important. Saying it is "natural" rather than "typical" makes it seem like it is inevitable and puts further pressure on people to conform (and to expect others to conform) even if they aren't otherwise inclined to do so.

Everyone talks about how 'typically' the different sexes separate at this age but I'd be really interested in any research done to support this. Sat in the junior playground at dcs' school yesterday and did a quick count up and would estimate that fully 1/3rd of the children were playing in mixed sex groups. Hardly a tiny minority. I do wonder what they would naturally choose to do, and associate with, if "this is how girls are/this is how boys are" wasn't pushed so heartily down their throats.

"@BertrandRussell: Interestingly, they only ever seem to identify troublemaking children as needing anything.

This seems to not be about the needs of the children, but about the needs of the school."

So addressing issues and behaviours that make life difficult for the children displaying them, the other children in the class/school and society as a whole is "about the needs of the school"?

Actually, I'd be really pissed off if I heard that something like this was being provided at school for boys only.

We bemoan the fact that there aren't enough women in STEM but when are girls being given the opportunity to try these things? My dd would love the idea of building models etc and I'd love to know how to take a bike to pieces. Sounds like the school think they are being innovative but are really just reinforcing stereotypes.

And at the moment my dd is in that position of sitting next to the class troublemaker in an attempt to calm him down (though she's been told she can move to the next seat if he 'gets too much' ). Fuck dd's education (though at least this week she has peace because he's got a 5 day exclusion). I get so cross that even in education boys' needs take priority.

In education boys are falling way behind the girls in terms of academic achievement, especially in English. It's a major problem and anything that seeks to improve boys' engagement with school is trying to do the right thing.

In education boys are falling way behind the girls in terms of academic achievement, especially in English. It's a major problem

And why, exactly, is this a major problem, when they get the better paid jobs later on, anyway?

Is it not sort of more of a problem that there are not enough women in STEM, and most women have badly paid jobs?

It is not as if the parents of a boy who underachieves in English had to worry about his future nearly as much as the parents of a girl who is bad at maths.

"And why, exactly, is this a major problem, when they get the better paid jobs later on, anyway?"

Well, "they" don't do they? The ones that fall behind. If you are a working class boy your chances of either succeeding at school or getting a well paid job later are very, very low. Of course it's a problem.

It's not about academic education, thought is it?

Sounds like it's about social skills and the bike fixing is just the way to get the boys to engage socially - use something they are most likely to be interested in doing so that that isn't a barrier to participation. I think it's the way it's talked about in the newsletter that's most problematic.

I just think fixing bikes etc would be a fun activity for girls as well

But it's not being put on for the boys because it's a fun activity, it's being put on for the boys, specifically a group of Y3 and Y4 boys, because they are struggling at school. They didn't start with fixing bikes and then decide that they were going to restrict it to those boys, they started with those boys and tried to come up with something to engage them.

Is it not sort of more of a problem that there are not enough women in STEM, and most women have badly paid jobs?

Both are problems. I don't think you can say one is more of a problem than the other, the subset of boys who are a illiterate and fail to engage with school pose lots of problems for society further down the line - a lot of the prison population would be in this group.

And an attempt to solve one problem doesn't mean that no attempt will be made to solve the other. Trying to solve both problems with one after school group would probably not be as helpful as a targeted intervention for each issue.

It does sound like a targeted activity. My DD went to one focussed on social skills. It was billed as something quite different though. I imagine if they have picked out a group and they happen to be all boys they could call it a boys group. But like you it would annoy me too if they has specifically gone out to recruit boys.

Now if they had set out to improve boys maths abilities and you had a girl who was struggling with maths that would be unfair. So it should with social skills. They are as important as maths! I have been held back much more by my lack of EQ than IQ!

BoomBooms, you pretty much summed up my concerns about the program with this post:

"I can see that this is actually a program targeted at a group of children with identified needs. But I think there is a bit of a problem with billing it as a boys club when there is nothing specifically about the skills they are developing that are boy specific. Especially since fixing bikes reinforces gendered ideas about socially acceptable activities. I also dislike this idea that the "differences between the way boys and girls learn" is a good reason for separating out boys and girls in classes. It is a gross misinterpretation of the data which shows a massive overlap in learning styles with more differences between sexes than within them."

And yes, there are about 6 classes over year 3 and 4. Roughly 30 childern per class, so around 90 girls. Are there are really none who are experiencing the same issues that have been identified in the boys?

They had a similar program a couple of years ago, redecorating outdoor furniture, that only targeted the boys as well.

I think by year 3 they are already very socialised to only play with their own sex - I've watched it in the playground at an infant school (so only to year 2 - and it's already noticable)

DS1 and DS2 charge around, DS1 is very sociable - talks to everyone parents and kids alike and tries to get the kids to play, many girls are already encouraged to stay back by their parents and not run around like loons (to be fair, some boys are too). I also think it's a poorly named and lazily targeted program.

DS1's writing is awful (he's 5) and all I hear is 'boys are slower to learn' but I don't think it's boys, i think it's DS1 - because DS2 already holds a pencil better than DS1 ever has, and he's 3 years younger. I don't think that excusing or blaming behaviour on a child's sex is productive.

Detect, make programs, but do it with eyes open and pick the kids that need it, rather than relying on what's in their pants!

I think you are right scarzo that there almost certainly would be girls who needed such help. It's well known that girls who have poor social skills get missed.

I don't think there is a huge difference in learning between boys and girls, and to start thinking like that would lead to things being missed.

I think there is a difference in how boys and girls interact with each other, but that's from personal experience (suffered much grief from girls at school) and DD is not accepted in her girl peer group at all, yet my DS seems to play football with a range of children, without having to have a best friend.

@Head: My suspicion is that the schools only see the loud boys as something to "fix", while lonely girls who have no friends and are unhappy in school (and underachieve because of that), but don't disturb classes, are not considered as needing help.

That's bollocks. A girl who underachieves counts just as much in the league tables as a boy who underachieves. Schools won't ignore swathes of underachieving students based on sex, there'll be a spreadsheet somewhere with that name in red and questions being asked by the head.