The challenge of boys' brains ...

At Chavagnes we place great store by daily sport and think it's important for boys to 'keep moving'. The teaching style of male teachers teaching boys typically involves: speaking in a louder voice, moving about the classroom, using comptetive quizzes ... all of these are less popular (or effective) methods with girls.

The bottom line, however, is that for a teacher in a single-sex setting, it almost comes naturally to gear one's teaching, discipline and pastoral styles to the boys or girls in the school.

The challenges facing teachers in mixed schools are much more nuanced. In all sorts of subtle ways there has been a feminisation of school (partly because there are so few men teachers these days). I have been impressed by Peg Tyre, the US journalist who has drawn attention to this issue in a very balanced and convincing way. Here is a clip from Amercian television, dealing especially with approaches to PRE-SCHOOL, a time when boys and girls are getting the first experience of schooling in a formal setting.

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Here is a link to her book, The Trouble with Boys