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Gareth Malones Schools For Boys


hali
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... poking head over parapet .....

 

Good programme and results seemed positive but as a teacher who has taught ages from 0 - 14 for 20 years I can't see how it would work it 'real life'. The points being made by the teachers at the school regarding the discipline effects in the classroom are ones I would completely agree with.

If it were me .... to have one lesson a day (prob first hour) or a 1/2 day a week (prob on a Monday morning so it doesn't throw the rest of the week out of the window) would work best. Build up boys self esteem, introduce themes for the week in a challenging and exciting way etc etc also girls would benefit from some time away from the boys. In my experience girls have different issues at the top end of Primary school - their physical development is something that could be usefully discussed without boys (good time to open the anonymous question box that we all use during our sex ed lessons in yr6), girls have friendship issues in a completely different way to boys so some focussed circle time / PSHE lessons would be excellent where they can air problems and discuss them in a managed way, also girls performance in Maths and Science could be helpfully supported as boys can dominate these lessons, a higher level of literacy lesson could be tackled as girls tend to be more able in this area than boys (as the programme said).

That's me done - climbing back down now!!

 

pw xx

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They had a discussion about it on newsnight where they pointed out that, given that men still dominate the world of work and get far higher salaries, perhaps it's not such an issue as they are making out!

 

I regularly promote these kind of interactive approaches to teachers, but I don't see that they should just be the preserve of boys.

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Going to stick my head over the parapet too and say that I have known many girls who would have got a great deal from this, and my own son would have HATED it! He wanted to be in the classroom, with a pencil in his hand from the word go.

 

I'm not sure the divide is necessarily so simple as girl/boy, it's down to preferred learning styles and what suits one, doesn't suit another. I've read about it from various sources, and I agree that it's more common for boys to underachieve in the classroom, but as someone has said, they soon catch up and dominate the world of work!

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Guest jenpercy

Went to a very good training session for Every Child a Talker, when we did lots of lovely interactive buildy things. was recommended a book, Pink Brain, Brain (or the other way round). Was told that there really isn't much difference between the brains of the sexes, that girls too have the same issues, but they are socialised out, that both would benefit from more active learning.

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Hi All,

 

Have just searched on here to see if anyone was talking about the programme. I agree with Marion - really disappointed. Not sure why you were disappointed Marion but here's my reasons...

 

I teach in Harlow and first of all I don't think the programme painted a particularly good picture of Harlow schools, or schools in general. It's almost saying that teachers aren't getting the 'desired' results, so let's get someone in who has minimal experience in schools to try and do the job for them. It's undermining.

 

The way the teachers spoke about the children didn't come across well - but that's down to editing. I'm sure the teachers interviewed had a lot more to say but the editing has picked out the negative comments made about the children.

 

Also, the boys that were singled out were those that needed to be motivated, yet there were obviously boys in the group that were already 'doing well' and they didn't get any airtime. We can't generalise: like Cait said some of those boys perhaps didn't enjoy the experience and some of the girls would have thrived in that situation.

 

I'm going to watch the rest of the programmes as I'm interested to see how it turns out and if my feelings about it change, watch this space!

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