Working with Boys

Training available

Coming soon: a new film for Girls on Board. Titled ‘Do You Know What It’s Like?’ The film features a girl in Yr 8 bemoan the loss of a close friendship.

It's hard not to welcome some form of intervention from Government to end #VAWG but have they got it right? When it comes to schools - and therefore early intervention - I welcome the focus on 11 year olds. That is where the relational cultures are formed in schools and where teachers can definitely make a difference. In fact, that is one of the central tenets of Working with Boys. But I worry about targeting individual boys to be submitted to a correction course for many reasons. The parents of such targeted boys may well disagree with the profile the school have applied to their son and put pressure on the school to reverse their decision. If boys in school feel targeted by teachers auditing their attitudes they are as likely as not to go the other way - doubling down on sexist attitudes and behaviours. We have seen time and time again the negative unintended consequences of a universal blame culture when it comes to boys' attitudes - it just makes them hate the adults, the teachers and the school. The excellent research by Emily Setty and others have been proving this consistently since 2021 and Everyone's Invited. To shift the culture, to guide boys to be consistently dignified and compassionate we need to see school through their lens, understand what motivates and what demotivates them and help them see that mutual respect and support win out over aggression and over-competitiveness every time. It takes time, there is no quick fix. It starts in Year 7 and will take 3 to 4 years to turn the culture of a school around. The programme contained in the book and training course, Working with Boys, shows teachers how to achieve this - one school at a time until the societal shift will be witnessed is 5 to 10 year time. A bold claim, I know, but - hey - the schools that have been using this approach for 3 years already will attest to its effectiveness. The journey for them has already started. workingwithboys.com

Now available from Amazon and @routledgebooks