FEATURE FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING


and boys down constantly by ignoring the role the relational cultures of boys in school plays in causing that sexual abuse.


Most pupils agree that the way boys form friendships is different to girls. When we start to scrutinise the relational cultures that govern the interactions between boys we discover a serious need to help them get it right.


At worst, the way boys relate to each other (and I am mostly referring to boys in Year 8 and older) can be dominated by a form of masculinity which is harsh, unsupportive, over-competitive and aggressive. We see this manifested in their conversational and physical interactions which feature banter as a dominant component. Boys use banter with each other like they use oxygen to stay alive. Banter, defined as the exchange of teasing remarks or physical gestures, is used by boys to desensitise them to the thing that they fear most; that is humiliation. When you pass many conflictual interactions and poor behaviour through this one, pivotal prism of the ‘fear of humiliation’, then insights are gained and new strategies to support boys emerge.


pedagogical stance which can best be described as Guided Reflection.


All this assumes, of course, that the conflict between the girls does not amount to bullying – if it does then the Anti-Bullying Policy must apply. In 2017, after several years of successfully supporting the girls in my school using these ideas (I was the Headteacher), I launched the approach I had been using as a training opportunity for teachers. The approach is called Girls on Board – and a quick search online will tell you more and get you access to the training. Using this approach, teachers can evoke a strong sense of empathy amongst the girls because, at the heart of most fall-outs, is the quest for trusting and building reliable friendships. Expressed another way, nearly all girls fear isolation and once they are reminded that this fear is common to nearly all of them, they seek to find resolution and lasting harmony. By supporting the girls but not interfering, teachers are empowering the girls to navigate the choppy waters of friendship dynamics for themselves.


Over a thousand schools, in countries as far flung as China, USA, Nigeria and UAE (and the UK of course) teachers have reported that the adoption of the Girls on Board approach has created strong, mutually supportive relational cultures amongst the girls. These new relational cultures have also meant teachers are able to spend considerably less time trying to find solutions to friendship ructions.


Girls on Board sessions are non-judgmental and reflective, designed to raise empathy amongst the girls and it is that empathy that fuels their search for harmony and resolution. By empowering girls to find their own solutions, parents need worry less, schools can focus more on the curriculum and the girls learn more effectively – because they are happier.


Boys and banter: desensitization to humiliation


The way schools have been supporting teenage boys is not working. Dreadful and shocking child- on-child sexual abuse is still being perpetrated on girls in school every day. We are letting both girls


September 2023 www.education-today.co.uk 29


I lay out some key findings in full in my book Working with Boys – Creating Cultures of Mutual Respect in Schools. In brief, the book posits several ways of thinking which have not been tried before but which worked when I deployed them in my setting.


The aim of the book is to encourage teaching professionals to adopt a pedagogical style which is essentially non-judgemental and non- didactic. One of the biggest problems schools face in creating better RSE delivery is that, as a curriculum subject, it is delivered by non- specialists and by teachers who have usually been given the subject because their timetable is light. In trying to support boys to define and adopt positive forms of masculinity, schools usually start much too late. Though toxic and misogynistic views of masculinity often become dominant in Years 8, 9, 10 and older, it is before then we have to intervene.


It is in Year 7 in particular that we see boys forming their identity around what kind of boy and man they want to be and also what kind of boys and men they are going to be as a


group. In other words, they form and refine the relational culture which will govern nearly all their interactions – verbal and physical – for the next five years.


They decide whether they are going to be supportive, considerate and compassionate towards each; or are they going to be over- competitive, mean and constantly making hurtful and derogatory remarks.


This manifests in their conversations, and most commonly in their banter. So, we need to teach them how to regulate their banter so that it is teasing and not just horrible. Even more importantly, in the era of one-click access to pornography, we need to guide them not to allow their banter to become sexualised. Hierarchies of social influence are important and present in most boy cohorts. The currency of social influence is humour. If you can make people laugh, then your social standing rises. Boys can find themselves making jokes that are sexually demeaning and, to continue to get a laugh, they find themselves having to be ever more gross and disgusting in their depiction of girls and female staff in their school. The result is that, after a couple of years of this daily banter (which continues on social media platforms in the evening and at night) boys become so inured to the possible shock of these words, thoughts and images, they end up behaving abominably towards girls. That doesn’t excuse this behaviour, but it goes some way to explaining it.


If we’re serious about supporting pupils in school more effectively we have to acknowledge that their social interactions are key to their ability to thrive.


For girls, we need to evoke their empathy to help them create relational cultures that see the avoidance of isolation as imperative. For boys, we need to understand that a non- judgmental, non-didactic intervention in Year 7 is the only way to stop their social interactions being dominated by sour forms of masculinity. We need to help boys desensitise themselves to their fear of humiliation and, through Guided Reflection, support them in the creation of relational cultures which are gentle and work for everyone.


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