View from the Top: Jeremy Banks on a boys-only education leading the fight against toxic masculinity
The joy of the British independent schools’ sector is that each one offers their own unique take on a fabulous education. Thriving schools in the UK today may become particularly appealing to a parent for a myriad of reasons. It could be the academic offer, the sport, the arts programme, the boarding – the list goes on. In this article I would like to bring the case for an ‘all boy’ prep or junior school education up to date.
The benefit of an ‘all boys’ prep or junior school education is increasingly relevant to me. To be honest, to my mind this view is accelerating thanks to several observations, including trying to understand the work of the harmful and disrespectful misogynistic influencer that is Andrew Tate. It is time to go beyond the straightforward arguments for educating boys in ‘all boys’ prep or junior schools. Readers will be familiar with approaches to teaching that seem to be more effective with boys, curriculums designed to suit boys and the evidence that boys keep a broader range of pursuits in ‘all boy’ environments. It’s now the time to consider the barren landscape of male role models for young boys to look up to compared to girls of the same age.
As the father of three daughters who are all now at senior school, I delight in reflecting on the healthy and constant positive messaging on how they can grow up to be strong, successful females. The #thisgirlcan campaign drove all three of them in different directions and I’m incredibly lucky that the IAPS, GSA and HMC schools they’ve attended have, and continue to have, such inspirational agendas. But I can’t recall an equivalent campaign for boys that had the same resonance. There is no doubt that the appalling behaviours called out by the ‘Me too’ and ‘Everyone’s Invited’ movements have no place in society, but there is a picture forming that goes some way to explain how some boys have disastrously ended up admiring the likes of Andrew Tate.
All teachers I’ve ever met in both all-boys and co-educational schools have been role models in some shape or form – it’s a joy of working in the British independent sector. However, schools that obsess about delivering a brilliant ‘all boys’ prep or junior school education are really onto this right now. Whether it is a post-pandemic legacy that has caused a mental health wobble or whether media, tv and film have accelerated childhood away, too many boys are demonstrating more adolescent behaviours in their pre-teenage years than I can ever recall. Where these concerns rage, this is where the problems begin and the algorithms for those social media platforms can seduce the follower. In an ‘all boy’ prep or junior school, boys are away from social pressures, they are more likely to take intellectual risks in the classroom and the many routes to manhood can be explored at a pace and in a way that makes success achievable.
All parents of boys want their sons to be the best versions of themselves, to fulfil their potential and be happy. They also want their sons to have healthy, meaningful friendships with girls and the point is that those ambitions may become most likely with an ‘all boys’ school to begin with.